One of my favorite quotes comes from Confronting Consumption by Princen, Maniates and Conca. They say, "When consumption concerns are raised in mainstream environmental circles, they are too often dismissed on their own terms, readily converted to questions of production and technology." I found that this quote and the entire concept of the article really changed my perspective on the environmental movement. I guess I always knew that consumption was a problem especially here in the U.S. , but I never realized how big of an issue it was. As an environmentalist, my first thoughts in trying to attract community involvement always lead to activities such as recycling and using environmentally friendly products, but I never thought of addressing the issue of consumption. As we saw in the Story of Stuff video clip, consumption is the root of many problems such as displacement of international communities, destruction of ecosystems, pollution, etc. I think that technology and production go hand in hand with consumption for many things and therefore can't be dismissed, but the authors are right in saying that we can't blame only one or the other for all of our problems.

Another quote that really stuck with me and made me think in a new way is from the most recent book Cradle to Cradle. McDonough and Braungart explain that they, "see a world of abundance, not limits." If I was asked what I thought of this quote before class I most likely would have said that they're crazy and there's no way we can continue consuming at current rates and live sustainably. After reading their book, my thought process once again was turned around. I really love this concept of closing the circuit and producing no waste because it's one of the only optimistic and realistic solutions which we've read about. Very rarely do you hear that we dont' have to make a lot of sacrifices in order to change things. While this is a great idea, it will take some time and a lot of planning, but I think it has promise.

These two quotes may seem to be contradictory of one another seeing as one states that we consume too much and the other speaks of a world with "no limits", but I think they can work together. At the moment I don't think that we can continue with current design methods and consumption rates without harming the environment, therefore we need to start by consuming less until we can get a firm hold of a design concept which produces no waste. It's encouraging to hear positive ideas and see the environmental movement gaining attention, but I think we still need to give it a big push to get it in motion.