I am honored to be here, and I'm honored to talk about this topic, which I think is of grave importance. We've been talking a lot about the horrific impacts of plastic on the planet and on other species, but plastic hurts people, too -- especially poor people. And both in the production of plastic, the use of plastic and the disposal of plastic, the people who have the bull's-eye on their foreheads are poor people. People got very upset when the BP oil spill happened, for very good reason. People thought, "Oh, my God. This is terrible, this oil -- it's in the water. It's going to destroy the living systems there. People are going to be hurt. This is a terrible thing, this oil is going to hurt the people in the Gulf."
Počašćen sam što sam ovdje, i čast mi je pričati o ovoj temi za koju smatram da je od iznimne važnosti. Puno smo pričali o zastrašujućem utjecaju koji plastika ima na planet i životinje, ali plastika također šteti i ljudima, posebno siromašnim ljudima. U proizvodnji plastike, njenom korištenju i odlaganju, oni koji koji najviše pate su siromašni ljudi. Ljudi su se jako uzrujali kada se dogodilo izlijevanje nafte u Meksičkom zaljevu i to s pravim razlogom. Ljudi su mislili: "Oh, moj Bože. Ovo je užasno, ova nafta -- iscurila je u vodu. Uništit će čitavi živi svijet. Ljudi će patiti. Ovo je užasna stvar, ta nafta će naškoditi ljudima u Zaljevu."
What people don't think about is: What if the oil had made it safely to shore? What if the oil actually got where it was trying to go? Not only would it have been burned in engines and added to global warming, but there's a place called "Cancer Alley," and the reason it's called "Cancer Alley" is because the petrochemical industry takes that oil and turns it into plastic and in the process, kills people. It shortens the lives of the people who live there in the Gulf. So oil and petrochemicals are not just a problem when there's a spill; they're a problem when there's not. And what we don't often appreciate is the price that poor people pay for us to have these disposable products.
Ono o čemu nisu razmišljali je: što da je nafta došla sigurno do obale? Što bi se dogodilo da je nafta došla tamo gdje inače ide? Ne bi samo izgorjela u motorima i doprinijela globalnom zagrijavanju, nego postoji mjesto koje se zove "Dolina Raka", a razlog zbog kojeg se naziva "Dolina Raka" je zbog petrokemijske industrije koja koristi naftu i pretvara je u plastiku i u tom procesu, ubija ljude. Ona skraćuje živote ljudi koji se nalaze ondje u Zaljevu. Dakle nafta i petrokemikalije nisu samo problem tamo gdje su naftne mrlje; one su problem i tamo gdje ih nema. Često ne cijenimo žrtvu koju siromašni ljudi plaćaju kako bismo mi imali ove proizvode.
The other thing we often don't appreciate is, it's not just at the point of production that poor people suffer. Poor people also suffer at the point of use. Those of us who earn a certain income level, we have something called choice. The reason why you want to work hard and have a job and not be poor and broke is so you can have choices, economic choices. We actually get a chance to choose not to use products that have dangerous, poisonous plastic in them. Other people who are poor don't have those choices. So low-income people often are the ones who are buying the products that have those dangerous chemicals in them that their children are using. Those are the people who wind up ingesting a disproportionate amount of this poisonous plastic in using it. And people say, "Well, they should just buy a different product." Well, the problem with being poor is you don't have those choices. You often have to buy the cheapest products. The cheapest products are often the most dangerous.
Druga stvar koju često ne cijenimo jest da siromašni ljudi ne pate samo tijekom proizvodnje. Oni također pate tijekom uporabe proizvoda. Oni koji imaju određeni iznos prihoda imaju nešto što se zove izbor. Razlog zbog kojeg želite raditi marljivo i imati posao i ne biti siromašni i praznih džepova je taj da biste imali izbora, ekonomskih izbora. Mi smo zapravo dobili priliku da odlučimo ne koristiti proizvode koji sadrže opasnu, otrovnu plastiku. Ostali ljudi koji su siromašni nemaju takve izbore. Dakle ljudi s niskim primanjima često kupuju proizvode koji sadrže štetne kemikalije, a koriste ih i njihova djeca. Ti ljudi zapravo stalno unose u sebe prevelike količine ove otrovne plastike. I ljudi kažu, "Pa, trebali bi jednostavno kupiti drugi proizvod." Ali, problem kad ste siromašni je taj da nemate izbora. Često morate kupiti najjeftinije proizvode. Najjeftiniji proizvodi su često najopasniji.
And if that weren't bad enough -- if it wasn't just the production of plastic that's giving people cancer in places like Cancer Alley, and shortening lives and hurting poor kids at the point of use -- at the point of disposal, once again, it's poor people who bear the burden. Often, we think we're doing a good thing: You're in your office, drinking your bottled water or whatever it is, and you think to yourself, "I'm going to throw this away. No -- I'm going to be virtuous. I'm going to put it in the blue bin." You think, "I put mine in the blue bin." And then you look at your colleague and say, "Why, you cretin! You put yours in the white bin." And we use that as a moral tickle. We feel so good about ourselves. If we -- well, OK, I'm just ... me. Not you, but I feel this way often.
I kao da to nije dovoljno loše, da nije samo proizvodnja plastike ta zbog koje ljudi obolijevaju od raka u mjestima poput "Doline Raka" i štete jadnoj djeci u trenutku korištenja, u trenutku odlaganja, još jednom, siromašni ljudi su ti koji snose teret. Često, mi mislimo da radimo dobru stvar. Nalazite se u svom uredu, i pijete svoju flaširanu vodu, ili što god se već nalazi unutra, i mislite si, "Hej, baciti ću ovo u smeće. Ne, biti ću pronicav. Odložiti ću ovo u plavi koš za recikliranje." Mislite si, "Stavio sam svoju (bocu) u plavi koš," i onda pogledate svojeg kolegu i kažete, "Zašto, bleso? bacio si svoju u obično smeće" I to koristimo kao moralnu packu. Osjećamo se tako dobro u svojoj koži. Možda bih se ja tako osjećao. Ne vi, ali ja se osjećam tako.
(Laughter)
And so we kind of have this moral feel-good moment. But if we were to be able to follow that little bottle on its journey, we would be shocked to discover that, all too often, that bottle is going to be put on a boat, it's going to go all the way across the ocean at some expense, and it's going to wind up in a developing country, often China. I think in our minds, we imagine somebody's going to take the little bottle and say, "Oh, little bottle! We're so happy to see you, little bottle."
I tako imamo trenutak kada osjećamo da smo postupili moralno. Ali da smo bili u mogućnosti pratiti tu malu bocu na njenom putovanju, bili bismo šokirani kada bismo otkrili da, prečesto, ta boca bude ukrcana na brod, prevezena skroz preko oceana uz neki trošak, i završi u nekoj zemlji u razvoju - često Kini. Smatram da mi zamišljamo da će netko uzeti tu malu bocu i reći: "Oh, mala boca. Tako smo sretni što te vidimo, mala boco."
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
"You've served so well."
"Tako si dobro služila."
(Laughter)
Mala boca ga je izmasirala,
He's given a little bottle massage, a little bottle medal. And they say, "What would you like to do next?" The little bottle says, "I just don't know ..."
dobio je medalju male boce. I kaže, "Što bi htjela slijedeće uraditi?" A mala boca odgovara: "Jednostavno ne znam."
(Laughter)
Ali to se zapravo ne događa.
But that's not actually what happens. You know? That bottle winds up getting burned. The recycling of plastic in many developing countries means the incineration of the plastic, the burning of the plastic, which releases incredible toxic chemicals and, once again, kills people. And so, poor people who are making these products in petrochemical centers like Cancer Alley, poor people who are consuming these products disproportionately, and then poor people who, even at the tail end of the recycling, are having their lives shortened. They're all being harmed -- greatly -- by this addiction that we have to disposability.
Ta boca završi u spalionici. Recikliranje plastike u mnogim zemljama u razvoju znači spaljivanje plastike, gorenje plastike, koje otpušta nevjerojatno otrovne kemikalije i još jednom, ubija ljude. I tako siromašni ljudi koji proizvode ove proizvode u petrokemijskim centrima poput "Doline Raka", jadni ljudi koji pretjerano konzumiraju te proizvode, i onda se tim jadnim ljudima, koji se nalaze na kraju reciklaže životi skraćuju, svima se jako šteti ovom ovisnošću koju imamo
Now, you think to yourself -- I know how you are --
da koristimo stvari za jednokratnu upotrebu.
you say, "That sure is terrible for those poor people. It's just awful. Those poor people. I hope someone does something to help them." But what we don't understand is -- here we are in Los Angeles. We worked very hard to get the smog reduction happening here in Los Angeles. But guess what? Because they're doing so much dirty production in Asia now, because the environmental laws don't protect the people in Asia now, almost all of the clean air gains and the toxic air gains that we've achieved here in California have been wiped out by dirty air coming over from Asia. So we all are being hit. We all are being impacted. It's just that the poor people get it first and worst. But the dirty production, the burning of toxins, the lack of environmental standards in Asia, is actually creating so much dirty air pollution, it's coming across the ocean, and has erased our gains here in California. We're back where we were in the 1970s. And so we're on one planet, and we have to be able to get to the root of these problems.
I sada mislite -- a znam da o tom razmišljate -- kažete: "To je uistinu strašno za siromašne ljude, Jednostavno je užasno, tim siromašnim ljudima. Nadam se da će netko učiniti nešto da im pomogne." Ali ono što ne razumijemo je -- recimo, mi ovdje u Los Angelesu. Radili smo jako marljivo na smanjenju smoga koji se stvara u Los Angelesu. Ali pogodite što? Pošto se trenutno veoma mnogo prljave industrije nalazi u Aziji, jer zakoni za zaštitu okoliša ne štite ljude u Aziji, gotovo svo povećanje čistog zraka i smanjenje toksičnog zraka, koje smo postigli ovdje u Kaliforniji su poništena zbog zagađenog zraka koji dolazi iz Azije. Dakle, svi se nalazimo na udaru. To utječe na sve nas. Siromašni ljudi samo budu pogođeni prvi i najjače. Ali prljava industrija, to spaljivanje toksina, nedostatak ekoloških standarda u Aziji zapravo zagađuje zrak u tolikoj mjeri da on dolazi skroz preko oceana i uništava sve naše napore ovdje u Kaliforniji. Vratili smo se nazad gdje smo bili 1970tih. Mi se nalazimo na jednom planetu, i moramo doći do korijena ovih problema. Korijen ovog problema, prema meni,
The root of this problem, in my view, is the idea of disposability itself. You see, if you understand the link between what we're doing to poison and pollute the planet and what we're doing to poor people, you arrive at a very troubling but also very helpful insight: In order to trash the planet, you have to trash people. But if you create a world where you don't trash people, you can't trash the planet. So now we are at a moment where the coming together of social justice as an idea and ecology as an idea, we finally can now see that they are really, at the end of the day, one idea. And it's the idea that we don't have disposable anything. We don't have disposable resources. We don't have disposable species. And we don't have disposable people, either. We don't have a throwaway planet, and we don't have throwaway children -- it's all precious.
je ideja odloživosti. Vidite, ako razumijete vezu između onoga što radimo da trujemo i zagađujemo planet i onoga što činimo siromašnoj populaciji, došli ste do vrlo zabrinjavajućeg ali i vrlo obećavajućeg uvida: Kako bi zagadili planet, morate zagaditi ljude. Ali ako stvorite svijet gdje ne zagađujete ljude, ne možete zagaditi ni planet. I tako sada u trenutku gdje se socijalna pravda pojavljuje kao ideja, i ekologija kao ideja, zapravo vidimo da su one, na kraju dana, jedna ideja. A to je da nemamo ništa što možemo odbaciti. Nemamo sirovine koje se mogu odbaciti. Nemamo bića koja se mogu odbaciti. I također nemamo ljude koje možemo odbaciti. Nemamo planet koji možemo jednostavno baciti, nemamo djecu koju možemo jednostavno baciti -- to je sve dragocjeno.
And as we all begin to come back to that basic understanding, new opportunities for action begin to emerge. Biomimicry, which is an emerging science, winds up being a very important social justice idea. People who are just learning about this stuff: biomimicry means respecting the wisdom of all species. Democracy, by the way, means respecting the wisdom of all people -- we'll get to that. But biomimicry means respecting the wisdom of all species. It turns out we're a pretty clever species. We have this big cortex, we're pretty proud of ourselves. But if we want to make something hard, we say, "I know! I'm going to make a hard substance. I know! I'm going to get vacuums and furnaces and drag stuff out of the ground and get things hot and poison and pollute ... But I got this hard thing!"
I dok se vraćamo natrag prema tom temeljnom shvaćanju, pojavljuju se nove prilike za akciju. Biomimikrija je znanost koja je još uvijek u razvoju, ali se pokazala kao jedna vrlo bitna ideja socijalne pravde. Za vas koji se tek susrećete s ovim pojmom, biomimikrija znači poštivanje prava svih vrsta. Demokracija, usput, znači poštivanje prava svih ljudi -- a doći ćemo i do toga. Ali biomimikrija znači poštivanje prava svih vrsta. Ispada da smo mi vrlo pametna vrsta. Imamo ovu veliku moždanu koru, ili kako već, jako smo ponosni na sebe. Ako žarko želimo nešto napraviti, ako poželimo; "Aha! Napraviti ću neku čvrstu tvar. Shvaćam, morati ću nabaviti stroj za vakumiranje i peći, iščupati neke stvari iz zemlje i jako ih zagrijati, otrovati i zagaditi, ali dobiti ću tu čvrstu stvar.
(Laughter)
Kako li sam samo pametan",
"I'm so clever!" And you look behind you, and there's destruction all around you. But guess what? You're so clever, but you're not as clever as a clam.
i pogledate iza sebe, razaranje vas okružuje. Ali pogodite što? Vi jeste pametni, ali ne poput školjke.
A clamshell is hard. There's no vacuums. There's no big furnaces. There's no poison. There's no pollution. It turns out that other species figured out a long time ago how to create many of the things we need using biological processes that nature knows how to use well. That insight of biomimicry, of our scientists finally realizing that we have as much to learn from other species -- I don't mean taking a mouse and sticking it with stuff. I don't mean looking at it from that way, abusing the little species. I mean actually respecting them, respecting what they've achieved. That's called biomimicry, and that opens the door to zero waste production; zero pollution production; that we could actually enjoy a high quality of life, a high standard of living, without trashing the planet.
Školjka je čvrsta. Tu nema vakuuma. Tu nema velikih peći. Tu nema otrova. Tu nema zagađenja. Ispada da su druge vrste već davno shvatile kako napraviti mnoge stvari koje mi trebamo pomoću bioloških procesa koje priroda koristi. To je pogled u biomimikriju, iz koje su naši znanstvenici konačno shvatili da imamo jako puno toga za naučiti od ostalih vrsta. Ne mislim da uzmemo miša, i vršimo pokuse nad njim. Ne mislim da promatramo na taj način -- mučenjem malenih životinja. Trebamo ih poštovati, poštovati to što su postigli. To se zove biomimikrija i to nam otvara vrata prema proizvodnji bez otpada, proizvodnji bez zagađenja -- tako da bismo mogli zapravo uživati visoku kvalitetu života, visoki standard življenja bez da zagađujemo planet.
Well, that idea of biomimicry, respecting the wisdom of all species, combined with the idea of democracy and social justice, respecting the wisdom and the worth of all people, would give us a different society. We would have a different economy. We would have a green society that Dr. King would be proud of. That should be the goal. And the way that we get there is to first of all recognize that the idea of disposability not only hurts the species we've talked about, but it even corrupts our own society.
Ta ideja biomimikrije, poštivanje prava svih vrsta, zajedno s idejama demokracije i socijalne pravde, poštivanje prava i vrijednosti svih ljudi, donijeti će nam drugačije društvo. Imali bismo drugačiju ekonomiju. Imali bismo zeleno društvo na koje bi Dr. King bio ponosan. To nam treba biti cilj. A to ćemo uspjeti tako da prije svega prepoznamo da ideja odbacivanja ne šteti samo vrstama o kojima smo pričali, nego i našem društvu.
We're so proud to live here in California. We just had this vote, and everybody's like, "Well -- not in our state!"
Tako smo ponosni što živimo ovdje u Kaliforniji. Upravo smo imali glasanje, i svi si misle, "Ne u našoj državi.
(Laughter)
Ne znam što ove ostale države rade."
I don't know what those other states were doing, but ..."
(Smijeh)
(Laughter)
Jednostavno smo ponosni.
Just so proud. And, yeah, I'm proud, too. But ... California, though we lead the world in some of the green stuff, we also, unfortunately, lead the world in some of the gulag stuff. California has one of the highest incarceration rates of all the 50 states. We have a moral challenge in this movement. We are passionate about rescuing some dead materials from the landfill, but sometimes not as passionate about rescuing living beings, living people. And I would say that we live in a country -- five percent of the world's population, 25 percent of the greenhouse gases, but also 25 percent of the world's prisoners. One of every four people locked up anywhere in the world is locked up right here in the United States. So that is consistent with this idea that disposability is something we believe in.
Da, i ja sam ponosan. Ali Kalifornija, iako smo vodeći po nekim ekološkim pitanjima, mi smo također, nažalost, vodeći u svijetu po nekim jako lošim stvarima. Kalifornija ima jednu od najvećih stopa zatvorenika među svih 50 država. U ovom trenutku imamo moralni izazov. Strastveni smo u vezi spašavanja odbačenih materijala s odlagališta, ali ponekad nismo tako strastveni u vezi spašavanja živih bića, živih ljudi. I rekao bih da živimo u zemlji koju čini-- 5 posto svjetske populacije, 25 posto stakleničkih plinova, ali i 25 posto svjetskih zatvorenika. Svaka četvrta osoba u zatvorena bilo gdje u svijetu se nalazi upravo ovdje u SAD-u. I to podupire ovu ideju da je odbacivanje nešto u što vjerujemo.
And yet, as a movement that has to broaden its constituency, that has to grow, that has to reach out beyond our natural comfort zone, one of the challenges to the success of this movement, of getting rid of things like plastic and helping the economy shift, is people look at our movement with some suspicion. And they ask a question, and the question is: How can these people be so passionate? A poor person, a low-income person, somebody in Cancer Alley, somebody in Watts, somebody in Harlem, somebody on an Indian reservation, might say to themselves -- and rightfully so -- "How can these people be so passionate about making sure that a plastic bottle has a second chance in life, or an aluminum can has a second chance, and yet, when my child gets in trouble and goes to prison, he doesn't get a second chance?" "How can this movement be so passionate about saying we don't have throwaway stuff, no throwaway dead materials, and yet accept throwaway lives and throwaway communities like Cancer Alley?" And so, we now get a chance to be truly proud of this movement. When we take on topics like this, it gives us that extra call to reach out to other movements and to become more inclusive and to grow, and we can finally get out of this crazy dilemma that we've been in.
I još, kao pokret koji treba proširiti svoje djelovanje, koji treba rasti, koji treba dosegnuti izvan granica naše zone udobnosti, jedan od izazova ovog projekta, za rješavanje stvari poput plastike i pomaganje ekonomiji da se promijeni, su ljudi koji na ovaj projekt gledaju sa sumnjom. Pitaju se: Kako ovi ljudi mogu biti tako strastveni? Siromašna osoba, osoba s niskim primanjima, netko iz "Doline Raka", neko iz Wattsa, netko iz Harlema, netko iz Indijanskih rezervata, možda si misle, s pravom, "Kako ovi ljudi mogu biti tako strastveni u tome da ta plastična boca ima drugu priliku u životu ili aluminijska limenka ima drugu priliku, a opet, kada moje dijete upadne u nevolje i ode u zatvor, ono ne dobije drugu priliku?" Kako ovaj pokret može biti tako strastven i tvrditi da nemamo stvari za bacanje, nemamo materijala za bacanje, i istovremeno prihvatiti živote koji se odbacuju i odbačene zajednice poput "Doline Raka?" I tako dobivamo priliku da budemo uistinu ponosni na ovaj pokret. Kada pričamo o temama poput ove, to nam daje dodatni poriv da dođemo do drugih pokreta, postanemo još aktivniji i rastemo, i da konačno možemo izaći iz ove lude dileme u kojoj smo bili.
Most of you are good, softhearted people. When you were younger, you cared about the whole world, and at some point, somebody said you had to pick an issue, you had to boil your love down to an issue. "Can't love the whole world -- you've got to work on trees or you've got to work on immigration. You've got to shrink it down and be about one issue." And really, they fundamentally told you, "Are you going to hug a tree? Or are you going to hug a child? Pick. Are you going to hug a tree? Or are you going to hug a child? Pick." Well, when you start working on issues like plastic, you realize the whole thing is connected. And luckily, most of us are blessed to have two arms -- we can hug both.
Većina vas su ljudi dobra, meka srca. I kada ste bili mladi, brinuli ste se o cijelom svijetu, i u nekom trenutku netko vam je rekao da odaberete problem da morate usmjeriti svoju ljubav prema jednom problemu. Ne možete voljeti cijeli svijet -- morate raditi na drvećima, ili morate raditi na imigraciji. Morate smanjiti opseg na jedan problem. I time su vam, zapravo, rekli, "Hoćeš li zagrliti drvo, ili ćeš zagrliti dijete? Izaberi. "Hoćeš li zagrliti drvo, ili ćeš zagrliti dijete? Izaberi. No, kada počnete raditi na problemima poput plastike, shvatite da je cijela stvar povezana, i srećom, većina nas je blagoslovljena s dvjema rukama. Možemo zagrliti oboje.
Thank you very much.
Velika vam hvala.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)