What If the World Made Nothing New for a Year?

Episode 14  ·  A thought experiment: one year with no new clothes, furniture, appliances, vehicles, tools or replacement parts  ·  all sources

This film is a thought experiment. For one imaginary year, no new durable goods are made: no clothes, furniture, appliances, vehicles, tools or new replacement parts. Food, medicines, fuel and essential consumables continue. The film follows a town through the year — counting stock, swapping, repairing and sharing — and asks what would run short, who would feel it first, and what might last after the factories restart.

This is a fully animated film. Every visual was drawn for ColdProvenance; no footage, photographs or recordings are used. Narration is a synthesized voice. The music and sound effects were created for this film. The pause is hypothetical: no real policy is described, and the town, its shortages and its numbers are illustrations, not a forecast. Sources for the factual framing are below.

Sources

• Businesses hold different amounts of stock depending on the product, its job and its place in the supply chain, including spare parts kept for urgent repairs: OECD (2024) — Promoting resilience and preparedness in supply chains
• Supply chains are interconnected, so a finished product depends on inputs from many businesses with different lead times: OECD — Resilient supply chains
• Environmental comparisons need the whole life cycle of a product, and a change in one stage can shift burdens to another: UNEP — A policymakers’ guide to life-cycle assessment

Visuals

• All animation, characters, objects and diagrams were created by ColdProvenance for this film. No footage or photographs appear in this film.
• The town, its exchange hall, repair shops, tool library and every shortage shown are illustrations of the thought experiment, not records of real events. Objects are drawn at typical real-world sizes next to people.
• Charts, rings, gauges and counters are explanatory drawings, not measured data.

Audio

• Narration: synthesized voice.
• Music, ambience and sound effects: created for this film. No stock music, sound libraries or field recordings are used.