num_pages: 336
description: Consuming less is our best strategy for saving the planetbut can we do it? In this thoughtful and surprisingly optimistic book journalist J. B. MacKinnon investigates how we may achieve a world without shopping.We cant stop shopping. And yet we must. This is the consumer dilemma. The economy says we must always consume even the slightest drop in spending leads to widespread unemployment bankruptcy and home foreclosure. The planet says we consume too in America we burn the earths resources at a rate five times faster than it can regenerate. And despite efforts to green our consumptionby recycling increasing energy efficiency or using solar powerwe have yet to see a decline in global carbon emissions. Addressing this paradox head-on acclaimed journalist J. B. MacKinnon asks What would really happen if we simply stopped shopping? Is there a way to reduce our consumption to earth-saving levels without triggering economic collapse? At first this question took him around the world seeking answers from Americas big-box stores to the hunter-gatherer cultures of Namibia to communities in Ecuador that consume at an exactly sustainable rate. Then the thought experiment came shockingly the coronavirus brought shopping to a halt and MacKinnons ideas were tested in real time. Drawing from experts in fields ranging from climate change to economics MacKinnon investigates how living with less would change our planet our society and ourselves. Along the way he reveals just how much we stand to An investment in our physical and emotional wellness. The pleasure of caring for our possessions. Closer relationships with our natural world and one another. Imaginative and inspiring The Day the World Stops Shopping will embolden you to envision another way.
language: English
title: The Day the World Stops Shopping: How Ending Consumerism Saves the Environment and Ourselves
publisher: Ecco