Suddenly, we ran out of money and, to avoid collapse, we quickly pumped liquidity back into the system. But behind our financial crisis a much more ominous crisis looms: we are running out of nature… fish, forests, fresh water, minerals, soil. What are we going to do when supplies of these vital resources run low?
There’s only one way to avoid the collapse of this human experiment of ours on Planet Earth: we have to consume less.
It will take a massive mind shift. You can start the ball rolling by buying nothing on November 28th. Then celebrate Christmas differently this year, and make a New Year’s resolution to change your lifestyle in 2009.
It’s now or never!
Buy Nothing Day is a day that was originally created by artist, Ted Dave in Vancouver, British Columbia in September, 1992, to advocate the problem of mass overconsumption. It began to grow to become a large event and in 1997 was moved to the Friday after American Thanksgiving or the weekend before Christmas which, at that time, was the biggest U.S. shopping day of the year. Outside of the U.S. it began to be celebrated on the following Saturday.
Buy nothing day has now gained great popularity and is celebrated in over 65 nations some of which includes, the U.S., U.K., Israel, Germany, New Zealand, Japan, the Netherlands and Norway.
This year, Buy Nothing Day will be held on November 28th in North America and 29th in all other countries and is being advertised vigorously on many websites such as Adbusters.org and Treehuggingfamily.com.
The main two things that But Nothing Day is trying to advocate is that consumerism is leading to great environmental damage and that shopping from large corporations has negative affects on developing countries.
How the environment and developing countries come into play when it comes to overconsumption is like this; the supermarkets import most of their products from developing countries. This transport causes incredible pollution. Also, all of these products have extreme amounts of packaging. This packaging ends up in landfills or on the ground causing damage to wildlife and other types of environmental destruction. Most large corporations have their products made in developing countries where the workers are paid very little and treated poorly.
I agree entirely with this campaign. I try to do most of my shopping at independent shops but I know I have bought way to many Starbucks to try to justify myself. I will definitely be participating on the international Buy Nothing Day.
You would think that this is a campaign that most people agree with but in my research I found someone who thinks otherwise. Jenn Farrel wrote an article on 'Thetyee.ca' called, “Why I shop on buy nothing day: This kind of activism is the problem, not the solution”.
In this article she proclaims, “Buy Nothing Day's biggest proponents must be the well educated and well fed, who can certainly afford to take a day off from their conspicuous consumption. While it's laudable to want to do something about the problem, I question the potential influence of a bunch of people standing in front of a suburban Wal-Mart and harassing some mother of three who just wants to get in there and buy some darned detergent. Don't lecture her about over-consumption and globalization -- she just wants to get a load of the baby's sleepers through the wash while supper's cooking.”
While Jenn has a point, I still stand by the fact that the mother of three that she's talking about could have bought her detergent the day before and it is in her interest to support Buy Nothing Day for these activists are only trying to assure that the future is bright for her three children.
"Buy Nothing Day; Frequently Asked Questions" Buynothingday.co.uk. 2000-2008. Available: http://www.buynothingday.co.uk/?page_id=2
"Buy Nothing Day". Adbusters. Available: http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/bnd
Farrel, Jenn. "Why I Shop On Buy Nothing Day; This Kind of Activism is the Problem, Not the Solution". The Tyee. November 24th, 2008. Available: http://thetyee.ca/Views/2006/11/24/BND/
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