The Day the World Stops Shopping

We can't stop shopping but we must stop shopping - the consumer dilemma that defines our lives and our future. This ground-breaking work of reporting and thought-experiment explores what would happen if we did.

We are using up the planet at almost double the rate it can regenerate. To support our economies, we're told we must shop now like we've never shopped before. And whilst we can do it more responsibly, the scale of our consumption remains the biggest factor in the ruination of the planet. Yet our reliance on stuff continues to grow.

But what would our world look like if we stopped? Would civilisation collapse? Would the planet's ecology be reborn? What would happen to the way we think, make products, use time, express our individuality? Would life be better - or worse?

Visiting places where economies have experienced temporary shut-downs, artisan producers, zero-consumption societies and bringing together a host of expert views, this is both a deeply reported thought-experiment, a history of our relationship with consumption, and a story about the future.

Our private choices are putting the world in peril. The Day the World Stops Shopping is an essential exploration of who we are and what we use, and a vision of a more sustainable world.

About the Author

J.B. MacKinnon is the author or co-author of four books including The Once and Future World, which won the U.S. Green Prize for Sustainable Literature and The 100-Mile Diet, a bestseller widely recognized as a catalyst of the local foods movement. His award-winning writing appears in publications including the New Yorker, National Geographic and Reader's Digest. MacKinnon is an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and also works in the field of interactive documentaries.

He lives with his partner in Vancouver, Canada.