A LOCAL AUTHOR
Last week, I watched a online interview, put on by the Vancouver Public Library, of J.B.MacKinnon. He is our local journalist and author, who just published another great book, The Day the World Stops Shopping. Tzeporah Berman, an environmental activist who interviewed him, wrote This Crazy Time, Living Our Environmental Challenge, with Mark Leiren-Young, in 2011.
In case you don’t know him, Jamie MacKinnon and Alisa Smith co-wrote The 100 Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating, in 2007. This bestseller catalyzed the local foods movement, and inspired a Food Network TV series, co-hosted by MacKinnon, that aired in 30 countries. He also wrote The Once and Future World: Nature as It Was, as It Is, as It Could Be, in 2013, a national bestseller that was nominated for every major non-fiction prize in Canada, and won the US Green Prize for Sustainable Literature. But I really want to introduce you to The Day the World Stops Shopping. Are we now living that day, or what? To quote what I found on the VPL site:
In a brilliant work of imaginative non-fiction, prize-winning author and journalist J.B. MacKinnon asks what would happen—to our economy, our ecology, our products, our selves—if we stopped consuming so much? Is that alternative world something we might actually want? “We can’t stop shopping. And yet we must. This is the consumer dilemma.” The planet says we consume too much: in North America, we burn the earth’s resources at a rate five times faster than it can regenerate. And despite our efforts to make our consumption “green”—by recycling, increasing energy efficiency, or using solar power—we have yet to see a decline in emissions. The economy says we must always consume more, especially as we work our way out of the pandemic: even the slightest drop in spending might bring widespread unemployment, bankruptcy, home foreclosure, economic collapse. Addressing this paradox head-on, J.B. MacKinnon asks, “What would really happen if we simply stop shopping? Could we find a way to reduce our consumption to earth-saving levels without causing an economic catastrophe?” This question takes him from America’s big-box stores to the hunter-gatherer cultures of Namibia, to a centuries-old confectionery company in Japan, to Finland and Russia, which have experienced economic collapse, and to communities in Ecuador that are consuming at an exactly sustainable rate. Drawing on experts in climate change, economics, advertising, manufacturing and retail, MacKinnon investigates how breaking our consumption patterns would change us, our communities and the planet. Along the way, he finds out not only what we have to lose, but how much we stand to gain. Playfully written and deeply inspiring, The Day the World Stops Shopping will empower you to imagine another way.
Currently an adjunct professor at UBC Graduate School of Journalism, he lives in Vancouver with his partner, Alisa Smith. I’ve put a hold on his book, 10 of which VPL has ordered, but I’m #60 of 70 holds! This is a MUST-READ!
Fiona