‘We can’t stop shopping. And yet we must. This is the consumer dilemma’.

Bedfordshire Climate Change Forum is excited to be hosting author and journalist J B Mackinnon next month. His recent book The Day the World Stops Shopping: How Ending Consumerism Saves the Environment and Ourselves imagines what would happen—to our economies, our products, our planet, our selves—if we committed to consuming far fewer of the Earth’s resources. The book asks how we reduce our consumption to earth-saving levels without triggering economic collapse. This question took MacKinnon around the world, seeking answers from America’s 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 true: the coronavirus brought shopping to a halt, and his 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 gain.

James Mackinnon is an award-winning Vancouver-based journalist whose work has appeared in such publications as the New Yorker, National Geographic, and the Atlantic, as well as the Best American Science and Nature Writing anthologies. He is an adjunct professor of journalism at the University of British Columbia, where he teaches feature writing.

Do join us by registering in advance and you will be sent the zoom link prior to the event. We hope to see you at 6.30pm (UK time) on Tuesday 21st September . Note the change to our usual time/day. This is one event we’re running as part of the Great Big Green Week). As usual our events are free and open to all, but if you’re able to make a donation, however small, that helps us to continue to run events and activities.

If you’d like to buy the book or download the ebook, we recommend here or here for UK buyers, if not from your local bookshop of course. And then share/pass it on!