Buy Nothing Day today

No chance of me buying anything today - thought I had a cold but it is much worse - have been in bed most of last couple of days. My partner asks why do men seem to get these illnesses so much worse than women. This is clearly sexist talk and I wont even go there.

Anyhow as I was saying it is international Buy Nothing Day - clearly it is a hugely important campaign - infact I often think we don't do anything like enough on this issue as greens - this is one of the most important issues. Indeed all the talk of action to tackle climate change too often conveniently ignores the obvious solution: stop buying stuff! The churning out of all those consumer goodies is what's killing the eco system.

We are all invited to spend more and more and more, buying more and more and more goods which are decreasingly necessary. On Buy Nothing Day people are being asked to just think whether or not the purchases they make are necessary. If not, well just don't buy it.

I don't see the idea as a way to change habits just for a day but to encourage us all to think more about the environmental and ethical consequences of consumerism. It is about asking people to consume less, recycle more and challenge companies to clean up and be fair. Tesco, Starbucks, Gap and McDonalds are everywhere - our independent retailers are undersold and out-marketed by these global corporations. Many of us are encouraged to go into debt to buy more - £1,300,000,000,000 of consumer debt in the UK and climbing!!!

Debt is now a big, booming business: the 'debt sale and purchase' market in the UK has been increasing significantly, as financial institutions buy up banks' debts for a fraction of their value to then get the debtors to pay up. Around £4.5billion worth of debt has been sold for a cut price £300million, and so far collectors have squeezed almost £500million out of people in debt. Nice earner! Meanwhile new powers for bailiffs to enter houses will make 'debt recovery' that easier. See some Glos Green party letters on debt here, here and here.

We must challenge this rampant consumerism.

Every item which is sold had to be made (using up finite natural resources), transported (causing air pollution), sold (potentially causing debt), frequently over-packaged (ending up in a landfill) and eventually (or sometimes quite quickly) needing to be disposed of itself (again ending up in a landfill).

We should also question even ethical consumption and Fairer Trade - certainly better but are increasingly been used to justify continued guilt-free consumption. Bono Ltd for example launched the 'product RED' this year. Indian activist Anuradha Mittal writes "It's sugar coating on a bitter pill that can prevent us from focusing on the real issues." Reverend Billy from the Church of Stop Shopping agrees - see his letter to Bono, asking him to ditch his RED card and start giving to, rather than profiting from, African poverty. Read more at www.dearbono.org

So is that item really necessary at all, and if it is, is it overpackaged or recyclable or built to last. The Green Party alone in politics challenges the consumerist nature of our society - and I'm sure we could do it better - policies like green taxes, incentives and carbon rationing could all be used to change these absurd obsessions with buying more and economic growth.

Anyhow all this has well put my temperature up so it's back to bed for me...Oh before I do one gripe I have with Buy Nothing Day is that they always pick this weekend - clearly as Christmas is soon upon us - but it is also the weekend locally of many wonderful Christmas Fayres like at Wynstones School and even in our own local village shop - these are not about commercialism but more about locally hand crafted goods and indeed in some ways a rejection of such commercialism that the Day sets out to challenge. Pick another day please!

See also Buy Nothing Christmas at and more of their great posters like the one above at: www.adbusters.org