We're overdue for a collective shift toward a more just, cooperative and ecologically sustainable culture.

If not now, when?

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Shopping 101

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, we had an economic system based on meeting our basic, everyday needs.

And then back in the 1920's, industrial consultants created the -

"gospel of consumption" - "the notion that people could be convinced that however much they have, it isn't enough." (Jeffrey Kaplan - Orion May 2008)

Here and now, in the post-modern world, we've left necessity and thrift behind with the horse and buggy. We inhabit a world where luxury, excess and waste are the everyday norm. We're part of a system that's based on constant growth and profit, and in order to keep expanding, it has spread it's tentacles throughout the world, and now threatens the natural world that we rely on.

Companies hire experts to observe our behaviors, and analyze our likes and dislikes, in hopes of creating lifetime "cradle-to-grave" marketing strategies that appeal to childhood nostalgia.

But hey, we're smarter than all that, aren't we?

We're savvy & educated - not subject to the manipulation, right ?

Let's hope so - because this message - buy, buy, buy - is woven into every fiber of our culture. And it takes real and constant work to separate ourselves from this advanced stage of decadent materialism.

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Here's a few green Shopping Basics we can live by:

* Buy less - "Use it up, Wear it out, Make it do, Do Without"

* Buy in bulk - it's cheaper and it cuts down on mountains of packaging waste.

* Buy local - support your local homegrown economy. Shipping food and products around the globe generates substantial greenhouse gas emissions, and will become less and less feasible as oil supplies diminish.

* Buy smart - research your purchases, and buy well-made items that are long lasting, durable and repairable.

* Buy secondhand - we have enough recyclable "things" out there to last us for a good long time.

* Buy foods that are organic, locally grown, and low on the food chain - it takes way more energy to raise cattle and pigs, than grain and produce.

* Barter for the goods and services that you need and want.

(with help from "Living Simply With Children" by Marie Sherlock)

Corporations intentionally gear their advertising to grab childrens' attention at younger and younger ages. It's easy to do these days, with the typical American child watching 30 to 40,000 commercials annually.
The amount of money spent in this conscious effort to groom us and brand us - to turn us into good little shoppers - increased almost tenfold from 1950 to 2002.

Advertising leads us to believe that we'll be happier
with more income and possessions.

However, in his book "The American Paradox", psychologist David G. Myers
..."cites many surveys that conclude that once life's necessities are within reach, increasing affluence is irrelevant to individual happiness."

"Some evidence even indicates that as income rises, well-being decreases."

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