"The Day the World Stops Shopping: How Ending Consumerism Saves the Environment and Ourselves" by J. B. MacKinnon

 

Publisher: Random House Canada

Copyright: 2021

ISBN: 9780735275539

This was an extremely interesting book to read, and opened my eyes to a lot of things that go on in the world that I never really paid much attention to before. In addition the fact that it is so current takes into account the effects of the Covid 19 virus and how it has changed the world.

The book is divided into four sections First Days, Collapse, Adaption, and Transformation. As you can likely figure out the first talks about what would happen when people did stop shopping. Examples are given from various industries and how they coped or didn't when certain things such as the pandemic happened. It does however look at more than Covid and takes into account things like the Mideast oil embargo that happened in the early 1970s for example. One of the chapters in this section was very interesting and that dealt with the effects of stopping shopping on the climate. When for example residents of some of the world's most polluted cities saw clear blue sky. 

The second section deals a lot with the economics of stopping shopping and how this will effect both macro and micro economies. It takes a hard look at the Finnish Depression of the early 1990s. Then goes on to look at advertising, and how people will adapt to not shopping.

Adaption deals with as the title suggests how people will and have adapt(ed) to not shopping as much, and looks at the concept of planned obsolescence and how it has been forced upon us. It also looks at a couple of programs in England called Worn Again and Every On Every Day. 

The final section Transformation starts off by talking about whaling and how it decimated the population of Right Whales, and then talks about even when petroleum became common the whaling industry went into even higher production as they could now go further. It gave me a fair bit of insight into the way I consume things and I've found out that I would likely be considered a down-shifter, or a simplifier.

This was an extremely interesting book to read, and I plan on reading the others books that the author referenced within such as Vicki Robin's "Your Money or Your Life" and Michael Lee's "The Simple Living Guide."

"The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World" by Virginia Postrel

 

Publisher: Basic Books

Copyright: 2020

ISBN: 97815416117605

This book is without a doubt absolutely fascinating, it takes you on a guided tour through history of how textiles of all kinds were discovered, and developed. 

The first three chapters look at how fibres were developed, how the spinning industry made these into threads, then goes on to how cloth was made and how it developed throughout history.

After we humans had cloth Ms. Postrel goes on to examine the process of dyeing and the methods that were used historically, and then right up to modern day. She then moves on to looking at trading and how that affected the world over. This is a topic which is frequently and unfortunately glossed over in school as they typically mention only "The Silk Road", but trade was widespread throughout the world, and it is a shame that students aren't taught this type of thing, as maybe then they would have more of an appreciation of how the world works.

After trade her next focus is on consumers and how they see fabrics, how they guide the industry and influence changes in the market (and vice versa as well).

The last chapter deals with the innovators that are currently developing new and what I consider to be amazing fabrics. Such as ones that will allow sweat to easily evaporate from your skin thereby keeping your cool, but will also protect you from UV radiation. New fabrics, and new techniques that will result in a revolution in the fashion industry and the environment (for the better, I'm glad to note) when some of these hit the market.

An excellent book, highly recommended.