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What would happen if the world stopped shopping? - Fast Company
Fast fashion is destructive and exploitative—and yet millions of people rely on it for work. In a new book, J.B. MacKinnon explores these complexities.
The 21st century has brought a critical dilemma into sharp relief: we must stop shopping, and yet we can’t stop shopping.
At the turn of this new millennium, according to the UN, consumption surpassed population as our greatest environmental challenge. When it comes to climate change, species extinction, water depletion, toxic pollution, deforestation and other crises, how much each one of us consumes now matters more than how many of us there are. The average person in a rich country consumes 13 times as much as the average person in a poor one.
For decades now, we’ve witnessed a near-continuous increase in the consumption of every major natural resource. We are using up the planet at a rate 1.7 times faster than it can regenerate. At this rate, by 2050, resource use will have tripled in the 21st century alone.
Fast fashion is destructive and exploitative—and yet millions of people rely on it for work. In a new book, J.B. MacKinnon explores these complexities.
The 21st century has brought a critical dilemma into sharp relief: we must stop shopping, and yet we can’t stop shopping.
At the turn of this new millennium, according to the UN, consumption surpassed population as our greatest environmental challenge. When it comes to climate change, species extinction, water depletion, toxic pollution, deforestation and other crises, how much each one of us consumes now matters more than how many of us there are. The average person in a rich country consumes 13 times as much as the average person in a poor one.
For decades now, we’ve witnessed a near-continuous increase in the consumption of every major natural resource. We are using up the planet at a rate 1.7 times faster than it can regenerate. At this rate, by 2050, resource use will have tripled in the 21st century alone.