buy nothing day today

i was in san francisco last year for the annual buy nothing day (always held the day after thanksgiving on what is known as the biggest shopping day of the year). malou and i took part in my friend rene's performance piece downtown right in front of the gap. here are photos from that day and below is a letter from adbuster's bnd campaign. and if you are wondering what on earth else there is to do besides shopping today, treehugger has put together this handy bnd list.

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Dear Jammers and Cultural Creatives,

This year's Buy Nothing Day has a special poignancy. Never before have
our emerging environmental crises been planted so firmly on the lips of
the policymakers and the general public. Rather than screaming from the
fringes, high-profile economists and scientists are sounding the
warnings in respected journals and the halls of parliament -- warnings
that our oceans are dying, that the ice shelves are melting, and that we
are setting ourselves up for the most massive and widest-ranging market
failure the world has ever seen.

All of this points to a profound need for a shift in the way we see
things. Recycling, protecting our waterways, driving hybrid cars -- all
the old environmental imperatives -- are great, but it's becoming
obvious that they don't address the core problem: we have to change our
lifestyles, we have to change our culture, and we have to consume
smarter and consume less.

This is the message of this year's Buy Nothing Day, and there are only a
few days left to get that message out onto the streets. From the quietly
sublime to the crazily anarchic, the ways in which you can mark BND are
only limited by the imperative not to spend. Strut your stuff as if the
fate of whole planet is resting in your hands, because even if each of
us only does one small things to contribute, 96, 847 small things sure
add up!

At the BND campaign headquarters - that's www.adbusters.org/bnd -
we've already featured upcoming actions in Japan, the UK, Canada, and
the USA, with more to come from all over the world, including Brazil,
Colombia, Denmark, Hungary, Spain and Sweden. You can also download
posters and other resources, as well as connect with activists in your
own little corner of the globe.

Remember: Make a scene. Make people laugh. Make them think. If you have
to, make them angry. Just get out there.

Cheers,
THE BUY NOTHING DAY TEAM


Shopping and consumption facts:
* Per capita consumption in the U.S. has risen 45 per cent in the last 20 years.
* Although people today are, on average, four-and-a-half times richer than our great-grandparents were at the turn of the century, Americans report feeling “significantly less well off” than in 1958.
* A recent article in New Scientist featured research suggesting that the more consumer goods you have the more you think you need to make you happy. Happiness through consumption is always out of reach (New Scientist, 4th October 2003, Vol.180, Issue 2415, p44. Available online after registering at www.newscientist.co.uk).