"In her late twenties, Cait Flanders found herself stuck in the consumerism cycle that grips so many of us: earn more, buy more, want more, rinse, repeat. Even after she worked her way out of nearly $30,000 of consumer debt, her old habits took hold again. When she realized that nothing she was doing or buying was making her happy--only keeping her from meeting her goals--she decided to set herself a challenge:she would not shop for an entire year....

"Fumio Sasaki is not an enlightened minimalism expert or organizing guru like Marie Kondo--he's just a regular guy who was stressed out and constantly comparing himself to others, until one day he decided to change his life by saying goodbye to everything he didn't absolutely need. The effects were remarkable: Sasaki gained true freedom, new focus, and a real sense of gratitude for everything around him. In Goodbye, Things Sasaki modestly shares his...

"Sam Dogen's Financial Samurai blog has helped over 70 million people achieve financial freedom. Now, he shares his no-nonsense playbook to build wealth and retire early through smarter spending. When it comes to our money, many of us believe that to acquire more we have to spend less. But the truth is that a mindset of skimping and frugality can lead you to miss opportunities for income growth and kill your dreams of early retirement. To live our...

Looks at the history of the growth of consumerism, exposing the international nature of its expansion through the last six hundred years, and the challenges it poses to the planet.

After a little girl, who is dressed like a reindeer, crashes Coyote's solstice party, she brings them to a mall where Coyote has fun shopping--until he realizes he needs to pay for everything.

Multi award winning. Her name is Green, she is alone in a world that doesn't belong to her. She is a female orangutan, victim of deforestation and resource exploitation. This film is an emotional journey with Green's final days. It is a visual ride presenting the devastating impacts of logging and land clearing for palm oil plantations, the choking haze created by rainforest fires and the tragic end of rainforest biodiversity. We watch the effects...

"95% of consumers are now making at least one lasting change to how they live, shop and work. Consumers are being forced to face their own consumption, causing many to reconsider their purchases accordingly. Consumers are planning to maintain increased connections with their communities, and some will actively purchase from brands that provide a sense of community. The consumer you thought you knew is no longer, and there is an urgent need to get...

In these essays, social satirist Rakoff journeys into the land of unchecked plenty that is contemporary America, skewering overconsumption, greed, vanity, selfishness, and vapidity. Somewhere along the line, our healthy self-regard has exploded into obliterating narcissism; our manic getting and spending have now become celebrated as moral virtues. Whether contrasting the elegance of one of the last flights of the supersonic Concorde with the good-times-and-chicken-wings...

"A timely, broadly revisionist, essential book by one of our foremost economic observers takes down one of the most cherished tenets of contemporary financial thinking: that spending less, refusing to forgive debt, and shrinking government--"austerity"--is a solution to the current economic crisis. Since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, too much of our conversation about economic recovery has centered on the question of debt: whether...

Edward O. Wilson The future of life: Biodiversity in the New Millennium excellent. A vivid and hopeful journey through the world of biodiversity. Wilson's ideas are seminal to any serious discussion of the relationship between science, nature, and humanity. Peter Raven, Chair, National Research Council, Division of Earth and Life Studies Bottlenecks: From the destruction of natural habitats to the accelerating loss of species, Wilson sets his stage...