Black Friday a Dark Day for a Green Future

Once again another holiday season has rolled around and as reported by Reuters “Eager shoppers stormed malls and stores across the country on Friday to snap up the early-bird specials that mark ‘Black Friday,’ the first official day of the U.S. holiday shopping season.” This shopping madness might be good for the bottom line of major retailers but for the natural systems that we all depend on this consumerism frenzy is bad news. Bill McKibben has written an excellent essay on Gristmill blog called “The Problem with Christmas” about finding the antidote for this annual self-destructive ritual. McKibben argues that “our environmental problem, at root, isn't that the stuff we're buying uses too much energy or too much plastic, or that its paint has lead in it, or that it's been shipped too far. Our environmental problem is that we consume way too much because we've agreed to try and meet basic human needs -- status, respect, affection -- with material ends.” Something to think about while reading all those ads about what is on sale at the mall this holiday season.