Hamilton Spectator<\/em> recently about the impact of consumerism on climate change<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cBlack Friday is perhaps the most iconic example of the challenges currently facing humanity,\u201d says Good. \u201cIn the era of climate change and the sixth mass extinction, the most materially consumptive part of the world buys record quantities of stuff the day after giving thanks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Good says the consumption mentally goes back to end of the Industrial Revolution when mass production and advertising teaching us to be consumers converged.<\/p>\n
That marketing push has never let up, but Good says now is definitely the time to alter our thinking.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there is going to be change, arguably we need to collectively question Black Friday,\u201d she says. \u201cThis means telling Black Friday stories that include the environmental and climate change toll.\u201d<\/p>\n
And if you are feeling the need to be a consumer this Friday, Dolansky\u2019s advice is to be an educated buyer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe consumer has the opportunity to look into these deals and compare prices more easily than ever before,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
To the rumours that some stores raise prices artificially in advance of big sales days like Black Friday, Dolansky points out that Canadian law says in order to advertise something as 60 per cent off, for example, that item must be sold at full price for at least one month per year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s up to the consumer to be a sophisticated enough buyer to make the effort to look more closely at those claims,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To marketing expert Eric Dolansky, the supposed rationale behind Boxing Day at least made some sense. The concept was retailers unloading unsold Christmas inventory at a big discount. But Black Friday? It’s meaningless in Canada, he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":75376,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,7,3319,1,4,5,38],"tags":[2640,794,3520,3840,522,594,3655,3998],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75375"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75375"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75377,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75375\/revisions\/75377"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}