Oregon Public Broadcasting

Anti-consumption activists hope retail sales fizzle this Christmas season. They've spent 16 years encouraging people to buy nothing.

As we explore the role of shoppers in the financial crisis in our "Holiday Freeze" series, Christy George of Oregon Public Broadcasting looks at whether this year, buying nothing is finally catching on.

Holiday shoppers this year are looking for bargains and doing their homework. At Ritz Camera's downtown Portland store, Shandell Hodges helps customers Aljosa Alibegoiv and Hana Mohar compare Nikon to Sony.

Hana Mohar: "So what's the difference between lenses?"

Ritz started its Christmas push early this year, but store manager Michael Romanos says people are hunting for more than just low prices.

Michael Romanos: "They're buying long term, they're not buying - 'Oh I'll buy a little point and shoot and use it for a year,' and then buy another point and shoot. They're thinking more, 'Okay I'll buy a camera that I'll keep for 3-4 years.'"

Shandell Hodges: "You also get a free photo-printer, an Epson."

Retailers are pulling out the stops to get shoppers to spend. But anti-consumption activists say people should do just the opposite.

In 1992, they renamed the famed shopping blitz Black Friday "Buy Nothing Day." This year, they’re trying it to the credit crunch and expanding it to a season-long Buy Nothing Christmas.

Activist Shawn Kilmer hopes this is the year people finally stop shopping.

Shawn Kilmer: "About the crash of everything - housing, the automotive industry, the credit industry, it's not like I've been enjoying watching it happen, but I've felt like it's something that has just been waiting to happen for a long time."

Kilmer agrees people have to eat, but he says, why not eat local? And for absolutely essential shopping, why not shop local? That's exactly what some Oregon stores are doing.

Allisen Larsen: "There has to be a latch in there somewhere. Does the zipper not have that little attachment? Zzzzip."

In Portland's Pearl District Jillian Dowell shows Allisen Larsen handcrafted silver earrings.

Jillian Dowell: "...a lot of jewelry that's done by a gal out of Seattle."

The Bee and Thistle shop is a recent member of Choose Local - a group of locally-owned stores offering customers a discount card.

Jillian Dowell: "So we'll sign you up?"

Owner Kim Lane says Northwest shoppers understand that buying local keeps their money in the local economy.

Kim Lane: "It definitely is a selling point, knowing their dollars they spend locally go farther locally than if they were at a national chain."

The anti-consumer movement is capitalizing on the credit crunch but what underlies the Buy Nothing message is concern for the environment.

Activist Brett Jarczyk says people are living beyond their means, not just financially, but in terms of natural resources.

Brett Jarczyk: "Scarcity used to be a tradition in America for a long time, and our economy has become such a wasteful economy now."

Environmental economist Ed Whitelaw studies services that happen naturally, like wetlands that filter impurities from water. That's the same job a sewage treatment plant does, except nature does it for free. But Whitelaw says people are over-consuming that natural capital.

Ed Whitelaw: "I think there are too many symptoms that we've overdrawn our account in natural assets."

Ed Whitelaw's prescription is not to Buy Nothing this holiday season, but to spend the New Year investing in natural resources and green energy and transportation.

At Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square the day after Thanksgiving, it seemed like Buy Nothing Day was beating out Black Friday for Susan Watkins and Dinah Linville.

Susan Watkins: "We are absolutely cutting back on shopping this year: there's no doubt about it."

Dinah Linville: "No shopping. We are going to watch the tree-lighting though."

So, if people aren't shopping as much this Christmas, has the anti-consumption movement already won?

Ed Whitelaw: "Well, of course they can claim it...."

Ed Whitelaw says America will always be a consumer society, but it's possible to consume without trashing the future.