Consumed: The Need for Collective Change: Colonialism, Climate Change, and Consumerism

This book urges consumers to examine their purchasing habits, the creation process, the benefits, and solutions to wasteful systems. We live in a world of excess, disposing of most items within six months. This consumerism creates an environmental crisis. Author Aja Barber aims to change this, and you can too.

Barber calls for change within an industry that overreaches, causing environmental imbalances and exploitation of workers in unsafe conditions for low pay, while billionaires profit. The book exposes injustices in consumer industries and the history of the textile industry, which brokered slavery, racism, and wealth inequality. Barber invites readers to unlearn, understand consumer behavior, confront the feeling of inadequacy, and challenge the system and their role in it. Reducing consumption empowers citizens. Consumed teaches how to be a citizen, not a consumer.