Your Call 081709 What fills the hole where the abandoned Wal-Mart was?

What fills the hole where the abandoned Wal-Mart was? On the next Your Call, we'll have a conversation with Julia Christensen, author of Big Box Reuse. Communities across the country are transforming their vacant big box stores into libraries, indoor racetracks, museums, and more. Could the collapse of big box retail in your town have a silver lining?

Send us an email at feedback@yourcallradio.org or join us live at 11 a.m. What would you transform your city's Big Box store into? It's Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:
Julia Christensen, author of Big Box Reuse

Click to Listen: What fills the hole where the abandoned Wal-Mart was?

Your Call 111308 Fair Trade Holiday Preview

How can you buy gifts without selling your soul? On the next Your Call we'll talk about how you can make your family and friends happy without supporting industries that make their workers miserable or the planet uninhabitable. This weekend is the 7th annual Green Festival from Global Exchange. How can you be generous this holiday season while also buying sustainable, local and sweatshop-free gifts? Can you make people happy without buying anything at all? What does your ethical shopping list look like? It's Your Call with me, Rose Aguilar, and you.

Guests: Emily Main in New York
Senior Editor of National Geographic's The Green Guide and thegreenguide.com. She joined National Geographic's The Green Guide's editorial team in 2005.

Meaghan O'Neill in Newport Rhode Island
Editor-in-chief of TreeHugger and PlanetGreen.com. She and her team are putting the finishing touches on TreeHugger's annual holiday guide called, "Give Green to Save Green."

Tex Dworkin in San Francisco
Independent Fair Trade Consultant and Director of Marketing for Global Exchange


Click to Listen: Fair Trade Holiday Preview

Your Call 121007 Buy Less, Give More

What would it take to convince people to shop less in a country that bases its economic success on consumer spending? On the next Your Call, we’ll have a discussion about the culture of consumption in the U.S. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, Americans are expected to spend $475 billion this year – four percent more than last year. What explains America’s appetite for shopping? What would it take to shop less and give more? It's Your Call with Rose Aguilar, and you.

Guests:
Judith Levine, journalist and author of Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping

Andrew Szasz, chair of Dept. of Sociology at UC Santa Cruz and author of Shopping Our Way to Safety: How We Changed from Protecting the Environment to Protecting Ourselves

John Perry, co-founder of Compact, a group whose members try not to buy anything new except food, medicine and underwear.

Click to Listen: Buy Less, Give More