Lack of Leisure Is Killing Us and the Planet: An Interview with John de Graaf

Description

John de Graaf is an activist filmmaker who has been producing documentaries—primarily for public television—for 30 years. His films, Affluenza and Escape from Affluenza , explore with humor the exorbitant environmental and social costs of American consumerism since the 1950s. As a filmmaker, he has received more than 100 regional, national and international awards. He also founded the Hazel Wolf Environmental Film Fest , held annually at the University of Washington in Seattle.

With a few colleagues, de Graaf started Take Back Your Time , a nonprofit “to challenge the epidemic of overwork, over-scheduling and time famine that now threatens our health, families and relationships—as well as our communities and our environment.” They have designated October 24th as Take Back Your Time Day to signify that the remainder of the year would be the amount of time most workers in industrialized nations receive annually as vacation or wellness leave.

Co-author of the book, Affluenza: the All-Consuming Epidemic , he also edited the handbook Take Back Your Time , which features well-known experts in civic policy, health and the environment such as David Korten, Anna Lappé, Vicki Robin, Cecile Andrews and others.

EcoHearth: Our educational institutions promote competition, insisting that if we don’t work enough or more efficiently, other nations could get ahead and dominate us. Is there something wrong with that idea?

John de Graaf: It’s counterproductive, really. All of our competitors among the world’s 20 most competitive nations have excellent work/life balance and workplace policies. We are the only country that doesn’t. Overwork actually decreases hourly productivity and costs us big time for healthcare. What makes US companies less competitive is paying for healthcare instead of our using a single-payer system as do other countries. And our overwork contributes to the fact that we are nearly twice as likely ...

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