The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices: Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists
by Michael Brower, Warren Leon
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Book Summary Information
Author: Michael Brower, Warren LeonEdition: Paperback
Published: 1999-03-30
ISBN: 060980281X
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Book Reviews of The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices: Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists
Book Review: Hard Numbers, Weak Message
Summary: 3 Stars
The goals of this book are admirable, but the authors (on behalf of the Union of Concerned Scientists) fail to deliver a truly practical message. Brower and Leon constructed a pretty impressive quantitative methodology to measure the true environmental impacts of a wide variety of consumer activities. But while the numbers are impressive, the authors transformed them into confusing and contradictory recommendations for the concerned citizen. The authors certainly found that some consumer behaviors that seem to be harmful to the environment, such as buying the occasional over-packaged grocery item, are not worth worrying about so much (taken individually) when you crunch the numbers. This is the authors' overall message - look at the numbers to determine which consumer behaviors actually harm the environment the most, and which can be worried about a little less by the conscientious citizen. But the problem is that the recommendations lose their focus and bleed into a very inconsistent message for the reader.
Regardless of whether the one Styrofoam cup I use today has a quantitatively small impact on the environment, I'm not buying the authors' contention that I shouldn't worry because it's just one cup amongst billions of tons of waste produced by business and industry. Maybe so, but things add up, and if many people care a little, then even the authors' quantitative methods would detect the long-term benefits. This book is docked an additional star for the epilogue about the history of American consumerism (written by a third author), which is fairly interesting but reads like the literature review for a graduate student thesis. This epilogue is filler at best and not consistent with the general themes of the rest of the book. On the good side, the extensive bibliography, though outdated, offers a plethora of books and websites that would probably tackle the matter of environmental consumerism better than this book does. [~doomssdayer520~]
Summary of The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices: Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists
Paper or plastic? Cloth or disposable? Regular or organic? Every day, environmentally conscious consumers are faced with the overwhelming catch-22 of a capitalist society--reconciling the harm we do by consuming, while still providing ourselves and our families with the goods and services we need. It's enough to make a city dweller crazy. Fret no more! The Union of Concerned Scientists has put together a well-researched and eminently practical guide to the decisions that matter. The authors hope that the book will help you set priorities, stop worrying about insignificant things, and understand the real environmental impacts of household decisions. For instance, you may be surprised to learn that buying and eating meat and poultry is much more harmful to the environment than the packaging the meat is wrapped in, even if it's Styrofoam. This guide takes on both sides of the consumer-impact argument, goring sacred cows of the environmentalist movement (like the strident emphasis on recycling) and the industrialist perspective (like the relentless message to buy more, more, more). If you're confused and overwhelmed by all the environmental decision-making in the modern world, you'll find new inspiration in this book. --Therese LittletonFrom one of the most prestigious nonprofit organizations devoted to environmental issues comes a clear, practical, and rational overview of the relationship between consumers and the environment.
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Paper or plastic? Bus or car? Old house or new? Cloth diapers or disposables? Some choices have a huge impact on the environment; others are of negligible importance. To those of us who care about our quality of life and what is happening to the earth, this is a vastly important issue. In these pages, the Union of Concerned Scientists help inform consumers about everyday decisions that significantly affect the environment. For example, a few major decisions--such as the choice of a house or vehicle--have such a disproportionately large affect on the environment that minor environmental infractions shrink by comparison.
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This book identifies the 4 Most Significant Consumer-Related Environmental Problems, the 7 Most Damaging Spending Categories, 11 Priority Actions, and 7 Rules for Responsible Consumption. Learn what you can do to have a truly significant impact on our world from the people who are at the forefront of scientific research.
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