Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economy is Undermining the Environmental Revolution
In Green Gone Wrong, environmental writer Heather Rogers blasts through the buzz of corporate marketing by posing one simple question: Do today’s much touted ‘green’ products carbon offsets, organic food, biofuels, and eco-friendly cars and homes actually work? Implicit in efforts to go green is the promise that we can stop global warming by swapping dirty goods for ‘clean’ ones. But can earth-friendly products really save the planet?
Revealing a fuller story of current attempts to convert a ‘petro’ to a ‘green’ society, Rogers focuses on the fundamental aspects of life—food, shelter, and transportation. This far-reaching narrative explores how the most readily available solutions to environmental crisis can be disastrously off the mark. Reporting from some of the remotest places on earth, Rogers discovers that catastrophic ecosystem destruction, the spewing of ever more greenhouse gases, and grinding poverty are the consequences of a failed green consumerism.
Green Gone Wrong takes the reader into forests, fields, factories, and boardrooms around the world to draw out the unintended consequences, inherent obstacles, and successes of eco-friendly consumption. Expertly reported, this gripping exposé pieces together a global picture of what's happening in the name of today’s environmentalism. Green Gone Wrong speaks to anyone interested in climate change and the future of the natural world, as well as those who want to act but are caught not knowing who, or what, to believe. Rogers casts a sober eye on what’s working and what’s not, fearlessly pushing ahead the debate over how to protect the planet.
Paperback, 272 pages
ISBN: 9781844679010
September 2012
$15.95 / £9.99 / $17.00CAN
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Other Editions
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Hardback, 176 pages
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ISBN: 9781844676453
July 2010
$26.00 / £16.00
Reviews
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[An] excellent anatomy of greenwashing in corporate culture and personal life.
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The climate crisis is far too urgent to squander another decade on false solutions. This carefully researched, deeply human, and eminently sensible investigation arrives just in the nick of time. Let's hope it inspires a radical course correction."
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Heather Rogers offers a compelling commentary on the state of our contemporary civilisation.
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Our livelihood is in conflict with our planet. Heather Rogers paints a vivid picture of the crisis to come unless we fundamentally change what and how much we consume. Green Gone Wrong is a book of hope because it tells us what is necessary – not what we want to hear.
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Heather Rogers reminds us with vivid examples that there's no way we can just subcontract our environmental conscience to the new breed of green marketers. We have a very narrow window to preserve some version of our planet, and we can't afford the kind of egregious mistakes this volume identifies with such precision. If it's too good to be true, it's not true--even if it comes with a shiny green wrapper.
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With deft and adventuresome reporting from around the world, Heather Rogers looks beneath the surface of today's market- based "solutions" to our environmental challenges and skillfully distinguishes between reality and illusion. Business as usual won't do, Rogers tells us, no matter how much we green it.
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Heather Rogers brilliantly and lethally exposes "green" capitalism for the chicanery that it is. While it may be disappointing to find out that "organic" and even "fair trade" don't mean squat - not to mention, of course, "carbon offsetting," which turns out to be even stupider than it sounds - these pages make clear what the answer is: stop making colorful excuses for the system that's driving us off the cliff, and instead make shifts in our economic priorities to bring about real change. May Rogers's book guide our feet.
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Well written and exhaustively reported.
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By going beyond exposé to analysis, Rogers gives a deeper assessment of environmental problems and solutions than the usual global-warming investigative book.
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Rogers “exposes how the “green” movement is failing to live up to the promise of sustainability and stewardship of the environment when the solutions are hijacked by economic and political interests. [Her] clear-headed approach proves effective in uncovering the truths behind the mantle of greenwashing.
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A compelling critique that exposes the inability of big business to provide sustainable energy.
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This book is a detailed critique of how the market is failing to tackle climate change…this is an essential tool for arguments against market solution to not only climate change but also social inequality.