Confessions Of An Eco Sinner
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Essential reading
--New Agriculturist
--New Agriculturist
New Scientist
Sometimes frightening, always enlightening, it will teach you more about other people's lives than you ever thought possible.
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have enjoyed previous books by Fred Pearce, especially "When the rivers run dry". This book is a mish mash affair, the author dotting around the world trying to find the background to where all that makes up his "stuff" comes from. Some of the stories are exteremely thought provoking - watch out for an impending world banana shortage by the way - and I learnt a lot about eco related issues that I hadn't seen anywhere else, but the book itself somehow left me a bit cold. It appears to be a hurriedly put together collection of shorter pieces - at one stage the same bits of information are repeated on consecutive pages, and the M & S brand is Blue Harbour, not Blue Horizon. These are minor quibbles but serve to undermine the message being put across. I am not sure if this is meant to be a travel book, a collection of political essays or an anti-capitalist rant. No it's definitely not a rant, because Mr Pearce comes across as a genuinely likeable sort of bloke with very similar tastes as mine in matters beer and whisky related! And therein perhaps lies the problem. A book that flits from discussions on whisky production, to coffee production in Kenya, to the sweatshops of Bangladesh is almost by definition going to either be too detailed to read or to be a bit of a hit and miss affair.
The bottom line, and the message of this book is, be aware of all, and Mr Pearce means ALL, the costs that go into subsidising our western way of life and ask yourself if you are prepared to pay them, because ultimately what ever you/we pay, our children will be paying an awful lot more.
The bottom line, and the message of this book is, be aware of all, and Mr Pearce means ALL, the costs that go into subsidising our western way of life and ask yourself if you are prepared to pay them, because ultimately what ever you/we pay, our children will be paying an awful lot more.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Mr Pearce's book is a well-researched work which documents not only the environmental costs of our current Western lifestyles but also the associated social (and to a lesser extent) economic costs. As the other reviewer point out, the author covers much ground; from writing about the prawn supply route from Bangladeshi prawn farms to English curry house tables, to a chapter about how metals vital to the operation of mobile phones are extracted from mines run by Congolese warlords. The book is certainly wide-ranging.
I'm not in a position to say if it is comprehensive but detailed it was! I enjoyed the book and recommend it to anyone wanting to know more about the stories behind our lifestyles and how, often and regrettably, cheap prices here harm those abroad. However, when considered overall the book is not overly gloomy just realistic. My only criticism is that while many problems are highlighted I felt that few practical solutions were suggested but to be fair to the author that is a feature of almost all similar books. And it is not doing any harm for there to be greater general awareness about the effects of our actions on others in less happy lands than England.
If you liked this you might well like Real England (Paul Kingsnorth) or Do Good Lives Have to Cost the Earth (a selection of different authors).
I'm not in a position to say if it is comprehensive but detailed it was! I enjoyed the book and recommend it to anyone wanting to know more about the stories behind our lifestyles and how, often and regrettably, cheap prices here harm those abroad. However, when considered overall the book is not overly gloomy just realistic. My only criticism is that while many problems are highlighted I felt that few practical solutions were suggested but to be fair to the author that is a feature of almost all similar books. And it is not doing any harm for there to be greater general awareness about the effects of our actions on others in less happy lands than England.
If you liked this you might well like Real England (Paul Kingsnorth) or Do Good Lives Have to Cost the Earth (a selection of different authors).
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Yes, it's gimmicky that Fred Pearce tracks back the things in his house to the places they came from. But this book is incredibly compelling, easy to read, and has a lot of surprises even for someone like me who thought they knew a lot already about where things come from.
All of Pearce's books I've read are among my favorites, but I think this one is his most accessible, and will be most compelling to a general audience. Everyone who can afford this book is deeply embedded in the network of stuff flying around the planet to serve our needs and wants and whims, and should have some inkling of how things reach the store shelves, and what happens to our stuff when we're done with it and we toss it.
All of Pearce's books I've read are among my favorites, but I think this one is his most accessible, and will be most compelling to a general audience. Everyone who can afford this book is deeply embedded in the network of stuff flying around the planet to serve our needs and wants and whims, and should have some inkling of how things reach the store shelves, and what happens to our stuff when we're done with it and we toss it.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Put our species in historical context
I can only recommend this book. Nicely structured with facts from writers' experience, each chapter concluded with a short story of an individual citizen of the world. Read more
Published 18 months ago by ebica
Brilliant
This is not a book, but a roadmap on the future. This is clearly a key book for understanding ecology and the world around us, and how often thinks are not that they seem to be. Read more
Published on 16 Mar 2009 by Xabier CID Fernandez
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