Like many of us, Fred Pearce works hard from a city base, cares for his family and tries fitfully to do his bit for the planet. But travelling across the world to track his personal 'footprint', he finds himself questioning an extraordinary number of accepted truths. Perhaps his well-intentioned efforts are not so good after all. Should Kenyan green beans go right back on his shopping list? Should he stop campaigning for a clean coastline and start shouting, 'Save wildlife, sh** on the beach'? While he's at it, should he be cheering for Bangladeshi sweatshops too? In search of the source of the cotton in his shirt, the prawns in his curry and the people who grew, mined or made all his stuff, Fred travels from rainforest to desert, up mountains and down mines, from oil field to shanty town to brothel. Yes, he finds squalor and despair. But also he finds good things in surprising places and huge opportunities just waiting to be seized. This compelling story of Fred's travels challenges a range of green assumptions, moving green thinking on to a new, more sophisticated plane.
Confessions of an Eco Sinner
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Beguiling...honest and revealing...optimistic...A big book for big problems. -- Country Living
Follow in his global footprints as you read this compelling, thoughtful, provocative and utterly fascinating book. -- CHOICE magazine
Pearce shows us how our greed, and our wilful blindness, are ruining the world in faraway places...An excellent book. -- Guardian
Sometimes frightening, always enlightening, it will teach you more about other people's lives than you ever thought possible. -- New Scientist
This is a splendid book...Fred Pearce...is one of the few that understand the Earth...we must listen to him. -- James Lovelock, author of THE REVENGE OF GAIA
Follow in his global footprints as you read this compelling, thoughtful, provocative and utterly fascinating book. -- CHOICE magazine
Pearce shows us how our greed, and our wilful blindness, are ruining the world in faraway places...An excellent book. -- Guardian
Sometimes frightening, always enlightening, it will teach you more about other people's lives than you ever thought possible. -- New Scientist
This is a splendid book...Fred Pearce...is one of the few that understand the Earth...we must listen to him. -- James Lovelock, author of THE REVENGE OF GAIA
Book Description
Acclaimed veteran science writer travels from the market down his street to the ends of the earth in search of the true story behind all his stuff and what his 'footprint' really means.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
By Big Jim
TOP 50 REVIEWER
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.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By Mason Inman
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.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
By Mr X
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).
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Confessions of an Eco Sinner: Travels to find where my stuff...
This book is really thought provoking, well researched and well worth a read if you are interested in "green" issues
Published 4 months ago by Mrs. Nicola J. Pepperell
4.0 out of 5 stars
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 on 26 Nov 2010 by ebica
5.0 out of 5 stars
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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