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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." --Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine
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. --Neal Lawson
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. --Bill McKibben, author Earth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet
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. --Neal Lawson
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. --Bill McKibben, author Earth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet
Review
"Praise for Gone Tomorrow: Proper journalism in book form.A" Guardian Reads like a thriller.A" Library Journal A clear-thinking and peppery writer, - Rogers presents a galvanizing expose.A" Booklist"
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book turned out to be a very US focussed in its examples/case studies. Nothing wrong with that, but not what I was expecting (having bought it after a mention in a UK magazine). It meant that in several instances I knew the situation was different here, so the case studies had much less relevance. It isn't a bad book, but I was hoping to read something about the situation in the UK, or at least the EU.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I spent a lot of time working out why I didn't like this book: after all, it's on the right side, the small number of case studies have been well researched - in some instances apparently at serious personal risk, and the writing is lively. But it's pure emotion, there are hardly any numbers, and the solutions offered in the last chapter are not subjected to the same scrutiny as the stuff criticised earlier in the book.
Big business, it is clear, is the enemy. So too is the state of regulation of "green" services. The one good thing about the book is th edisplay of how business practices disrupt communities all over the world, but I thought "I know this". I've been told similar stories for years, and the addition of a green moniker doesn't change things much.
The cases she presents are different in kind. Simplest is the reluctance of the US automobile industry to offer fuel economy in its internal combustion products, or to develop alternative fuel vehicals. Nothing new here - preservation of short term profits is a well known business trait. But one looked for an alternative perspective, especially from Europe, and an assessment of the infrastructure changes that would be necessary to move completely to electric cars.
The food industry's disdain for small farmers has also been documented elsewhere, and goes much wider than the organic sector. That the supermarkets and transnational organic producers are able to get away with what they do owes something to the way that the regulatory system favours big boys, but much more to teh failure of the "organic" movement to put over the big picture about benefits for soil and local economies of sourcing food differently - for many people "organic" simply means "free of pesticides", and has nothing to do with standards of husbandry or soil conservation. Again, one missed the international perspective: how can anyone write credibly about new ways with food and not mention the Slow Food movement, or attend Tierra Madre?
The biofuels article highlights the monstrous insertion of palm oil and sugar plantations into tropical societies, but feels old-fashioned. The biofuel world has moved on from corn-based ethanol and oil-producing plants. One looked for a presentation of the facts about the energy needed to produce and distribute biofuels, in a way that would have helped the technically illiterate to grasp the way that benefits are misrepresented.
Buildings? Like the automobile industry, the construction industry is conservative and builds to the lowest possible standards. the game here is about regulation. And the real problem is the conversion of existing housing stock more than new build.
The one section which did seem to work was on carbon offsetting. Good stories, but again no hint of the size of the bigger picture. The poor quality of the regulatory regimes did come screaming through, however.
Does the author point to any routes to achieving sustainability rather than focussing on problems with how many organisations are approaching it, and on the human trait of exploiting any new development to increase ones own wealth? Not really. If "a change is gonna come" it needs more treatise like David MacKay's "Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air" and fewer touchy-feely books like this one.
Big business, it is clear, is the enemy. So too is the state of regulation of "green" services. The one good thing about the book is th edisplay of how business practices disrupt communities all over the world, but I thought "I know this". I've been told similar stories for years, and the addition of a green moniker doesn't change things much.
The cases she presents are different in kind. Simplest is the reluctance of the US automobile industry to offer fuel economy in its internal combustion products, or to develop alternative fuel vehicals. Nothing new here - preservation of short term profits is a well known business trait. But one looked for an alternative perspective, especially from Europe, and an assessment of the infrastructure changes that would be necessary to move completely to electric cars.
The food industry's disdain for small farmers has also been documented elsewhere, and goes much wider than the organic sector. That the supermarkets and transnational organic producers are able to get away with what they do owes something to the way that the regulatory system favours big boys, but much more to teh failure of the "organic" movement to put over the big picture about benefits for soil and local economies of sourcing food differently - for many people "organic" simply means "free of pesticides", and has nothing to do with standards of husbandry or soil conservation. Again, one missed the international perspective: how can anyone write credibly about new ways with food and not mention the Slow Food movement, or attend Tierra Madre?
The biofuels article highlights the monstrous insertion of palm oil and sugar plantations into tropical societies, but feels old-fashioned. The biofuel world has moved on from corn-based ethanol and oil-producing plants. One looked for a presentation of the facts about the energy needed to produce and distribute biofuels, in a way that would have helped the technically illiterate to grasp the way that benefits are misrepresented.
Buildings? Like the automobile industry, the construction industry is conservative and builds to the lowest possible standards. the game here is about regulation. And the real problem is the conversion of existing housing stock more than new build.
The one section which did seem to work was on carbon offsetting. Good stories, but again no hint of the size of the bigger picture. The poor quality of the regulatory regimes did come screaming through, however.
Does the author point to any routes to achieving sustainability rather than focussing on problems with how many organisations are approaching it, and on the human trait of exploiting any new development to increase ones own wealth? Not really. If "a change is gonna come" it needs more treatise like David MacKay's "Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air" and fewer touchy-feely books like this one.
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