The Conundrum: How Scientific Innovation, Increased Efficiency, and Good Intentions Can Make Our Energy and Climate Problems Worse Paperback - 2012
by David Owen
The Conundrum is a mind-changing manifesto about the environment, efficiency and the real path to sustainability.
Hybrid cars, fast trains, compact florescent light bulbs, solar panels, carbon offsets: Everything you've been told about living green is wrong. The quest for a breakthrough battery or a 100 mpg car are dangerous fantasies. We are consumers, and we like to consume green and efficiently. But David Owen argues that our best intentions are still at cross purposes to our true goal - living sustainably and caring for our environment and the future of the planet. Efficiency, once considered the holy grail of our environmental problems, turns out to be part of the problem. Efforts to improve efficiency and increase sustainable development only exacerbate the problems they are meant to solve, more than negating the environmental gains. We have little trouble turning increases in efficiency into increases in consumption.
David Owen's The Conundrum is an elegant nonfiction narrative filled with fascinating information and anecdotes takes you through the history of energy and the quest for efficiency. This is a book about the environment that will change how you look at the world. We should not be waiting for some geniuses to invent our way out of the energy and economic crisis we're in. We already have the technology and knowledge we need to live sustainably. But will we do it?
That is the conundrum.
Summary
The Conundrum is a mind-changing manifesto about the environment, efficiency and the real path to sustainability.
Hybrid cars, fast trains, compact florescent light bulbs, solar panels, carbon offsets: Everything you've been told about living green is wrong. The quest for a breakthrough battery or a 100 mpg car are dangerous fantasies. We are consumers, and we like to consume green and efficiently. But David Owen argues that our best intentions are still at cross purposes to our true goal - living sustainably and caring for our environment and the future of the planet. Efficiency, once considered the holy grail of our environmental problems, turns out to be part of the problem. Efforts to improve efficiency and increase sustainable development only exacerbate the problems they are meant to solve, more than negating the environmental gains. We have little trouble turning increases in efficiency into increases in consumption.
David Owen's The Conundrum is an elegant nonfiction narrative filled with fascinating information and anecdotes takes you through the history of energy and the quest for efficiency. This is a book about the environment that will change how you look at the world. We should not be waiting for some geniuses to invent our way out of the energy and economic crisis we're in. We already have the technology and knowledge we need to live sustainably. But will we do it?
That is the conundrum.
Details
- Title The Conundrum: How Scientific Innovation, Increased Efficiency, and Good Intentions Can Make Our Energy and Climate Problems Worse
- Author David Owen
- Binding Paperback
- Edition Original
- Pages 272
- Volumes 1
- Language ENG
- Publisher Riverhead Books, New York
- Date 2012-02-07
- Features Price on Product - Canadian, Table of Contents
- ISBN 9781594485619 / 1594485615
- Weight 0.42 lbs (0.19 kg)
- Dimensions 7.08 x 5.05 x 0.58 in (17.98 x 12.83 x 1.47 cm)
- Ages 18 to UP years
- Grade levels 13 - UP
-
Themes
- Topical: Ecology
- Library of Congress subjects Sustainable living, Green technology
- Library of Congress Catalog Number 2011028855
- Dewey Decimal Code 363.7
Media reviews
Citations
- Booklist, 02/15/2012, Page 16
- Kirkus Reviews, 01/01/2012, Page 0
- Publishers Weekly, 12/05/2011, Page 68
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