Green gone wrong : dispatches from the front lines of eco-capitalism

In Green Gone Wrong environmental writer Heather Rogers blasts through the marketing buzz of big corporations and asks a simple question: Do today's much-touted "green" producers - carbon offsets, organic, food, biofuels, and eco-friendly cars and homes - really work? Implicit in efforts to go green is the promise that global warming can be stopped by swapping out dirty goods for "clean" ones. But can earth-friendly products really save the planet? This narrative explores how the most readily available solutions to environmental crisis may be disastrously off the mark. Rogers travels the world tracking how the conversion from a "perro" to a "green" society affects the most fundamental aspects of life - food, shelter, and transportation. Reporting from some of the most remote places on earth, Rogers uncovers shocking results that include massive clear-cutting, destruction of native ecosystems, and grinding poverty. Relying simply on market forces, people with good intentions wanting to just "do something" to help the planet are left feeling confused and powerless. Green Gone Wrong reveals a fuller story, taking 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. What do the labels "USDA Certified Organic" and "Fair Trade" really mean on a vast South American export-driven organic farm? A superlow-energy "eco-village" in Germany's Black Forest demonstrates that green homes dramatically shrink energy use, so why aren't we using this technology in America? The decisions made in Detroit's executive suites have kept Americans driving gas-guzzling automobiles for decades, even as U.S. automakers have European models that clock twice the mpg. This expose pieces together a global picture of what's happening in the name of today's environmentalism. Rogers casts a sober eye on what's working and what's not.… (more)