Inconspicuous Consumption
The Environmental Impact You Don't Know You Have
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4.4 • 13 Ratings
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- $1.99
Publisher Description
*First Place Winner of the Society of Environmental Journalists' Rachel Carson Environment Book Award*
"If you're looking for something to cling to in what often feels like a hopeless conversation, Schlossberg's darkly humorous, knowledge-is-power, eyes-wide-open approach may be just the thing."--Vogue
From a former New York Times science writer, this urgent call to action will empower you to stand up to climate change and environmental pollution by making simple but impactful everyday choices.
With urgency and wit, Tatiana Schlossberg explains that far from being only a distant problem of the natural world created by the fossil fuel industry, climate change is all around us, all the time, lurking everywhere in our convenience-driven society, all without our realizing it.
By examining the unseen and unconscious environmental impacts in four areas-the Internet and technology, food, fashion, and fuel - Schlossberg helps readers better understand why climate change is such a complicated issue, and how it connects all of us: How streaming a movie on Netflix in New York burns coal in Virginia; how eating a hamburger in California might contribute to pollution in the Gulf of Mexico; how buying an inexpensive cashmere sweater in Chicago expands the Mongolian desert; how destroying forests from North Carolina is necessary to generate electricity in England.
Cataloging the complexities and frustrations of our carbon-intensive society with a dry sense of humor, Schlossberg makes the climate crisis and its solutions interesting and relevant to everyone who cares, even a little, about the planet. She empowers readers to think about their stuff and the environment in a new way, helping them make more informed choices when it comes to the future of our world.
Most importantly, this is a book about the power we have as voters and consumers to make sure that the fight against climate change includes all of us and all of our stuff, not just industry groups and politicians. If we have any hope of solving the problem, we all have to do it together.
"A compelling-and illuminating-look at how our daily habits impact the environment."--Vanity Fair
"Shows how even the smallest decisions can have profound environmental consequences."--The New York Times
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
As the saying goes, the personal is political. Environmental journalist Tatiana Schlossberg shows how our everyday choices—where we shop, what we wear, what we eat—contribute to pollution and climate change. And she looks into eye-opening hidden connections: One chapter lays out how increased demand and plummeting prices for cashmere have led not only to soil depletion in Mongolia, but also to increased air pollution in California. Like Malcolm Gladwell’s millennial kid sister, Schlossberg has a witty, pop-culture-savvy writing style that never comes across as a pious lecture but rather provides great conversation starters. She makes strong points about how cleaning up the earth starts at the checkout line and the ballot box; Inconspicuous Consumption will make you mad and depressed at times, but there might not be a more important book published this year.
