Confessioni Di Un Eco-peccatore: Viaggio All'origine Delle Cose Che Compriamo (2009) - Plot & Excerpts
Pearce picks various items in his home (from broad categories such as clothing, food, technology) and tracks the items through their life cycle. The book begins a bit vague but slowly builds in focus. He includes a variety of items, some of which have positive footprints and others which do not. He draws some surprising conclusions at times (green beans are more ecological if shipped from Africa than grown in heated hot houses in Britain). Sometimes he doesn't even proclaim an item positive or negative but lets you draw your own conclusion. Overall his exploration concludes with the realization that his life as an average middle-class Briton has a huge ecological footprint (made even larger by flying thousands of miles around the globe to research this book). Our would cannot support everyone living in such a lifestyle. However, he doesn't give a lot of ideas of what to change or what not to purchase or even the criteria to use to decide how to reduce our footprint. There is an odd chapter at the end of the book where he discusses the falling birth rates among various countries and how the global population explosion may be on a natural decline. He seems to indicate this may help us balance our demands on natural resources while also expressing concern about a population that will have larger proportions of elderly. He also states some interesting "reasons" why birth rates are down ("women want to be more like men" or "women want to work and babies make it hard") which don't seem to have a lot of supporting evidence. It seemed a little more opinionated than the rest of the book.Overall, very readable and well researched. I preferred "The Story Of Stuff" for many reasons, but this was an interesting journey to read about the human and ecological impact some of our stuff has on the world. Reading this book is like trying not to scratch a particularly annoying itch, and then doing it anyway - and finding it just makes it worse. Part of me really wants to know the truth behind the riduculously cheap jeans and the veges flown in from half way around the world, but when I do find out it makes me so depressed I wish I didn't know. I actually couldn't finish the book because it was really starting to get me down. And I did already know a lot about what he was talking about anyway. I know that a lot of people in the third world are being thoroughly exploited to make life more comfortable and opulent for those of us lucky enough to live in the 'first' world. Fred Pearce just filled in the details. There are some interesting angles that I didn't know - for example the story of the bean growers in Kenya who actually do seem to be getting a pretty good deal out of flying their beans to England.It's worth reading and well written - and definitely pricks your conscience. But it also is pretty overwhelming and makes you wonder how the roller coaster of exploitation, greed and general ruthlessness can ever be slowed down, let alone stopped.
What do You think about Confessioni Di Un Eco-peccatore: Viaggio All'origine Delle Cose Che Compriamo (2009)?
Interesting look at how the things we take for granted affect the global environment.
—Ashhbashh
Interesting but not captivating. I had higher expectations
—kelly
I read about half of it but it didn't really grab me.
—caityred
