Reviews

Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economy Is Undermining the Environmental Revolution by Heather Rogers

bookwormmichelle's review

3.0

Well. Saw this author on "Stossel" and was interested enough, even knowing that we'd have some differences, to pick the book up at the library. I appreciate the author for the work that she has done to trace whether the "green" movement is really doing much good. (Answer: A lot of it isn't.) For example, she shows how organic, Fair Trade businesses really aren't following rules that would improve the environment. The push for biofuels is causing massive deforestation in Indonesia. The Prius isn't exactly an environmental panacea. And carbon offsets are a joke. So I am appreciative of her research. As expected, I have a number of differences with Rogers. First of all, I wish she'd take an economics class or two and learn to distinguish between "free markets" and government intervention. She frequently described a mess, partially caused by government, labels it a "market failure" and issues a call for . . . surprise, more government. She does a really good job reporting on "beyond organic" small family farms in New York, shows that their livelihood is in jeopardy, discusses the effect of USDA and other regulations and how much it costs them, then labels the difficulty a market failure and calls for more government regulation and support--when USDA rules and stupid farm subsidy rules got them into the mess in the first place. She also goes to great lengths to show how big businesses in bed with governments here and abroad in Paraguay are making "certified organic" certifications virtually meaningless. Later in the book she lauds cooperative, free associations instead of government certifications. But she still thinks the "certified organic" government certification is a market failure and more government is needed instead. ??? To my disappointment, she also does not really examine the total idiocy of the ethanol requirements in this country--she does touch briefly on the effect of driving up food prices, but does not come to, say, Iowa where I live and investigate the effects of increasing monoculture, more water use, more fertilizer and pesticide runoff in the corn belt, OR the issue that biofuels are LESS efficient than gas and so even if it's "green" you need MORE of it, and in the end, probably MORE carbon is being released than if we just used gas. Sigh. Still, the book is valuable for the research into why the good we THINK we are doing isn't really saving the planet, and isn't going to. Too bad our policy makers will likely pay no attention.

dvonya's review

4.0

Excellent, lucid and well-researched analysis of the netherworld of "green capitalism" that's sprung up in the absence of an actual energy policy. It's a complicated story, but well worth the effort. Recommended for those who suspect it's not really that bad, as well as those who know it is (you don't know how bad).

fleece's review

not as in depth as i'd like but still informative enough with the issues it chose and the examples illustrating them. written more than five years ago now though, it'll be interesting to research follow-up--

especially interesting considering that in my ceqa class carbon credits to offset emissions were a pretty big deal, and of course i didn't think they'd be that effective but they're put into a lot of analysis probably without checking the actually efficacy of the credits like this book does