Confessions of an eco-sinner
Subtitle: tracking down the sources of my stuff
By: Fred Pearce
Publisher: Fitzhenry & Whiteside
Published: 2008
Place of publication: Markham, Ont
Language: eng
Number of pages: 276
ISBN-13: 9781554551163
Subjects: Industries; Green movement; Environmental responsibility; Ecologisme; Style de vie durable; Aspect de l'environnement; Environmental aspects; Industrie; Sustainable living; Responsabilite environnementale
Description: "The author shows us the hidden worlds that sustain a Western lifestyle, and he does it by examining the sources of everything in his own life; as an ordinary citizen of the Western world, he, like all of us, is an "eco-sinner." In conversational and convivial prose, Pearce surveys his home and then starts out on a global tour to track down, among other things, the Kenyans who grow and harvest his fair trade coffee (which isn't as fair as one might hope), the women in the Bangladeshi sweat shops who sew his jeans, and the Chinese factory cities where the world's computers are made. It's a fascinating portrait, by turns sobering and hopeful, of the effects the world's more than 6 billion inhabitants--all eating, consuming, making-have on our planet, and of the working and living conditions of the people who produce most of these goods."--Publisher.
Notes: Includes index.
Table of contents: title: Part One: Introductions. Footprints : me and my stuff; title: Gold : a lodestone for my journey; title: Part Two: My food. Coffee : throwing a hand grenade into the cozy world of fair trade; title: Wild things : the last roundup on the high seas and in the hills; title: Curried crustaceans : the weird world of Mr. Prawn; title: Scorched earth : a sticky end with palm oil and sugar; title: Unzipped : when the banana lost its seeds and other tales from the orchards; title: Montezuma's magic : how Joseph the Cocoa Farmer became an unlikely green warrior; title: Air miles : why eating Kenyan beands is good for the planet; title: Part Three: My clothes. Drought and dirty secrets in the world of king cotton; title: Behind the label : bless my cotton socks; title: Touser truths : the unscrupulous world of sweatshops; title: White gold : my t-shirt, slave labor, and the death of the Aral Sea; title: Part Four: The Chinese dragon. Computing power : mice, motherboards, and the new emperors of Suzhou; title: Zhangjiagang : the world capital of rain-forest destruction; title: The great mall : toothpicks to placentas, everything must go; title: Part Five: Mines, metals, and power. My beer can : giant footprints in bloke heaven; title: Shock and ore : where my metal comes from; title: Footprints in the snow : finding the last oil; title: My electricity : Old King Coal lives on at Drax; title: Part Six: Downstream. My rubbish : down the river and across the world; title: Trade not aid : joining the great global rummage sale; title: Beyond the grave : a new life for Joe's old phone; title: Unexepected heroes : the queen of trash and other Chinese titans of recycling; title: E-waste : what to do with that old computer; title: Part Seven: My species and saving the planet. Good news from Africa : why we can feed the world; title: Beyond the clockwork orange : why we can green our cities; title: Zero carbon : why we can halt climate change; title: Defusing the bomb : why we can halt population growth; title: and save the world.