Tracking down the sources of my stuff

Just couldn't get into it. Maybe because I'd already read [b:You Are Here The Surprising Link Between What We Do and What That Does to the Planet|2795636|You Are Here The Surprising Link Between What We Do and What That Does to the Planet|Thomas M. Kostigen|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51EQMeoVwLL._SL75_.jpg|2821410] and loved it. Maybe I just didn't take to Pearce's writing. Don't know. ( )

Si les conclusions du livre de Fred Pearce ont déjà beaucoup veilli, son enquête demeure souvent excellente, surtout quand elle l'amène à l'autre bout du monde pour voir ce qu'il s'y passe, pour mesurer l'impact de nos consommations responsables comme irresponsables. Outre le fait que la consommation globale est parfois (parfois seulement) plus raisonnable qu'une consommation locale, je retiens surtout du livre une chose simple, que Pearce démontre sans vraiment relever : il faut responsabiliser les entreprises à tracer ce qu'elles consomment, c'est le seul moyen pour développer des pratiques responsables et équitables. En fait, quand on sait précisément d'où vient ce qui arrive dans notre assiette, bien souvent, c'est au bénéfice de toute la chaîne, pas seulement en terme de santé et de nutrition, mais aussi en terme de buen vivir pour les populations productrices. Simple. Efficace. Alors, où sont les lois ? ( )

Another for the "everything you are doing is wrong" shelf. Pearce decided to investigate the ways his consumer goods were manufactured and disposed of. The usual suspects are on display here, and some less usual. It's always a little troublesome to see someone log tens of thousands of air miles to report on how the environment is going to hell, but it feels like his motives are pure- and points to him for acknowledging his footprint as considerably larger than average for his cohort.

There are a lot of short chapters, all are interesting. For my money, all would be more interesting if they were handled a bit more thoroughly. It's a good introduction with some light bits balancing an overall grim topic. ( )

This is a rather strange book. Posited as an environment tome, with the author endeavouring to find out where they things he uses come from, it ends up coming off as a bit of a 'I am a middle-class person who can afford lots of nice stuff and gee I care, hence the fact I am going to do a lot of environment-destroying flying around the world to prove my point'. Pearce gets angry at the way a lot of things are done, and does a bit of soul-searching, yet the end result seems to be he thinks that it is all a bit too hard, and we need to do our bit, as long as it doesn't curb journalists flitting around the world.

The impression I get is that the author (or his publishers) couldn't really decide on whether this was a book about 'green' issues, or if this was to be part of the popular non-fiction 'life of an object' genre. The end chapter about demographics, while probably the least 'dumbed down' of the chapters still doesn't seem to be thought through particularly well. All up, it smacks of a well meaning, rather knowledgeable journalist with a great idea that was not particularly well executed, with a smattering of pretentiousness thrown in for good measure. I do have another of Pearce's books on loan from the library, lets hope that one is a bit better than this one. ( )