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Book description
“Reduce, reuse, recycle” urge environmentalists; in other words, do more with less in order to minimize damage. As William McDonough and Michael Braungart argue in their provocative, visionary book, however, this approach perpetuates a one-way, “cradle to grave” manufacturing model that dates to the Industrial Revolution and casts off as much as 90 percent of the materials it uses as waste, much of it toxic. Why not challenge the notion that human industry must inevitably damage the natural world, they ask.
In fact, why not take nature itself as our model? A tree produces thousands of blossoms in order to create another tree, yet we do not consider its abundance wasteful but safe, beautiful, and highly effective; hence, “waste equals food” is the first principle the book sets forth. Products might be designed so that, after their useful life, they provide nourishment for something new-either as “biological nutrients” that safely re-enter the environment or as “technical nutrients” that circulate within closed-loop industrial cycles, without being “downcycled” into low-grade uses (as most “recyclables” now are).
Elaborating their principles from experience (re)designing everything from carpeting to corporate campuses, the authors make an exciting and viable case for change.
Official Web site
www.mcdonough.com
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Book description (from Amazon.com)
Paul Hawken, the entrepreneur behind the Smith & Hawken gardening supplies empire, is no ordinary capitalist. Drawing as much on Baba Ram Dass and Vaclav Havel as he does on Peter Drucker and WalMart for his case studies, Hawken is on a one-man crusade to reform our economic system by demanding that First World businesses reduce their consumption of energy and resources by 80 percent in the next 50 years.
As if that weren’t enough, Hawken argues that business goals should be redefined to embrace such fuzzy categories as whether the work is aesthetically pleasing and the employees are having fun; this applies to corporate giants and mom-and-pop operations alike. He proposes a culture of business in which the real world, the natural world, is allowed to flourish as well, and in which the planet’s needs are addressed. Wall Street may not be ready for Hawken’s provocative brand of environmental awareness, but this fine book is full of captivating ideas.
Official Web site
www.paulhawken.com
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My post on Blue Vinyl: The World’s First Toxic Comedy, and again here.
DVD description (from Amazon.com)
Part family comedy and part horrifying investigative reportage, Blue Vinyl can make one simultaneously laugh and shiver with fear in the same, deceptively low-key moments. Documentary filmmaker Judith Helfand, upset that her parents are re-siding their house with blue vinyl, sets out (with co-director Daniel B. Gold) to discover how vinyl is made and why, according to some scientists, it is the most hazardous of synthetic materials. Along the way, she meets industry representatives who tell her the key chemical ingredient in vinyl, chloride, is no more toxic than table salt. She also travels to Venice, Italy, to meet with families of vinyl factory workers dead or dying from chemical exposure, and she visits an intrepid, Louisiana attorney who has sued American vinyl manufacturers on behalf of severely injured former employees. The tale is grim, yet the often on-screen Helfand’s approach is folksy and calm–less so when her skeptical parents reject, in several funny scenes, even empirical data about a product they find so convenient.
Official Web sites
www.bluevinyl.org
www.myhouseisyourhouse.org
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My post on The Corporation.
DVD description
In this acclaimed documentary from the co-director of Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomksy and the Media, 40 corporate insiders and critics—including Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, No Logo author Naomi Klein and Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman—explore the nature and spectacular rise of the most pervasive institution of our time. Combining analysis with footage from advertising, television news and industrial films, The Corporation is an entertaining and provocative look at the inner workings, curious history, controversial impacts and possible futures of the modern global conglomerate.
Official Web site
www.thecorporation.com
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