Summer reading lists are usually chock-full of chick lit and who-dunnits. What about smartening that stack up a bit with some books and magazines that might enlighten you as to some of the latest news and views in the world of sustainability?
If you decide to go that route, tuck a couple of these into the pile. Don't worry, you'll still have time for US Weekly.
A just-released book that's generating a lot of buzz is Rob Walker's
Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are. The hype is understandable: Walker writes a weekly column,
Consumed, for the
New York Times Magazine. But his book, which delves into the world of new marketing, justifies it.
You might be wondering why Green Space is recommending a marketing book? Because Walker discusses the "ethics" of brands and how, while many consumers claim to make purchases based on the sustainability of an item or a company, statistics do not bear that out. It's interesting to get some real numbers on how, despite all the environmental "stuff" we are hearing about these days, it is still not truly mainstream.
One of the best environmental websites out there is
Grist, an always-informative, often hilarious, resource for all-things-green. The non-profit has published a book,
Wake Up and Smell the Planet: The Non-Pompous, Non-Preachy Grist Guide to Greening Your Day that promises to be a treasure trove of practical advice for the aspiring greenie.
A book that is not new but that I highly recommend is Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond. The book looks at societies that roughly parallel one another -- Iceland and Greenland or Haiti and the Dominican Republic, for example -- and why one survived or thrived and the other disappeared or is struggling.
As would be expected, many of the reasons have to do with environmental stewardship, and the book is a sobering look at how choices we make today bear themselves out over many future generations.
In the world of magazines, pick up this month's Wired -- the cover story, Inconvenient Truths: Get Ready to Rethink What It Means to Be Green, takes some hard hits at the environmental movement and stirs up controversy with some of its assertations: that nuclear power is a must, that organic meat is worse for the environment than its factory- farmed , etc.
Highly recommended to stir up a heated discussion amongst friends.
Writer: Kelli B. Kavanaugh
Enjoy this story?
Sign up for free solutions-based reporting in your inbox each week.