Cradle to Cradle

I think the fact that these men kind of operate in the clouds rather than the weeds is one of its appeals. I understand the apprehension you have in that it doesn’t have a lot of statistics and doesn’t offer a whole lot in the way of solutions. However, one of the reasons I was so interested in this book is because the big discussion we had in class is that for the past half century or so we have worked in the frame of individual action, and it hasn’t gotten us far. The biggest and most visible accomplishment of the environmental movement was the end of the destruction of the ozone layer (and in the near future, its repair) which was a HUGE international effort and not driven by the individual in any significant way. The authors don’t talk a lot about what you can do because we can’t to much. The fact is if we think of ourselves as only consumers we take ourselves out of the equation, we certainly can’t be actors if we don’t even consider ourselves in that role. We aren’t limited by our wallet; individualization of the movement has done that. So I guess the reason why I had us read this book is that it gives a view of the environmental moment outside of “ten ways we can easily save the Earth”. We have to do more. We can’t just switch to this new world that, you know, actually promotes health, but we can empower our scientists, we can spread the word, we can join the movement, encourage our government and yes, we can buy light bulbs that help the earth. Their idea that we can just bury all of our terrible stuff until we find a way to make it useful again is silly but if we can focus on the first two of the three r’s then we buy ourselves some time and maybe someday we will have all plastic books.

I suppose that is a little unorganized but my views on the book are so tied to this amazing class that I have trouble separating them and making a complete thought. I hope you got something out of it and here we go with Deep Economy!