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The Shadows of Consumption: Consequences for the Global Environment | 
 enlarge | Author: Peter Dauvergne
Publisher: The MIT Press
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
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Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 331000
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 328
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.2
ISBN: 0262042460
Dewey Decimal Number: 333.7
EAN: 9780262042468
ASIN: 0262042460
Publication Date: October 31, 2008
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Product Description
The Shadows of Consumption gives a hard-hitting diagnosis: many of the earth's ecosystems and billions of its people are at risk from the consequences of rising consumption. Products ranging from cars to hamburgers offer conveniences and pleasures; but, as Peter Dauvergne makes clear, global political and economic processes displace the real costs of consumer goods into distant ecosystems, communities, and timelines, tipping into crisis people and places without the power to resist.
In The Shadows of Consumption, Peter Dauvergne maps the costs of consumption that remain hidden in the shadows cast by globalized corporations, trade, and finance. He traces the environmental consequences of five commodities: automobiles, gasoline, refrigerators, beef, and harp seals. In these fascinating histories we learn, for example, that American officials ignored warnings about the dangers of lead in gasoline in the 1920s; why China is now a leading producer of CFC-free refrigerators; and how activists were able to stop Canada's commercial seal hunt in the 1980s (but are unable to do so now).
Dauvergne's innovative analysis allows us to see why so many efforts to manage the global environment are failing even as environmentalism is slowly strengthening. He proposes a guiding principle of "balanced consumption" for both consumers and corporations. We know that we can make things better by driving a fuel-efficient car, eating locally grown food, and buying energy-efficient appliances; but these improvements are incremental, local, and insufficient. More crucial than our individual efforts to reuse and recycle will be reforms in the global political economy to reduce the inequalities of consumption and correct the imbalance between growing economies and environmental sustainability.
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| Customer Reviews:
Essential reading for a new era November 18, 2008
Katherine Gonsalves (CA)
Consumer culture and environmentalism make strange bedfellows -- is it oxymoronic to simultaneously love shopping and love the planet? Must The West end its love affair with consumer culture -SUVs, KFC, and "I want my MTV"? Can `greening' corporations really help prevent environmental collapse? These were some of the many questions I had on my mind when I read Peter Dauvergne's "The Shadows Of Consumption: Consequences for the Global Environment."
General readers, political economists, and anyone looking for a fresh take on environmentalism will find Dauvergne's work clearly articulated, provocative, and non-preachy. He does an excellent job of providing investigative analysis linking consumption with the ensuing, and often unseen, global repercussions. This information was of great help to me. I often wonder how to make sense of international trade patterns, global warming, biodiversity and other complex environmental factors when faced with mundane decisions at the grocery store. The consequences of our purchases often seem foggy, distant, and difficult to grasp. In succinct chapters, Dauvergne makes these complex relationships concrete by bringing to light such factors as governance structures, political economy, geography, and corporate power. The author roots his argument about the hidden costs of consumption using five clear examples: cars, gasoline, refrigerators, beef, and seals.
The author succeeds in linking these five disparate cases in support of his overarching argument about the global shadows of consumption. I learned that rising consumption patterns are increasing everywhere, at the same time, the distance between producers and consumers is lengthening so that it's more difficult to comprehend negative spillover effects (Often to the detriment of the environment, poorer countries, and indigenous communities which end up bearing the costs.) This "shadow" concept allows the reader to move beyond individualized solutions to environmental problems to examine the roles of multinational corporations, trade, finance, globalization, and governing bodies.
Sweeping reforms will be needed to create balance. Understanding why ecological shadows form, how they drift, and occasionally, why they fade away will be key in crafting effective environmental strategies on a global context. I enjoyed the way the author seamlessly weaves together these multiple dimensions of trade, governance, health, and corporate power. This book made me think twice about the broader consequences of my purchasing power. The stomach-turning details about "advanced meat recovery systems" combined with the statistics about the rise of meat consumption, rapid loss of rainforests, and broader ecological effects made me vow to "vote with my fork" and cut beef out of my diet entirely. The other chapters are equally hard hitting.
Thanks to Dauvergne, I have a new appreciation for the urgency of drastic structural reforms on a global level including greener technologies, tougher environmental standards, and ways for products to reflect their true environmental costs. At the same time, I have a more realistic understanding of consequences. I understand environmental spillover and link my individualized consumption practices to collective shadows forming in distant communities. While I'm committed to curtailing consumption as a whole, and think others should do so too, I strongly recommend purchasing this book.
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