by Fred Pearce, 2009
Wanting to understand overconsumption habits and its effects on people and the planet, Pearce takes us on a journey to find the sources of his stuff. Across the world, he gains unimaginable access to factories, mines, farms, and the people who work within them. Pearce offers a very thorough inventory of the good, the bad and the ugly truths about consumerism. For example: over a million fair trade Kenyan bean farmers are supported by British consumers, the Uzbekistan cotton industry employs 40% of the workforce and hundreds of thousands of children, and 6.5 million tons of waste paper is sent annually from the U.S. and Britain to China only to be turned into packaging and shipped back. Pearce offers simple solutions to big global problems, and ways to rethink our role in the economy. It’s a very intriguing inventory of products and people told from the perspective of a British Humanist journalist.
Find the book here.
