Inconspicuous Consumption

From a former climate change reporter for the New York Times comes a book to empower readers to make informed choices and improve their environmental footprint.

As we move toward a more digital society, we might imagine that using less paper or buying fewer DVDs is better for the environment. But many people underestimate the impact our new habits have on the environment of our internet-connected planet. Whether it's a microwave with WiFi, a movie streaming service, or online shopping, these technological advances have created new impacts that even the people who are well-versed in these issues have not fully considered.

In Inconspicuous Consumption, Tatiana Schlossberg reveals the complicated, confounding and often unexpected ways that we all participate in a greenhouse gas-intensive economy and society, and how some of the most consequential areas of unintended emissions and environmental impacts are part of our daily activities. Looking at the Internet, food, fashion, and fuel, Schlossberg examines how all of us are connected: how streaming a movie in New York might create pollution in Ohio; how affordable cashmere sweaters change the Mongolian landscape; how eating a hamburger in California could affect shrimp in the Gulf of Mexico; how England's electricity came to depend on trees from the American south. By showing us how we're in this together and explaining a little more about how our everyday lives affect the environment, Schlossberg empowers people to make better-informed choices for a changing planet.