Cradle to Cradle

This book has been quite a motivational read for me. William McDonough and Michael Braungart spell out some exciting concepts that I hope to become involved in mainstreaming and institutionalizing in my lifetime. None of the other readings we have covered have been this inspirational to me; I don’t think that their optimism is misplaced at all.
All this talk about changing the fundamentals of things is simultaneously realistically optimistic and completely overwhelming. I think what helped to reinforce the optimism for me was Professor Maniates’ example of imploring Starbucks to implement a mug-return policy. His example helped to highlight a feasible starting platform for someone such as myself to take initiative on the fundamental level.
Their idea of living on current solar income and looking to the environment as a guide for ways of living is so obvious, as someone in class said when you read it it’s a “duh” moment. This is optimistic because the solution is such a simple concept. It is not as if we have to gather all of the world’s most intelligent scientists and engineers to create a new technology from scratch- everything we need is right here and has been forever. What takes away a bit of that optimism is the reality on the ground of the way our society has evolved to function and the systems ingrained in place that are barriers to a shift to this simpler, more effective and efficient way of life.
Their proposal for the elimination of the entire concept of waste is also so novel, yet so obvious. The Earth has done it forever, why haven’t we been taking notes? While the ideas of technological and biological metabolisms sound, again, abundantly clear, this book for this very reason has motivated me. It makes me want to get out into the world and help to push these unmistakable solutions to the forefront and change the way people conceptualize society. The author’s make such a convincing and simple argument that it is nothing but optimistic. Of course as we have discussed, changing society is no easy task, however we have the tools to fix the system, and this book has made me even more eager to graduate and use them.