cradle to cradle

My first impression of this book was, "How cool is this? This book is waterproof, can be turned into another book when I'm done with it and, bonus, the pages don't tear even when I try to rip them." As I read farther into the book, I was really caught up in the optimism and innovation of the authors. It is so great that there are people out there who can come up with these technologies and can totally rethink the way we live - people who can create a book without paper and come up with a totally new concept of consumerism. It is a really neat thing to think about a world without waste.

I also really appreciated the section which talked about how being "less bad" is still not good. It seems like a lot of times, we get really caught up in thinking about how to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and limit pollution. I can see how this sort of thinking, though important for the short term, will not suffice in the long run.

I do have some concerns about the book. The first is that it does seem to oversimplify problems by relying on technological changes. I am just not ready to think that these changes are that easy not only in terms of technological developments but also in terms of social feasibility. I can't help but wonder what sort of environmental impact mass production of water-proof books may have before the transition from paper is complete. Basically, I'm not convinced yet that there will not be any side effects of this general transition. The solutions are also private-sector heavy and I do think that any substantial improvements to our system will need to at least in part come from public sector regulations.

Despite these doubts, I love the optimistic attitude of this book and know that people who think big are key to environmental improvements. Even if an idea is flawed, we will never get anywhere if people only put their ideas out to the world if they know they are perfect. In this sense, the ideas in this book are exactly what we need to push forward in environmental innovation.