Tatiana Schlossberg. Inconspicuous Consumption: the environmental impact you don't know you have. Grand Central Publishing, Hachette Book Group. New York: 2019.

Colourfully and engaging way to learn eleven major ideas we must know about our consumption practices.

[W]e have pushed the planet to its limits, unconsciously sacrificing the future to meet the needs, real or imagined, of the present. In the name of convenience or immediate gratification or profit, we've created a world where we use resources because we can, with little attention paid to our waste and the problems it creates. We've imagined that our actions are not connected to each other, as if we don't live on one planet with one ocean and one atmosphere, one Arctic and one Antarctic. The crisis of climate change and environmental degradation feels sudden, but it's actually an escalation of urgency, building since the Industrial Revolution and known about since the 1970s. Our perceptions that our actions aren't connected and that the planet's abundance is unlimited and the behaviour those perceptions encourage are catching up with us.

..."the manufacturing of our clothing is so fundamentally harmful and irresponsible" and yet clothing manufacturers expect the consumer to understand and demand different and better practices if they'd like to see changes. ... "There is a sense on the part of most of these companies that the consumer needs to demand what they want, and then we can shop our way out of this problem." However, they don't provide the information that a consumer would need to be able to demand something different --something responsible-- and even experts like Linda [Greer] often can't figure out how to make the right choices.

Contents

• Introduction
• Technology and the Internet
  • The Physical Internet
  • Bringing the Cloud to Earth
  • Taking it Offline: E-Commerce
  • Silicon Valley: A Toxic Waste Dump? You Decide
  • Mining for Tech
  • Vampire Power
  • The Tech We Throw Away
• Food
  • The Greediest Crop (corn)
  • Wasting Away
  • Organic Food: How Good Is It?
  • How Far Our Food Goes
  • A Sea of Troubles
• Fashion
  • Thirsty for Denim
  • Athleisure Forever!
  • Fast Fashion, but Going Nowhere
  • It's Not Wood, It's Rayon
  • The Yarn That Makes a Desert
• Fuel
  • The Other Problem with Coal (coal ash)
  • The Wood for the Trees
  • Staying Cool, Getting Hotter
  • The Great Big Cargo Route in the Sky
  • Shipping: The World in a Box
  • Cars, Trucks, and Justice
  • Hitching a Ride(share)
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgements
• Notes
• About the Author

Major Ideas

Schlossberg's entries are more descriptive.

1. Our actions (and the problems they create) are connected, all around the world.
2. Corporate and government opacity has meant that our actions have consequences we are unaware of and, if we knew about them, we would be surprised and angry.
3. Understanding that our actions and larger social, cultural, industrial, and economic processes in context helps us choose policies and practices to make a difference and achieve better outcomes.
4. Living in a way that honours our values is important.
5. When you hear politicians and business people in your own life say that transitioning to a green economy or building resilient infrastructure will be too expensive, ask them these questions:
   1. Won't it be more expensive to lose cities to sea level rise and fight forest fires and deal with refugee crises spurred by drought and famine and other disasters, for instance?
   2. Couldn't mitigating climate change be a way to make money-- by building infrastructure, developing new technologies, providing new services, and avoiding chronic health costs, such as asthma, which can be caused by fossil fuel pollution?
   3. Why wouldn't you just try, in case (almost) all the scientists are right?
   4. Does it matter how much anything costs if you'r dead and Miami is under water?
6. Those directly responsible for pollution have rarely, if ever, paid for the costs.
7. Knowing more and making more informed decisions is always better, but it should not be up to the consumer to figure out what is the most responsible or sustainable option. Producers are the ones making money from our choices, and we should not support those who don't at least tell us what they're doing.
8. If you care about justice, you care about climate change and pollution. If you wan't to fight inequality, you have to fight climate change, too.
9. We must vote for politicians who offer meaningful policies and make sure they are achieved. Very few politicians have paid any price for not only not leading, but also for holding us back from addressing the impending disaster.
10. It's OK to be angry and upset; you must stay engaged and involved.
11. Ask questions. Demand Change.