A millennial writes about climate change, and she also happens to be a Kennedy. Overall a good introductory book into the world of how capitalist consumer culture generates unseen negative externalities for the environment. I was annoyed at how persistently and gratuitously the author kept inserting herself into the book (we don’t need to know about your skiing trip or NYT wedding announcement (lol) to set up your next topic). The sense of humor / pop culture references are extremely specific (college-educated wealthy white lady); the book was not the better for this. ( )

Highly recommend. This book goes over how one can think about personal choices and climate change, including steps to take to reduce a person's impact on the environment. The take-away is brutally clear -- the most effective thing any of us can do is vote for policies that address climate change. ( )

Intro:
"How have your habits and our expectations changed over time, maybe generating more waste or encouraging more consumption?" (3)

Technology/Internet
Food
Fashion
Fuel

Main takeaways:
--Individuals can make a difference, but it should be the responsibility of governments and corporations to protect the planet, and do whatever can be done to ameliorate the (significant) damage humans have already caused.
--We need to switch to renewable, sustainable energy sources YESTERDAY, and use less electricity. Many devices are sucking power even when they're off.
--Farming is water intensive, and many of our crops go to feeding animals (especially burping, farting cows) that we then eat. Eating less meat and dairy makes much more of a difference than eating local. Eating local is not necessarily more sustainable, however; e.g. food grown in a greenhouse out of season takes a lot of energy. Eating local IN SEASON is best.
--Fast fashion is terrible for the planet. Buy less clothing. Buy well-made clothing that lasts longer. Unlike natural fibers (cotton, wool), synthetic fibers (a form of oil) shed microfibers (plastic) that wind up in the water supply - lakes, rivers, ocean.
--Mass transit (and biking and walking) is by far the most sustainable way to travel, but the U.S. is all about cars and roads. Air travel increases your carbon footprint the most.

Quotes/Notes

Rebound effect: when savings from efficiency or dematerialization are canceled out by corresponding growth of use. (26)

E-commerce: About half of what we return doesn't get taken back into the store or company's stock - it just gets thrown in the trash, most likely ending up in a landfill. (42)

...a lot of the time, it's cheaper to fully replace a device than to get it fixed, and tech companies rely on planned obsolescence to make their companies thrive. (63)

Given the risks and the capacity to properly recycle e-waste and how valuable it is, it seems crazy that governments and tech companies have largely abandoned responsibility for this problem and that millions of vulnerable people are exposed to the damage of our collective tech addiction. (66)

...the way we throw away our devices is sort of like how we use them - with little regard for their inherent value, the resources required to make and power them, or how our individual actions spread beyond our little corner of the universe. (69)

Corn: None of this had to be so bad. As with much of our economy and the way incentives play out, the scale has created the problem and then made it worse. (84)

Few things...are as short-sighted as our disregard for the environment in order to feed ourselves, as if we won't continue to need clean water and healthy soil and pollinating insects if we want to keep eating. (122)

"the manufacturing of our clothing is so fundamentally harmful and irresponsible" and yet companies expect consumers to demand a change, without providing any information (Linda Greer, NRDC, 124)

cotton - America economy - environmental degradation - racial injustice (132)

about 30% of rayon produced for clothing is made with wood pulp developed from endangered and ancient forests....about 120 million trees are cut down to make our clothes each year. (Rainforest Action Network, 159)

Can you decouple economic growth (or GDP) from greenhouse gas emissions? (So far, science says: no.) (174)

...it's so easy for us to be disconnected from the consequences of our consumption. (186)

International Council on Clean Transportation (208)

75 percent of mangroves, among the most powerful carbon-sequestering plants, in Shenzhen, China, disappeared from 2013 to 2016 for port expansion and land reclamation. (211)

albedo effect: ice caps reflecting sunlight/heat back to the atmosphere instead of absorbing it; black carbon (from Arctic shipping and flights over the Arctic) on ice diminishes the strength of the albedo effect. (216)

Pollution, wherever it comes from, generally goes hand in hand with inequality. (222)

...there is no corner of the earth that our actions don't affect, and that our indifference to the value of our resources and to their limits threatens everything, including our own success and survival. (232) ( )