Inconspicuous Consumption

As we become a more digital society, we imagine that using less paper or buying fewer DVDs is better for the environment. But many don't think about our internet connection's impact on the environment. Whether it's a microwave with WiFi, streaming a movie, or online shopping, these technological advances have created new impacts that even the people who are well-versed in these issues haven't considered.

In Inconspicuous Consumption, Tatiana Schlossberg reveals the complicated, confounding and even infuriating ways that we all participate in a greenhouse gas-intensive economy and society, and how some of the biggest and most consequential areas of unintended emissions and environmental impacts are unknowingly part of our daily activities. Looking at the Internet, food, fashion, and fuel, she explores how all of us are connected: how streaming a movie in New York might create pollution in Ohio; how a cashmere sweater changes 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 the best choices that they can for a changing planet.