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The conundrum : how scientific innovation, increased efficiency, and good intentions can make our energy and climate problems worse / David Owen.

by Owen, David, 1955-

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Riverhead Books, 2012.

Green technology -- Anecdotes.

Energy consumption -- Climatic factors.

Consumer behavior -- Environmental aspects.

Sustainable living.

9781594485619 (Riverhead trade pbk.)

1594485615 (Riverhead trade pbk.)

1st Riverhead trade pbk. ed.

ix, 261 p. : ill. ; 18 cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

The conundrum -- Setting things on fire -- Fossil fuels as credit card -- Leed-certified landfill -- Problems innovate, too -- The greenest community in the United States -- Learning from Manhattan -- Unconsciously green -- Sierra Club or Manhattan Club? -- Sierra Club or AARP -- Why oil is worse than coal -- Let them eat kale? -- Traffic congestion is not an environmental problem -- Transit that's bad for the environment -- Fast trains and the Prius fallacy -- Increased efficiency is not the answer -- William Stanley Jevons -- The coal question -- How increasing efficiency causes overall energy consumption to rise -- Rebound creep -- The importance of less -- What would a truly green car look like? -- Plentiful, inexpensive natural gas is not an environmental solution -- Cheap, efficient lighting is not an environmental solution -- Using water more efficiently will not solve the world's steadily worsening water problems -- Burning trash is not the answer -- When solar power isn't green -- Green or not green? -- Flying a kite -- Harnessing wind without windmills? -- The discouraging economics of innovation -- Getting from lab to grid -- Retrograde innovation -- The conundrum.

David Owen argues that our best intentions are still at cross-purposes to our true goal: living sustainably while caring for our environment and the future of the planet. Efficiency, once considered the holy grail of our environmental problems, turns out to be part of the problem. David Owen's elegant narrative, filled with fascinating information and anecdotes, takes you through the history of energy and the quest for efficiency. He introduces the reader to some of the smartest people working on solving our energy problems. He details the arguments of efficiency's proponents and its antagonists--and in the process overturns most traditional wisdom about being green.

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