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  • The Conundrum

  • How Scientific Innovation, Increased Efficiency, and Good Intentions Can Make Our Energy and Climate Problems Worse
  • Written by: David Owen
  • Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
  • Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (22 ratings)

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The Conundrum cover art

The Conundrum

Written by: David Owen
Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
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Publisher's Summary

Hybrid cars, fast trains, compact florescent lightbulbs, solar panels, carbon offsets: Everything you've been told about being green is wrong. The quest for a breakthrough battery or a 100-mpg car is a dangerous fantasy. We are consumers, and we like to consume greenly and efficiently. But 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 - we have little trouble turning increases in efficiency into increases in consumption.

David Owen's elegant narrative, filled with fascinating information and anecdotes, takes you through the history of energy and the quest for efficiency. Owen introduces the listener 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.

This is a book that will change how you look at the world. Scientific geniuses will not invent our way out of the energy and economic crisis we're in. We already have the technology and knowledge we need to live sustainably. But will we do it? That is the conundrum.

©2011 David Owen (P)2012 Tantor

What the critics say

"After Green Metropolis, a revelatory exposition of why urban life is 'green', Owen - brisk, funny, elucidating, and blunt - illuminates a wide spectrum of environmental misperceptions in this even more paradox-laden inquiry." ( Booklist)

What listeners say about The Conundrum

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We're in trouble

Loved it.
Eye opening read.
Scary to think about the rest of the world and made me understand that we should all be thinking about the rest of the world.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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Good

Good information but nothing new. Found listening a bit of a struggle but felt it would be very good for someone new to the subject.

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