Rogers (Gone Tomorrow
) leads readers into “forests, fields, factories, and showrooms around the world to draw out the unintended consequences, inherent obstacles, as well as successful methods that lie beneath the surface of environmentally friendly products”; her discoveries are disturbing. She finds organic farmers from the Hudson Valley to Paraguay frustrated by their difficulty in making a living; the dilution of USDA organic standards; and laxity, cheating, and conflict of interest among organic certification companies. American car manufacturers that “insist they need more time to get high-mpg cars on U.S. roads already sell them—profitably—in Europe,” and palm oil plantations grown for supposedly low-carbon biodiesel in Indonesia are destroying both carbon-sequestering rainforests and indigenous societies. Readers will be troubled by the laundry list of fallacies at the heart of “green” business, but the book’s final chapter, which discusses developing and very positive alternatives, will keep them from despairing. By going beyond exposé to analysis, Rogers gives a deeper assessment of environmental problems and solutions than the usual global-warming investigative book. (Apr.)
