There are three books that I’ve read in the past year that have fundamentally changed how I think about the world: Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” (I reviewed it last year), Bill McKibben’s “Deep Economy,” and Bill McDonough & Michael Braungart’s “Cradle to Cradle.” The latter, in particular, turned on its head how I think about commerce, products and pollution. Would that I could send each and every one of you a copy of this book to read, as Lyle Solla-Yates gave me my copy. I have a half-finished five hundred word review of it on my desktop, last modified November 16, that I’m beginning to suspect that I’ll never finish. As a substitute, though, please try to find twenty minutes to watch Bill McDonough’s twenty minute talk at TED about the thesis of his book.
By way of temptation, I’ll close with a quote that’s my favorite bit from his lecture:
Imagine this design assignment: Design something that makes oxygen, sequesters carbon, fixes nitrogen, distills water, accrues solar energy as fuel, makes complex sugars and food, creates microclimates, changes colors with the seasons and self-replicates.
Why don’t we knock that down and write on it?
Just reread your review of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” Good stuff. Forwarded it to my wife, who already maintains our large garden and buys produce from the Horse & Buggy CSA. [grin]
I’ll also recommend checking out more of the TED videos. Well worth a couple of hours, really.
Also profoundly important (and remarkably funny), Ken Robinson’s education and creativity speech at TED.
woops… stripped my embedded youtube video. here’s the link.
woops… stripped my embedded youtube video. here’s the link.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY
Another great feature of Cradle to Cradle–it can be read in the bath without worries of splattered pages!
Excellent; I was in need of some good reading recommendations… I’m off to Amazon now.
Very cool stuff. This fits in with Lowell Fulk’s 7G PAC quite nicely. I’ll have to forward some of these links to him.