Cradle To Cradle

I just finished a book that I would highly recommend: Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough and Michael Braungart. It's basically about how we can rethink the modern manufacturing process to reduce and even end the negative impact that humans have on the world in which we live. Instead of being "less bad" through such practices as auto emissions controls, pollution restrictions, and even recycling in its current state, we can rethink the whole process from beginning to end to not only reduce our impact on the earth to zero, but to actually make things better than the way we found it. Instead of determining the amount of pollutants a manufacturing company can "safely" dump into our rivers, why not redesign the manufacturing process from the beginning and use materials and processes that simply don't pollute at all? Taking that idea a step further, the authors argue that not only is it possible to refrain from polluting, but that same process could be designed in such a way that the end product can actually enrich the environment after it's served it's primary purpose rather than simply ending up in a landfill. Very interesting stuff.

Our current goal of simply slowing down the rate at which we destroy the earth isn't viable in the long term. To truly preserve the earth for future generations, the authors maintain that humans need to reintegrate themselves into the natural world. Instead of trying to "tame" nature to suit our needs, we could be like the ant or the cherry tree that recognizes the natural state of things and develops ways to thrive within the natural world rather than in spite of it.

For more info on the authors and their work, check out the websites for Michael Braungart and William McDonough.