Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.

Start by marking “Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economy Is Undermining the Environmental Revolution” as Want to Read:

Other editions

Enlarge cover

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Open Preview

Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economy Is Undermining the Environmental Revolution

Heather Rogers

3.74 · Rating details · 227 ratings · 25 reviews

In Green Gone Wrong environmental writer Heather Rogers blasts through the marketing buzz of big corporations and asks a simple question: Do today's much-touted "green" products, carbon offsets, organic food, biofuels, and eco-friendly cars and homes really work? Implicit in efforts to go green is the promise that global warming can be stopped by swapping out dirty goods f In Green Gone Wrong environmental writer Heather Rogers blasts through the marketing buzz of big corporations and asks a simple question: Do today's much-touted "green" products, carbon offsets, organic food, biofuels, and eco-friendly cars and homes really work? Implicit in efforts to go green is the promise that global warming can be stopped by swapping out dirty goods for "clean" ones. But can earth-friendly products really save the planet?

This narrative explores how the most readily available solutions to environmental crisis may be disastrously off the mark. Rogers travels the world tracking how the conversion from a "petro" to a "green" society affects the most fundamental aspects of life, food, shelter, and transportation. Reporting from some of the most remote places on earth, Rogers uncovers shocking results that include massive clear-cutting, destruction of native ecosystems, and grinding poverty. Relying simply on market forces, people with good intentions wanting to just "do something" to help the planet are left feeling confused and powerless.

Green Gone Wrong reveals a fuller story, taking the reader into forests, fields, factories, and boardrooms around the world to draw out the unintended consequences, inherent obstacles, and successes of eco-friendly consumption. What do the labels "USDA Certified Organic" and "Fair Trade" really mean on a vast South American export-driven organic farm? A superlow-energy "eco-village" in Germany's Black Forest demonstrates that green homes dramatically shrink energy use, so why aren't we using this technology in America? The decisions made in Detroit's executive suites have kept Americans driving gas-guzzling automobiles for decades, even as U.S. automakers have European models that clock twice the mpg. Why won't they sell these cars domestically? And what does carbon offsetting really mean when projects can so easily fail? In one case thousands of trees planted in drought-plagued Southern India withered and died, releasing any CO2 they were meant to neutralize.

Green Gone Wrong speaks to anyone interested in climate change and the future of the natural world, as well as those who want to act but are caught not knowing who, or what, to believe to protect the planet. ...more

Get A Copy

Hardcover, 272 pages

Published April 20th 2010 by Scribner

More Details... Edit Details

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about Green Gone Wrong, please sign up.

Be the first to ask a question about Green Gone Wrong

Lists with This Book

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

Best Fiction Books about the Environment and Sustainability

186 books — 221 voters

The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki

John Stossel Show Reads

63 books — 8 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

Showing 1-30

Average rating 3.74 ·

Rating details

· 227 ratings · 25 reviews

More filters

Sort order

Start your review of Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economy Is Undermining the Environmental Revolution

Jun 16, 2010 Michelle rated it liked it

Shelves: politics-economics, science-issues

Well. Saw this author on "Stossel" and was interested enough, even knowing that we'd have some differences, to pick the book up at the library. I appreciate the author for the work that she has done to trace whether the "green" movement is really doing much good. (Answer: A lot of it isn't.) For example, she shows how organic, Fair Trade businesses really aren't following rules that would improve the environment. The push for biofuels is causing massive deforestation in Indonesia. The Prius isn' Well. Saw this author on "Stossel" and was interested enough, even knowing that we'd have some differences, to pick the book up at the library. I appreciate the author for the work that she has done to trace whether the "green" movement is really doing much good. (Answer: A lot of it isn't.) For example, she shows how organic, Fair Trade businesses really aren't following rules that would improve the environment. The push for biofuels is causing massive deforestation in Indonesia. The Prius isn't exactly an environmental panacea. And carbon offsets are a joke. So I am appreciative of her research. As expected, I have a number of differences with Rogers. First of all, I wish she'd take an economics class or two and learn to distinguish between "free markets" and government intervention. She frequently described a mess, partially caused by government, labels it a "market failure" and issues a call for . . . surprise, more government. She does a really good job reporting on "beyond organic" small family farms in New York, shows that their livelihood is in jeopardy, discusses the effect of USDA and other regulations and how much it costs them, then labels the difficulty a market failure and calls for more government regulation and support--when USDA rules and stupid farm subsidy rules got them into the mess in the first place. She also goes to great lengths to show how big businesses in bed with governments here and abroad in Paraguay are making "certified organic" certifications virtually meaningless. Later in the book she lauds cooperative, free associations instead of government certifications. But she still thinks the "certified organic" government certification is a market failure and more government is needed instead. ??? To my disappointment, she also does not really examine the total idiocy of the ethanol requirements in this country--she does touch briefly on the effect of driving up food prices, but does not come to, say, Iowa where I live and investigate the effects of increasing monoculture, more water use, more fertilizer and pesticide runoff in the corn belt, OR the issue that biofuels are LESS efficient than gas and so even if it's "green" you need MORE of it, and in the end, probably MORE carbon is being released than if we just used gas. Sigh. Still, the book is valuable for the research into why the good we THINK we are doing isn't really saving the planet, and isn't going to. Too bad our policy makers will likely pay no attention. ...more

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Sep 24, 2017 Sus rated it really liked it

A quick easy read that would be a good introduction to the idea and critiques of green capitalism. My favorite part was the middle section that discussed various sustainable living arrangements in Germany which were a nice example of alternatives to American car-based urban arrangements.

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

May 03, 2020 h ♡ rated it liked it

Shelves: 2020, reviewed, nonfiction-left

a sobering look into the woes of green capitalism. green gone wrong was pretty straightforward; the content itself was not difficult to reckon with, especially going in with the presupposition that capitalism is incompatible with environmental justice.

it's split into three sections: food, shelter, and transportation. the first section looks at the move towards organic farming and food both domestically and internationally; the second section considers eco-architecture—its successes in germany, a sobering look into the woes of green capitalism. green gone wrong was pretty straightforward; the content itself was not difficult to reckon with, especially going in with the presupposition that capitalism is incompatible with environmental justice.

it's split into three sections: food, shelter, and transportation. the first section looks at the move towards organic farming and food both domestically and internationally; the second section considers eco-architecture—its successes in germany, and its failures in england; the third section discusses fuel (how the demand for biofuels, specifically palm oil, has led to the decimation of indonesia's forests and therefore the livelihoods of its indigenous peoples), green/electric vehicles and the u.s. auto industry, and carbon offsetting—specifically in india. the end of the book details some possible solutions to divert from inevitable catastrophe.

this was written ten years ago now—there is discussion of the first years of the obama administration and chapter five, which concerns hybrid vehicles, was the only chapter that felt particularly dated, if only because being tailgated by an angry prius driver on i-5 is part and parcel of life near portland and seattle. i didn't independently verify the state of things now save for this one: "[germany's ministry for the environment] claims the country is on course to meet 25-30 percent of its electricity needs with green power by 2020" (ch. 3). it seems that in 2020 that number was actually 50%.

for some reason, it took me two tries to actually get into reading green gone wrong. i'm not sure why; the first time i got to chapter two and was bored, but this time around, once i restarted, it gripped me a little tighter.

much of this reading experience was defined by despair. i was not expecting a thorough marxist analysis—and if i had my expectations would have likely been different—but i think what made this a book i wanted to get through quickly was that its position is little more than loosely anti-capitalist. "capitalism is unsustainable," alone is not a coherent or even particularly useful starting point, and so for much of the book i was waiting for anything that resembled: ok, this is broken, how can it be fixed? the author plays with some possibilities and ideas in the last chapter, but it just... wasn't enough. what actually left me wanting to read more was the comparatively-brief study of the organic valley farmer's co-op—because i was shown something that did sort of work. the one star off is because i'm not sure pointing out the failures of the system alone was as effective as it could have been if it had been done in tandem with presenting an alternative as a model for what prevails, and the characteristics of a world which relegates profit to the margins rather than workers.

a final issue i had was with the writing: while rogers is an undeniably great author, the prose (complete with an unnecessary description of every single person's physical appearance; a massive pet peeve of mine in fiction let alone in stuff like this) eventually began to feel, just, rambling and redundant. it wasn't distracting, but i found myself skimming near the end.

anyway, i'm happy i read it. i think this was a super important starting point in understanding that we cannot—and will never—buy our way out of a climate crisis. ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Nov 13, 2017 Camille McCarthy rated it it was amazing

Heather Rogers does a great job of examining different "Green" economies and pointing out how our capitalist, for-profit system undermines the ecological benefits we should be reaping from these projects and technologies. It points out that a lot of these "carbon neutralizing" projects you can pay into don't actually get off the ground or do much of what they say, that palm oil and corn for ethanol are cutting down forests in Indonesia in the name of "Green" energy, that growing organic in Sout ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Mar 13, 2019 Akmal A. rated it really liked it

Topik green sememangnya topik yang menghantui aku. Entah kenapa aku rasa green adalah label atau trend bukannya budaya. Contohnya ketika sebuah bangunan baru dibina segala piawaian green telah diikuti contohnya penggunaan bahan hinaan yang rendah jejak karbon, sistem perairan yang menggalakkan penggunaan semula air dan yang paling kelakar ada sedikit rumput atau tumbuhan menjalar menghiasi façade bangunan. Tetapi yang menghairankan ketika membina bangunan itu segalanya serba tidak kena. Pencemar Topik green sememangnya topik yang menghantui aku. Entah kenapa aku rasa green adalah label atau trend bukannya budaya. Contohnya ketika sebuah bangunan baru dibina segala piawaian green telah diikuti contohnya penggunaan bahan hinaan yang rendah jejak karbon, sistem perairan yang menggalakkan penggunaan semula air dan yang paling kelakar ada sedikit rumput atau tumbuhan menjalar menghiasi façade bangunan. Tetapi yang menghairankan ketika membina bangunan itu segalanya serba tidak kena. Pencemaran berlaku, pergelutan perebutan tanah, pokok ditebang, bangunan yang direka menggalakkan pengguna bangunan tersebut membawa kenderaan masing-masing dan segala kontradiksi yang lain. Maka pada tahun akhir latihan ilmiah aku bertajuk kesedaraan tentang green dalam bidang pembinaan. Tapi malangnya aku tidak membuat penilitian yang bagus, hanya sekadar utk siap sahaja, maka keputusan yang diperoleh tidak layak dijadikan rujukan. Ketika hujung 2017 kempen untuk tidak guna straw ketika minum berada di peringkat kemuncak. Ramai yang berubah dari guna straw plastik yang mencemarkan alam sekitar, lebih baik guna straw buluh atau besi. Di kedai-kedai banyak terjual straw jenis ini sambil dikepelkan sedikit kertas kecil 'be green' dan pelbagai kalimat lain yang dalam kata lain, kalau awak beli awak telah berkontribusi kepada alam sekitar. Aku ragu-ragu dengan idea ni, kerana pasti ini tujuan pemasaran. Sampah akan tetap berlaku dan dibuang. Pengalaman berada di Kelantan bertemu dengan suku Batek dalam mendepani masalah tanah sawit dan tanah warisan juga banyak menimbulkan keraguan kepada aku, apakah sebenarnya green yg diteriakkan itu? Buku inilah memberitahu bagaimana sebenarnya bisnes green ini berlaku.

Penulis membahagikan buku ini kepada 3 bab asas yg berkait rapat dengan kita; makanan, rumah dan pengangkutan. Di setiap bab ditulis dengan komprehensif masalah yang berlaku pada peringkat praktis. Misalnya dalam bab makanan, permintaan bahan basah organik semakin bertambah. Secara ringkas pasar ini menguntungkan petani kecil, malangnya tidak. Yang mengawal pasar ini tetap sahaja gergasi yang sedia ada yang menawarkan sayur organik tetapi tidak menggunakan teknik yang mesra alam walaupun tiada bahan kimia spt baja yang diguna, tetapi masih beriman dengan cara penanaman monokultur. Bab-bab berikutnya juga begitu menceritakan masalah yang berlaku pada pelbagai peringkat tapi lebih memfokuskan pada bahagian pentadbiran.

Membaca buku ini boleh tahan juga, aku seperti merasakan sudah tiada harapan dah sebenarnya untuk selamatkan bumi. Tetapi penulis di penghujung bab telah memberikan beberapa cadangan yang sangat idealis. Idea yang memang memerlukan semangat kolektif yang kuat dan kalau menjadi idea yang dominan usaha untuk menyelamatkan alam sekitar dapat berlaku. Namun aku memandangnnya dengan sangat pessimis. Aki merasakan dengan kadar pencairan ais yang laju, semakin hari semakin panas, banyak haiwan semakin pupus, serta bencana alam berlaku disana sini sudah cukup membuatkan aku berfikir sudah tidak ada harapan lagi untuk memulihkan bumi kita yang tenat sekarang. Juga aku bukan penyokong untuk manusia pindah ke marikh. Entahlaaaa ingin kemana. ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

May 09, 2011 Dawn Ellis added it · review of another edition

Part of my thesis research. I do find that so often green solutions involve buying something new and not re-using, recycling or reducing.

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Nov 29, 2014 Martina rated it it was amazing

Book starts with several examples, from biofuels to buying offset carbon emissions to swiftly and decisively kick "natural capitalism" down once and for all. ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Jul 31, 2018 Colin Cox rated it it was amazing

In the opening pages of Green Gone Wrong, Heather Rogers interrogates the efficacy of contemporary green markets when she writes, “The new naturalists don't reject the free market for its reckless degradation of the air, water, and soil as their forbearers did. Instead, they aspire to turn the forces of economic growth and development away from despoliation and toward regeneration. Couched in optimism that springs from avoiding conflict, the current approach asks why taking care of ecosystems mu In the opening pages of Green Gone Wrong, Heather Rogers interrogates the efficacy of contemporary green markets when she writes, “The new naturalists don't reject the free market for its reckless degradation of the air, water, and soil as their forbearers did. Instead, they aspire to turn the forces of economic growth and development away from despoliation and toward regeneration. Couched in optimism that springs from avoiding conflict, the current approach asks why taking care of ecosystems must entail a Spartan doing without when saving the planet can be fun and relatively easy.” Rather than moving beyond capitalism to address what many agree is a clear and present ecological danger, progressive contemporary consumers turn to capitalist markets to fix this problem. In effect, they support a synthesis of ecological hand-wringing with the capitalist injunction toward profit and accumulation. The irony is unmistakably apparent. While the industrial revolution and the post-revolution markets that followed created the conditions for material prosperity for a vast number of people, they simultaneously engaged in ecologically destructive practices that ravished our planet while failing to recognize the unavoidable costs of those practices.

However, should we be so hard on them? Should they have known better? The latter of those questions obscures the single, guiding principle at the root of capitalism: accumulation. Capitalism is a system that is tricky to check, but the very notion of checking capitalism is anathema to how it functions. Therefore, it is deeply troubling to see contemporary environmentalists turn to capitalism instead of turning away from it (or moving beyond it). This dynamic is the question at the core of Rogers’ book whether she is writing about hybrid cars or perishable goods like food and coffee. How, for example, do Organic labels and Fair Trade seals “obscure ongoing destructive practices,” even as these “trust market” emblems seemingly confirm capitalism’s move toward morally-inclined practices? As these gestures suggest, accumulation is not capitalism’s only game; willful obscurantism is necessary as well, and that is what this eco-friendly turn within capitalism represents.

Rogers is quick to highlight how these problems are not the exclusive purview of capitalist markets; governments are in on the game as well. The HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point), for example, “Introduces procedures that, when carried out well, could improve food safety,” but, “the regulations were shaped by and for industrial-scale processors to the detriment of their small-scale competitors.” While it is not unique to acknowledge that government regulations too often benefit large-scale capitalist markets, Rogers suggests that supporting robust government programs, as an anecdote to capitalism, also needs to include a thorough reevaluation of regulatory practices. For now, fixing ecological problems can only work if we fix the regulatory infrastructure that encourages a particular sort of market of a particular scale.

Near the conclusion of Green Gone Wrong, Rogers meditates on what she learned during her research: “What I learned is that the outcome of industrial organic, commodity biofuels, and CO2 offsetting isn’t authentic protection and stewardship of the environment. What’s transpiring is a tailoring of environmental crises so they can be dealt with in ways today’s economic and political structure deem least threatening to the status quo.” Rogers stresses the degree to which these capitalist injunctions continue to dominate the terms of discourse later in this chapter when she writes, “Even as big automakers mass-produce eco-friendly machines…technologies that are least profitable, whether they’re environmentally sound or not, will have to wait.” Once again, if we fail to reckon with the principles and impulses that underpin capitalism, then we will only see changes along the margins, if at all.

One Last Thing
Rogers' book is not a wholesale refutation of green initiatives. There are several thoughtful chapters about actions in Germany which aim to build better, more sustainable housing and community infrastructures. These chapters show what green initiatives can look like when executed effectively. ...more

flag Like · see review

May 15, 2020 Montana Goodman rated it liked it · review of another edition

I felt like I took a journey through Heather Rogers’ writing career with this book! It was researched and written over several years and while it was originally published in 2010, much of what it presents is still relevant today. The first three parts of the book are dense and gave me the impression of a research paper you’d write in undergrad. At times tedious, with moments of personal touch, it is a great reference for organic food, biofuels, and green architecture. I initially wished that the ...more

flag Like · see review

Apr 23, 2019 Eurethius Péllitièr rated it really liked it

An important contribution to understanding the scale we are dealing with, with regards to climate change

flag Like · see review

Feb 17, 2021 Sarah rated it it was ok · review of another edition

There's some interesting stuff in here, but much of the information is outdated. ...more

flag Like · see review

Oct 19, 2013 Ramin rated it really liked it

This is an interesting book, and definitely worth reading. In each chapter of Green Gone Wrong, Heather Rogers documents the successes and failures of common attempts of "going green" (or greenwashing, as it turns out). There are chapters on organic and fair trade certifications, eco-architecture, biodiesel fuels, hybrid vehicles, and carbon offsets. In each case, many purported solutions to major environmental (and social) problems turn out to be very different than the proponents' claims. Roge ...more

flag Like · see review

Nov 13, 2012 LibraryCin rated it liked it

Shelves: economics, sustainability

3.5 stars

In this book, the author assumes that global warming is happening. What she is looking at, here, is some of the things we have been trying to do to mitigate global warming, so our intentions are good, but those things are being “twisted” in some way or just really aren't useful in doing what we want them to do, after all.

The book is divided into three sections: Food, Shelter and Transportation. Organic food standards are so watered down and small farmers (who we really think of as bein ...more

flag Like · see review

May 25, 2015 Ian James rated it liked it

A good investigation and analysis of some pretty catastrophic failures of the Green environmental revolution. It clearly points out how trying to modify "free market" forces towards less destructive practices fails, primarily because of weak regulation, overly reliant on for-profit 3rd-party certifiers, laws written by large corporations, and corruption of governments by corporate money and influence.
While it is unsettling to discover that the Paraguayan sugar I buy from Costco is exploitative ...more

flag Like · see review

Mar 16, 2015 Fleece added it

not as in depth as i'd like but still informative enough with the issues it chose and the examples illustrating them. written more than five years ago now though, it'll be interesting to research follow-up--

especially interesting considering that in my ceqa class carbon credits to offset emissions were a pretty big deal, and of course i didn't think they'd be that effective but they're put into a lot of analysis probably without checking the actually efficacy of the credits like this book does ...more

flag Like · see review

Jun 25, 2010 Ben rated it liked it

Interesting, and sobering look at the misuse of 'green'. The trigger for writing the book was great many folks think thought they could be green by simply consuming the right products instead of consuming LESS.

Example: increase in the demand for organic sugarcane = greater clear cutting of forest for sugar plantations. It's hard to say that it's the only reason, but it is easier to certify organic on a new field instead of an old one. ...more

flag Like · see review

Jul 30, 2010 Lori rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

Phew...took me a few months but I finally finished. The cynic in me is cheering that someone finally researched the questions I've always had about so called 'green' solutions. Of course, her investigations don't have to indicate how things are everywhere, but it certainly gives one pause. And makes me want to promise to never, ever, ever buy organic sugar or use biodiesal! Not a quick or easy read but incredibly interesting and one that I'm glad I read. ...more

flag Like · see review

May 12, 2010 Irina rated it really liked it

Excellent, lucid and well-researched analysis of the netherworld of "green capitalism" that's sprung up in the absence of an actual energy policy. It's a complicated story, but well worth the effort. Recommended for those who suspect it's not really that bad, as well as those who know it is (you don't know how bad). ...more

flag Like · see review

Mar 28, 2011 Chris rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favourites

Impressive journalism; fantastic analysis. Rogers elucidates how the failures of "green" or "natural" capitalism are the failings of capitalism itself, and that tinkering with a broken system won't save us. Instead, a change of heart, vision and course is necessary, and she highlights some positive examples in need of support, replication and understanding. ...more

flag Like · see review

Feb 15, 2013 Daniel Burton-Rose added it

Shelves: ecology, capitalism

This looks great!

flag Like · see review

Jan 16, 2015 Velvetink marked it as to-read

Shelves: environmental

tubel ebook

flag Like · see review

Jun 03, 2010 Linda rated it liked it

Shelves: wcpl-new-this-week, public-library

Very eye-opening book about the efforts to become green. Not exactly light reading, but feel I have a better understanding of this issue. Everything is not what it appears!

flag Like · see review

Feb 22, 2011 Jennifer rated it liked it

A hard read but important. I like the fact that she ends with actual solutions taking place in the world instead of just dwelling on the problems.

flag Like · see review

Marilia Reis rated it liked it
Nov 23, 2017

Knar rated it really liked it
Jan 03, 2019

Aubrey rated it really liked it
Sep 18, 2012

Angus Allen rated it really liked it
Dec 02, 2020

William Lawrence rated it did not like it
Apr 27, 2013

Paloma rated it it was amazing
Jun 21, 2018

Maddie Karcher rated it liked it
Nov 21, 2019

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend It | Stats | Recent Status Updates

Readers also enjoyed

See similar books…

Videos About This Book

Add a comment

Genres

Environment

27 users

Nonfiction

25 users

Economics

13 users

Environment > Sustainability

9 users

Politics

8 users

Science

4 users

Environment > Climate Change

3 users

Environment > Green

3 users

Biology > Ecology

2 users

Unfinished

2 users

See top shelves…

About Heather Rogers

Heather Rogers

5 followers

Heather Rogers is a journalist and author. She has written for the New York Times Magazine, Mother Jones, and The Nation. Her first book, Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage, traces the history and politics of household rubbish in the United States. The book received the Editor’s Choice distinction from the New York Times Book Review, and Non-Fiction Choice from the Guardian (UK). Her docume ...more