Product Description

Climate change is currently presented by campaign groups and scientists as an impossibly daunting threat. On the face of it, it would seem we must make impossible sacrifices if we want to do our bit for the environment and lead more sustainable, less damaging lives. This book shows that isn't the case at all. It brings together household names who share a conviction that, on the contrary, living well needn't cost the earth - and will tell you why and how. Their collective vision, covering areas from architecture and politics to food and happiness, will completely reframe the way you think about climate change and what you're willing to do about it.Far from the usual doom and gloom, many here argue that climate change presents a once-in-a-century opportunity to address a whole basket of problems with energy and imagination. If we get things right, instead of an environmental apocalypse we could end up in a win-win situation - with both more satisfying lives and robust answers to these pressing, seemingly unsurmountable, problems.Contributions include: Phillip Pullman, A. C. Grayling, Oliver James and John Bird on love, happiness and telling tales Kevin McCloud, Nic Marks, Stephen Bayley and Wayne Hemingway on good design. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Colin Tudge and Rosie Boycott on good and sustainable food. David Cameron and Caroline Lucas on the politics of the good life. Tom Hodgkinson, David Boyle and David Goldblatt on having a good time. Anita Roddick, Adair Turner, Ann Pettifor and Larry Elliott on good business and work.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24304 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-24
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 277 pages

Review
"* 'An eloquent and persuasive account of modern corporate greed, and how and why we should resist it... should make all but the Gordon Geckos of this world determined to do something about it.' - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall * 'Terrific... no one can read this book and ever think of supermarkets as benign and life enhancing again.' - Rosie Boycott * 'Simms shows the creeping, invading unsustainable world of the supershop, its tentacles strangling the life out of our communities. Read it.' - John Bird, founder of The Big Issue"

The Idler, 27th January, 2008
an inspiring anthology

Anna Shepherd, The Times, 2nd February, 2008
one to perk you up

Customer Reviews

Disappointing
I found the book rather parochial, limited in scope, and a bit too middle-class or Sunday supplement resembling in its content. One for rapid recycling to the shelves of Oxfam I'm afraid.

a plea for downshifting, in our and in the planet's interest
This book argues that what doesn't work for human happiness and wellbeing doesn't work well for the planet. Good lives should not, indeed ought not to be allowed to cost the earth. The argument, delivered trough a fractured prism of more than 20 (British) voices, unfolds at two levels.

First there is the growing body of science that shows how increasing levels of affluence do not translate automatically into a greater sense of wellbeing. Above a certain, fairly modest level of material and financial security, intangibles such as family relationships, meaningful work and health become much more important predictors of happiness than income. However, our selfishly capitalist society works hard to keep us onto the "hedonic treadmill" and make us forget these essentials.

The environmental agenda puts the discussion on a moral plane. Climate change is forcefully telling us something that we've known for a couple of decades: we have been overconsuming our natural resource base and as a result we have burdened ourselves with a potentially disastrous ecological debt. This is a moral issue as the downside consequences of our gluttony not only affect us but also the billions in less developed countries and those unhappy generations inheriting the planet.

This book argues that this crisis can only be successfully tackled by taking the sting out of the consumerist virus. We have to jump of the threadmill, get thriftier and do more with less. That much is clear. But a set of questions emerges upon which authors in this book formulate different answers.

One question has to do with the level - personal or policy - from which this transformation needs to be driven. Quite a few authors think it is really up to us, individual citizen-consumers: by changing the way we live, we influence the larger world around us. We shouldn't wait for a post-Kyoto climate pact to come about (if it ever does), we just need to take the first step by honestly asking ourselves: "what is a good life for me and what does it have to cost?" Deep down we know the answer to that question. We know we don't need all the "stuff". We know we should be courageous enough to wrest control over our own lives from the advertisement industry, the car industry, big retail, financial services. These contributors try to convince us of the fact that this isn't as hard as it seems: first focus on slight changes, then gradually start to rediscover the sophistication in simplicity and the joy of intangibles.

This book sheds little light on the role of macro-level policies in this transformation. Yes, we need new indicators to measure our progress towards realistic, sustainable goals. The intellectual monoculture of GDP needs to be enriched with other, more nuanced parameters that reflect how we manage our environmental resources and how happy we are. But the discussion is very thin and patchy on the complex governance issues surrounding these macro-societal transformations: what novel institutions and risk and burden sharing mechanisms do we need? How do micro-scale processes link into changes involving more expansive socio-technical systems? The book doesn't deal with these issues. It is a missed opportunity as it seems to me that there is an emerging body of knowledge (labelled as transition management, transdisciplinarity and action learning) that could provide significant impetus to this discussion.

A second question that emerges from these pages has to do with the spirit with which this whole process of downshifting is going to be imbued. Designer Kevin McCloud (his contribution is one of the highlights of this book) tackles the issue head-on when he says: "For me the great danger is that we pursue the quick fix. If we're not careful we'll go down this terrible, utilitarian, shaker route where we all end up being dour ethically-shrunken miserabilists." Indeed, there is a grave risk is that this whole undertaking - necessary as it may be - turns into some nightmarish, eco-fascistoid fantasy. The stakes are indeed high. Irreversible climate change is upon us. According to some of the authors, we have only a decade to steer the juggernaut on a fundamentally different course. Although several authors stress the enabling, joyful nature of the necessary adjustment to new realities, there are sterner and more alarmist voices in this book. They unwittingly send shivers down our spine: what will happen if peer pressure, what if the slow and compromising policy machinery and feedback signals from nature are unable to generate enough momentum in downshifting the populations of industrial nations? That's another question that is not answered, only hinted at in this book.

Hmmmm???
This book had some good and worthwhile points but was also painfully middle-class in regards to the scope of its outlook and addressing the full scale of our environmental problems. What do I mean by this? Well, while it's all well and good to consider sustainable forms of energy, hybrid forms of non-Co2 producing vehicles and cutting ones carbon footprint by not holidaying abroad, the contributors to this book tend to forget that all of this takes money!!! (Something which few themselves appear to lack). While this is fine for the sort of individual or family who formally did the weekly shop at M&S... Tunisian grapes individually placed in a plastic box on top of bubble wrap, how nice... there is little consideration for the significant percentage of the populous for whom such things as a holiday abroad or 'organically reared' chicken are a luxury.
Don't get me wrong, any form of encouragement to be more conscientious in regards to how we collectively, and as individuals, effect the environment is undoubtedly a good thing but to affect any real change the solutions would have to be far more dramatic than any offered here... a significant change in industrial legislation and a government environmental policy that offers realistic alternatives might be an idea, as opposed to making us all feel bad for our "carbon footprints".
'Good Lives...' is a nice book to put on your bespoke Danish wall units or to read on your fortnights sojourn in Tuscany, but apart from that it's just more middle-class guilt tripping to worry you into buying more things you'll probably never need.