Corporate Power

by Matt DeNoto

According to economists, one ingredient crucial to a stable, capitalistic society is a strong set of property laws.  If consumers don’t feel confident that they own what they buy, they won’t bother buying at all.

This was somewhat interestingly demonstrated recently when Amazon started messing with its customers’ Kindle e-book readers without their knowledge or permission.  When a publisher decided to pull a couple of books off the virtual shelves (George Orwell’s Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, appropriately enough), Amazon deleted the books even from customers who had already bought them, refundin g the money that had been paid.

While this is clearly an example of a corporation overstepping its bounds, it does provide a somewhat stumbling segue into how the Green Revolution must make us re-evaluate the concept of what we ‘own.’  Just because we’re paying for the water that comes out of our kitchen faucet, that doesn’t make it okay to leave the faucet on all night, regardless of whether or not we can afford it.  We are, at best, renting or borrowing much from the Earth, and we will have to reorient our thinking to reflect that.

This goes double for large corporations, who seem to be in the habit of assuming they own pretty much everything except the waste that they dump into your backyard.  That’s your problem.

But even that may be changing.  Wal-Mart, that paragon of consumerism, has been making small but significant strides towards becoming a more responsible company, at least insofar as its carbon footprint is concerned.  It looks like it is getting ready to take a much bigger stride.  Starting soon, products on Wal-Mart’s shelves will begin appearing with ‘sustainability scores,’ which will take into account all parts of a product’s manufacturing, transportation, etc.  This will give customers more information on which to base their shopping decisions.  It’s a great, bold move, and we can only hope other retailers follow Wal-Mart’s lead.

See?  Corporate power can be used for good.

Thank you, Oprah

Well, well, well… the queen of all media is doing something right!

Apparently, she LOVES the Kindle. I have raved about it in the past and its benefits toward the environment. She seems to agree. She seems to agree so much that she is offering every single person in the world a way to get one $50 cheaper.

Please go to her website HERE and learn more about how you can get yours!

You can go to AMAZON to learn more about the Kindle.

where do books come from?

There is a very interesting article on PlanetSave about the number of trees it takes to make all the books that are published in a year… 30 MILLION TREES!!!

You can go here to read the article.

So this is what I want to say about this. I think it is better to reuse than to recycle. Don’t get me wrong, recycle, recycle, recycle. But know that when you recycle, the whole can or the whole paper or the whole book or the whole plastic cup is not getting 100% recycled. There is waste. And, each and every day, we are consuming more and more. This means that what we make from recycling is actually less than we currently use, so more must be made to account for what we will consume. Does this make sense? I’m sure it does… you’re all smart.

Reusing, however, re-uses 100% of that item. There is no waste biproduct, there is no additional resource usage, nothing more is added to this environment. So, Re-use is always better than re-cycle.

OK. There are exceptions. Don’t re-use plastic water bottles, too many toxins. But, you don’t even have to buy the plastic water bottle in the first place… buy a SIGG. And, don’t re-use the obvious, like prophylactics, or syringes… that’s not only bad, it’s disgusting… those you should recycle. I’m in a weird area right now and think it is best to move on.

So… some great ways to reduce your footprint when it comes to books:
BookCrossing, or buy a Kindle, or the good old fashion library, which is my reading method of choice!