title: The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices: Practical Advice from The Union of Concerned Scientists
author:  Michael Brower 
description: Paper or plastic? Cloth or disposable? Regular or organic? Every day, environmentally conscious consumers are faced with the overwhelming catch-22 of a capitalist society--reconciling the harm we do by consuming, while still providing ourselves and our families with the goods and services we need. It's enough to make a city dweller crazy. Fret no more! The Union of Concerned Scientists has put together a well-researched and eminently practical guide to the decisions that matter. The authors hope that the book will help you set priorities, stop worrying about insignificant things, and understand the real environmental impacts of household decisions. For instance, you may be surprised to learn that buying and eating meat and poultry is much more harmful to the environment than the packaging the meat is wrapped in, even if it's Styrofoam. This guide takes on both sides of the consumer-impact argument, goring sacred cows of the environmentalist movement (like the strident emphasis on recycling) and the industrialist perspective (like the relentless message to buy more, more, more). If you're confused and overwhelmed by all the environmental decision-making in the modern world, you'll find new inspiration in this book. <i>--Therese Littleton</i>
zlib_text: Science for Sustainable Societies
  
  Editor-in-Chief
  
  Kazuhiko Takeuchi
  
  Institute for Future Initiatives, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
  
  **Series Editorial Board**
  
  **Editor in Chief**
  
  Kazuhiko Takeuchi, Ph.D., Director and Project Professor, Integrated Research
  System for Sustainability Science (IR3S), Institutes for Advanced Study
  (UTIAS), The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
  
  President, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), Kanagawa,
  Japan
  
  **Series Adviser**
  
  Joanne M. Kauffman, Ph.D., Co-editor in Chief, _Handbook of Sustainable
  Engineering_ , Springer, 2013
  
  **Scientific Advisory Committee**
  
  Sir Partha Dasgupta, Ph.D., Frank Ramsey Professor Emeritus of Economics,
  University of Cambridge, UK; Volvo Environment Prize, 2002; Blue Planet Prize,
  2015
  
  Hiroshi Komiyama, Ph.D., Chairman, Mitsubishi Research Institute, Japan;
  President Emeritus, The University of Tokyo, Japan
  
  Sander Van der Leeuw, Ph.D., Foundation Professor, School of Human Evolution
  a