Utne Reader Book Reviews: January-February 2009
January-February 2009
by Staff, Utne Reader
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Cover of the book Green Inc.
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Greedy Environmentalists
Green, Inc.: An Environmental Insider Reveals How a Good Cause Has Gone Bad
by Christine MacDonald (Lyons)
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The highly paid leaders of big environmental organizations are compromising themselves and the planet by cutting deals—as well as wining, dining, and scuba diving—with corporate executives whose firms pollute and plunder resources. That’s the rather damning case laid out in Green, Inc. by environmental journalist Christine MacDonald, who challenges green groups to wean themselves from these tainted corporate donations and relationships, which range from apparent conflicts of interest to out-and-out scandal.
As an environmentalist, MacDonald is acutely aware of the interconnectedness of all things, and she touches on a constellation of related issues: greenwashing, green certification, dicey political alliances, indigenous rights, out-of-control logging and mining, even human rights and slavery. Green, Inc. doesn’t contain enough fresh enterprise reporting to be deemed a full-blown exposé, but the book ties together enough data, anecdotes, and previously reported material to be taken seriously as a critique of the business of environmentalism.
MacDonald singles out three organizations for her harshest criticism: the Nature Conservancy, the World Wildlife Fund, and Conservation International, where she briefly worked and thus attained “insider” status. She also notes improprieties and ethical lapses at other groups, and to be fair widens the circle of accountability to include all consumers: “Demanding to know where the products we purchase came from and how they were made is maybe the most important thing we can do to press corporations to clean up their operations and supply chains.” —Keith Goetzman
Queering the Memoir
Intersex (For Lack of a Better Word)
by Thea Hillman (Manic D)
Thea Hillman’s charismatic, indefatigable Intersex is a rarity among memoirs: It doesn’t elicit a single eye-roll. That’s due in large part to Hillman’s crackling, spirited prose—worthy of a onetime slam poetry champ—which endears as she comes to accept and eventually embrace her intersex identity. All 150 pages, from the discovery of a “hormone imbalance” during childhood to a sequence she writes for the Vagina Monologues, are about being intersex. But the book is also, by turns, a romp through queer, artsy San Francisco; a flip through Hillman’s motley Rolodex of friends, lovers, and coconspirators; and an intimate portrait of how a self-possessed, passionate writer and activist came to be so. —Danielle Maestretti