Fran Hawthorne, author of The Overloaded Liberal, to read and sign
Water Street Bookstore and Climate Counts present Fran Hawthorne.
The Overloaded Liberal is for anyone struggling to live an eco-friendly life. Whose advice should we trust? What really is the bottom line?
We live in a society that is at once the most politically aware and the most consumer oriented in human history. Twenty-first-century shoppers don't just consume; we investigate and categorize the impact of our decisions on climate change, animals, our health, our political views, geopolitical relationships, working conditions, and more. Yet when we actually try to live according to our principles, it can be so overwhelming, contradictory, and demanding that we want to scream. Every step, every dollar, every swipe of a paper towel has become a decision that can make the world a better--or worse--place.
Take one daily dilemma: what jacket should I buy? If it was made in El Salvador, China, or Vietnam, was it sewn by workers in a sweatshop at near-starvation wages, forced to labor twenty-hour days in dangerous conditions? Are those jobs actually considered desirable in those countries? Can I even find a jacket made in the United States? If I do, should I insist on union-made? But what if that's more expensive? And what fabric is it made of? Does it contain animal skins? Is the cotton organic? What kind of dyes were used? Does it have fair-trade certification? Oh, and by the way: does it look good on me?
Veteran journalist and levelheaded mom Fran Hawthorne sets out to answer these questions--and spark more. En route, she interviews activists and ordinary consumers alike, including officials from PETA, the AFL-CIO, the Sierra Club, an organization of "EcoMoms," and the rabbinical group that has redefined kosher. She learns from ethicists, psychologists, Wall Street analysts, child-rearing experts, and policy wonks, while examining everything from Barack Obama's union-made inaugural ball tuxedo to the conundrum of how electric cars might obtain their electricity. And she delves into socially responsible investing at a moment when the wheels have come off the economy. Her odyssey will be all-too familiar and often funny for consumers who have thrown up their hands and wondered, "What's a good liberal to do?"
FRAN HAWTHORNE is Senior Contributing Editor of Institutional Investor and has connections deep within the business and finance communities. Hawthorne has been covering health care and business for more than twenty years for "Fortune" and she now writes regularly for the "New York Times" and "Self." She is the author of The Merck Druggernaut and Inside the FDA: The Business and Politics Behind the Drugs We Take and the Food We Eat.
Climate Counts is an internationally focused, New Hampshire-based non-profit organization working to bring consumers and companies together in the fight against global climate change.
They score the world's largest companies on their climate impact to spur corporate climate responsibility and conscious consumption. Their goal is to motivate deeper awareness among consumers — that the issue of climate change demands our attention, and that we have the power to support companies that take climate change seriously and avoid those that don't.
Visit their website at www.climatecounts.org for more information and to see how companies you support score.
- Street:
- Water Street Bookstore
- Additional:
- 125 Water Street
- City:
- Exeter ,
- Province:
- New Hampshire
- Postal Code:
- 03833
- Country:
- United States
