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Morgan Castle
Professor Musselman
ENGW 1111 Honors
24 March 2015

Why What You Think Is Green Is

Actually Making Everything Infinitely Worse

David Owens The Conundrum gives a new take on modern societys push for green
living, scientific innovation, and increased efficiency by completely discrediting the entire
system we cling to. In this way, the book offers an opposing
view on the environmental issues that plague this generation.
Our current method of dealing with the overconsumption,
energy, and climate issues is to make the things we use
greener, more efficient, and less expensive. But Owen claims
that most product substitutions either are irrelevant or make
The Conundrum (cover)

the real problems worse. For example, in the very first chapter

of the book, Owen talks about an invention that makes correctional eyeglass lenses with nothing
but a small machine and a computer program, instead of a giant, energy-guzzling factory.
However, the new machine actually used up more energy because there had to be one in every
optometrists office, instead of having a few factories that ship to optometrists. This presents the
issue that even though something is more efficient than its predecessor, it might not be used as
efficiently. The real issue, as Owen presents it, is that creating more efficient and less expensive

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products encourages more consumers to use products and use them more often, which brings
further overconsumption.
Owen spends a good portion of the book demonstrating how increased efficiency usually
leads to increased consumption, canceling out any good done. In the second chapter of the book,
Fossil Fuels as Credit Card, Owen says, The environmental problem with such advances is
that the productivity gains have almost always been reinvested in additional production: as weve
gotten better at making things, weve made more things. One example of his theory describes
air travel, which Owen says accounts directly for something like 3.5 percent of global energy
use and manmade-greenhouse-gas production. As aircraft manufacturers created more efficient,
less expensive airplanes, it would make sense for emissions from airplanes to decrease.
However, the increased efficiency decreased cost, which made flight more accessible to more
people, making flight more common and frequent, subsequently increasing the total pollution.
Diminishing returns on efficiency improvements mean that efficiency gains will be smaller and
smaller and due to the laws of physics and flight, there are fewer and fewer ways to make the
current level of air travel produce less pollution in a significant way.
In a 2012 talk given at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Owen describes the
utopian environmentalist community that he and his wife lived in for seven years where
everyone lived in very small spaces and used very little energy because no one had cars, washing
machines, or dryers. This utopian society he talked about is actually New York City, Owens
model for the perfect sustainable society. One important utopian attribute of Manhattan is that
everything is close together. With smaller distances, consumption and costs related to travel
significantly decrease. Owen often mentions the idea of intelligent density, elaborating that
Intelligently increasing population density shortening the distance between people, and

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between people and their destinations is the key to reducing a long list of negative
environmental impacts in mobile, affluent populations. A more compact society reduces travel
emissions, which is the largest source of pollution and energy consumption in the United States.
Owens suggestions about increasing population density by using sound like very familiar
concepts to me as a university student going to school in a city. I live in a LEED Gold certified
building that houses 1,200 students. Each student takes up only about 200 ft2, uses shared
laundry machines, and can only own energy-friendly Micro Fridge (microwave + refrigerator)
combinations or only small refrigerators. Its believable and highly probable that this is a much
greener lifestyle than if every university student was living in a house with all the amenities a
dormitory building offers to his or herself. This lifestyle provides an excellent and much more
environmentally friendly alternative to suburban living.
Owens suggestions to move closer together and to use less space are definitely justified,
but its doubtful that modern-day Americans would take him up on his ideas. The problem comes
from a deep-seated ideal of living. There are generations that are used to the American dream of
having a little family in a suburban house with a white picket fence. The American mindset
today is centered on gaining material wealth, getting better, going bigger, and getting more. Very
few people today would trade in their cushy suburban home with all the bells and whistles, the
yard, and the rooms they barely step foot in for a much smaller apartment in a shared building in
a city.
What The Conundrum doesnt do is provide a fully developed solution for the issues
brought up. Owen hints at the idea of intelligent density, but doesnt really give a full
description of how to get people to implement such an ideal notion. He only describes how cities
like New York City, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and older European cities have significantly less

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consumption per person than suburban and rural areas do. What is his suggestion though? Make
the entire United States a cluster of huge, densely populated cities - creating barren wasteland in
between? Or make the entire United States a gigantic New York City, skyrocketing population
and subsequently consumption? Im sure these thoughts run through any persons head thats
reading this from their couch in their suburban home, trying to defend themselves by attempting
to find anything wrong with the idea. I myself was automatically repulsed by the idea of
everyone living tightly packed in a city (and I live in a city for most of the year). The problem
with his ideas isnt that they wont work, its that no one will want to implement them.
The real problem with Owens view of the worlds quickly deteriorating state is in his idea
of a solution. He discredits all of the solutions that are being used right now, but his own solution
is just as myopic as the solutions he throws under the bus. Owens idea of green living is
dependent on everyone being able to sacrifice their ideas of dream homes and neighborhoods.
Owen himself mentions that, despite having extensive knowledge of its environmental impact,
his family lives in a suburb and owns three cars. So, no matter what we objectively know, its
always easier to do whats convenient and comfortable. In a book review of The Conundrum on
Bloomberg.com, Michael Rosenwald says that Owen is right But he fails to answer the real
conundrum: how to reverse humanitys relentless pursuit of comfort. The issue isnt that we
dont have answers to our problems; its just that we dont like them.

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Acknowledgements
Id like to thank my friend Aiden Wolfe for helping me develop my idea for the book
review and for help editing. Id also like to thank Lilli Schtz and Justin Tran for their peer
reviews of my work. Finally, a special thank you goes to my First-Year Writing professor, Prof.
Musselman, for her input on my review.

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Works Cited
Owen, David. The Conundrum: How Scientific Innovation, Increased Efficiency, and Good
Intentions Can Make Our Energy and Climate Problems Worse. New York: Riverhead,
2012. Print.
Rosenwald, Michael. "Book Review: The Conundrum by David Owen." Rev. of The
Conundrum: How Scientific Innovation, Increased Efficiency, and Good Intentions Can
Make Our Energy and Climate Problems Worse, by David Owen. 2012. Bloomberg
Business. Bloomberg L.P., 9 Feb. 2012. Web. 18 Mar. 2015.