Chapter 1, A Teasing Irony Summary and Analysis

The Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken deals with the effects of industrialization on the environment. Hawken's takes the point of view that the environment is being destroyed by the economic system. The economic system and the processes of industrialization do not mimic the natural cyclical processes of nature, where the waste in one step becomes the food in another step. In this type of ecosystem, there is no waste; everything is recycled. What is waste in one stage is food in another stage. If industry had mimicked this kind of system there would be no problem with exhaustion of resources and damage to the environment. However, this isn't how industrialization works; instead, the process is linear. Industrial processes result in a great deal of waste, which does great damage to the environment. For example...