Green Paradox: The Trap of Energy-Efficient Solutions

Compact fluorescent light bulbs, hybrid cars, fast trains, Energy Star refrigerators: reducing our ecological footprint, it is said, requires the use of less energy-intensive technologies. Is this true? According to David Owen, this consumption, which we would like to call "responsible," is actually exacerbating the global environmental crisis.
Such is the paradox of rebound effects: every efficiency gain brought about by science and industry ultimately results in a multiplied overall energy consumption. Thus, air transport, less energy-intensive than before, has become accessible to everyone and has increased tenfold. The same goes for air conditioning, this luxury that has become ubiquitous. And increasingly economical lighting is gradually transforming darkness into a rare commodity.
Through a captivating journey to the forefront of "sustainable development," where engineers, inventors, urban planners, and economists are busy, the author humorously shows how the frantic search for efficiency deceives our best intentions, and why changing our consumption habits will not make capitalist growth more viable... unless perhaps we change the worst of these habits, which is the thirst for consumption itself.