The conundrum : how scientific innovation, increased efficiency, and good intentions can make our energy and climate problems worse / David Owen.

Includes bibliographical references.

The conundrum -- Setting things on fire -- Fossil fuels as credit card -- Leed-certified landfill -- Problems innovate, too -- The greenest community in the United States -- Learning from Manhattan -- Unconsciously green -- Sierra Club or Manhattan Club? -- Sierra Club or A.A.R.P -- Why oil is worse than coal -- Let them eat kale? -- Traffic congestion is not an environmental problem -- Transit that's bad for the environment -- Fast trains and the prius fallacy -- Increased efficiency is not the answer -- William Stanley Jevons -- The coal question -- How increasing efficiency causes overall energy consumption to rise -- Rebound creep -- The importance of less -- What would a truly green car look like? -- Plentiful, inexpensive natural gas is not an environmental solution -- Cheap, efficient lighting is not an environmental solution -- Using water more efficiently will not solve the world's steadily worsening water problems -- Burning trash is not the answer -- When solar power isn't green -- Green or not green? -- Flying a kite -- Harnessing wind without windmills? -- The discouraging economics of innovation -- Getting from lab to grid -- Retrograde innovation -- The conundrum.

Argues that our best intentions are still at cross-purposes to our true goal: living sustainably while caring for our environment and the future of the planet.