Paul Hawken believes that the impending ecological catastrophe cannot be prevented by individuals - only big business is powerful and influential enough to reverse the present trend. In this book he sets out to show the need for a new relationship between governments and businesses, believing that their present collusion against the public is undemocratic. Taxation must be entirely replanned (it encourages waste and rewards short-termism; prices must be brought to reflect true environmental costs (the free market is good for fixing prices, but poor when it comes to recognizing costs). All this can only be done by governments and the heads of large business.