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It looks as though I'm having trouble letting go of and moving away from the first unit of our course; I'm posting now to call your attention to "the age of ego-angst" (which many of us inhabit): 
Eco-angst among consumers may soon spread as information about products is increasing easy to get. GoodGuide.com, is a Web site (with its own iPhone application) that instantly compares any of 75,000 consumer products on their environmental, health, and social impacts. Another Web site, SkinDeep.com, analyzes every ingredient in personal care products to match them with findings from medical databases; it ranks, for example, more than a thousand shampoos on their likely levels of toxicity.
The blockbuster for ecological transparency was the announcement in July by Wal-Mart that they are developing a similar sustainability index with the help of an academic consortium. One day shoppers, it seems, will get ecological ratings of products along with price in Wal-Mart (and likely other major retailers as well) as they stroll the aisles.