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Title: The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet One Simple Step at a Time
ISBN: 0307381358
Author:
Elizabeth Rogers
Thomas M. Kostigen
Publicate Date: 2007-06-19
Publish: 2007-06-19
List Price: $12.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $6.82
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $6.50
Amazon Merchant Price: $10.36
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Good for the environment, bad for your wallet
Great premise. Easy to read. Divided into chapters such as health and beauty, home, etc. Great practical tips on how to help the environment. However, some of the tips won't help your wallet. ie. get voicemail instead of an answering machine. Voicemail is about $20 a month so $240/year while an answering machine is $60 one time purchase.
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2: the green book
This is a great book for the everyday person trying to do their part is saving the planet. The small things seem so easy, I wondered why I hadn't been doing it all along. Also some unique ideas for around your home.
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3: Not bad, resources are most useful part
The green book has been featured on TV shows and is a New York Times bestseller. Written by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas M. Kostigen, I wondered whether it has anything to do with the celebrity quotes and endorsements from people such as Cameron Diaz, Robert Redford, Jennifer Aniston and Justin Timberlake?
Firstly the book is green, not just in colour but also it's printed on 100% recycled paper. Subtitled as `the everyday guide to saving the planet one simple step at a time' the book is more about being "more good" than "less bad" with a series of nicely structured tips.
Each chapter begins with The Big Picture on the topic, whether it be travel, school or shopping for example. Followed by Simple Steps which provides three practical steps to take in that particular area. Then finally The Little Things provides more details and small steps that can be taken.
Chapters are broken up by the aforementioned celebrity quotes, which frankly don't add much to the besides to show how big and clever these people are. Some of the tips can be a little confusing or contradictory, such as suggesting you take your own toiletries on vacation, but then not to check any luggage on the plane. Then also to use the library for books and then saying not to use libraries but go online. OK so these are minor points, but some tips are a little picky, I enjoyd the book more when it concentrated on practical measures rather than small, inconvenient suggestions that don't make much of an impact when done.
What is kind of nice is the comparison it makes for each tip. For example when suggesting if everyone used one less paper napkin a day, the amount saved could be used to provide one to every person who eats a hotdog on July 4th (150m). Or the amount of trash saved is equivalent to the weight of the Great Pyramid. I've never seen a plastic frisbee 2.5 miles in diameter but thanks for the image.
The Simple Steps sections are useful, but not full of that much you can't get for free online anyway, including our very own 100 Ways To Save The Planet. There were some useful facts that you can bring up at parties, like Blu-Ray discs can be recycled as they're 50% paper, natural make-up only needs to contain 1% natural ingredients to be labeled as natural, and the world's largest consumer of aluminum is the anti-perspirant industry.
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4: The best advice in this book is to not buy this book
I agree 100% with all the 1-2 star reviews. This book is bogus. There is more
clear, practical advice in these reviews than contained in this book.
One of my complaints about this book that wasn't covered yet is the erroneous
and misleading attempts to use crude oil to help the reader visualize the impact
of his or her efforts.
For example, the authors suggest that you purchase retreaded tires for your
car. They claim that if the demand for retreads increased by 10%, "the total oil
savings per year would be about 290 million gallons." The authors take a lot of
liberties with using oil as an analogy to represent energy consumption. In
this case though, they seem clear that its the conservation of "1/3 the petroleum
resources" that the retreads yield over new tires which they are contributing to
the 290 mil. gal.
I don't disagree with these statements. It very well may be the case that it
takes 290 million gallons of oil to produce enough petrochemicals to manufacture
that synthetic rubber. What the reader should really understand is that along
with some new tires , those barrels of oil also would have produced:
149 million gal. of gas
44 million gal. of diesel fuel
35 million gal. of jet fuel
...as well as 55 million gallons of dozens of other products like, candle wax,
lubricating oils, propane, kerosene, asphalt, etc. In fact, only about 4
million gallons, by volume, of that 290 million gal. of oil directly contributed
to the raw material of the tires.
If we depended on oil simply for the rubber, it would be trivial
to find ways to use less rubber. We use the rubber because its
basically a free byproduct of our unquenchable thirst for the gas, diesel, and
jet fuels.
Oil is first and foremost a fuel source. The rubber and plastic that this book
advises you to conserve should really be measured only on the real benefits of
conservation, which are the reduction of landfilled waste and litter.
The authors recommend that you not buy books, or borrow books from the library.
I think you should take their advice for this one.
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5: Simple and to the point
This was my very first "green" purchase. I love it, it has changed my life. I was not even aware of being environmently friendly and when I became aware I was a little overwhelmed at all the things I could do to make a change. This book was a perfect start, tons of information.
I am now aware!
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