Green Living, Guides to living Green, Green Comsumption
The perfect guide to help readers decide how to best spend their time and money to protect the environment, Green, Greener, Greenest offers flexible tips for everyday living, all categorized as "green," "greener," and "greenest." Cutting through the labeling and the hype, it helps readers choose the advice that fits their schedule, their budget, and their interests, with the understanding that there's never one "right way" to make a difference. This indispensable resource will grow with readers-whether a novice in green living or a veteran environmentalist-as their interests and needs change over time.
This is a useful and up-to-date compendium of the best resources for the eco- conscious. It will save you time in your quest for personal responsibility--time that can be spent in the greenest of all ways, by joining the political battle for sweeping, society-wide change.
Protecting our environment is one of the biggest issues facing our planet today. But how do we solve a problem that can seem overwhelming-even hopeless? As Diane MacEachern argues in Big Green Purse, the best way to fight the industries that pollute the planet, thereby changing the marketplace forever, is to mobilize the most powerful consumer force in the world-women.
MacEachern's message is simple but revolutionary. If women harness the "power of their purse" and intentionally shift their spending money to commodities that have the greatest environmental benefit, they can create a cleaner, greener world. Spirited and informative, this book:
- - targets twenty commodities-cars, cosmetics, coffee, food, paper products, appliances, cleansers, and more-where women's dollars can make a dramatic difference;
- - provides easy-to-follow guidelines and lists so women can choose the greenest option regardless of what they're buying, along with recommended companies they should support;
- - encourages women to spend wisely by explaining what's worth the premium price some green products cost, what's not, and when they shouldn't spend money at all; and
- - differentiates between products that are actually "green" and those that are simply marketed as "ecofriendly."
A committed environmentalist for more than thirty years, Ed Begley, Jr., has always tried to “live simply so others may simply live.” Now, as more and more of us are looking for ways to reduce our impact on the planet and live a better, greener life, Ed shares his experiences on what works, what doesn't–and what will save you money!
These are tips for environmentally friendly living that anyone–whether you own or rent, live in a private home or a condo–can try to make a positive change for the environment. From quick fixes to bigger commitments and long-term strategies, Ed will help you make changes in every part of your life.
And if you think living green has to mean compromising on aesthetics or comfort, fear not; Ed's wife, Rachelle, insists on style–with a conscience. In Living Like Ed, his environmentalism and her design savvy combine to create a guide to going green that keeps the chic in eco-chic.
From recycling more materials than you ever thought possible to composting without raising a stink to buying an electric car, Living Like Ed is packed with ideas–from obvious to ingenious–that will help you live green, live responsibly, live well. Like Ed.
As interest in living a sustainable life has exploded, so has the green marketplace. It has become difficult to distinguish companies that provide truly eco-friendly products and services from those that "greenwash." Now, from the company that founded Organic Gardening when eating close to the land was far from mainstream and published Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, comes this timely guide to all things green. Modeled on the classic Whole Earth Catalog, the touchstone for an earlier generation, Whole Green Earth Catalog is poised to become the bible of green living for the 68 million Americans—about one-third of U.S. adults—who now take environmental and social issues into account when they make purchases. Leading experts in every imaginable category—from home furnishings and appliances to clothing and children's toys, from pets and beauty products to travel and investing—share their authoritative tips, reviews, and advice. Whole Green Earth Catalog provides succinct answers to such questions as: Can one go green and save money? Can people reduce their carbon footprint if they are business travelers? Is there an environmentally friendly disposable diaper? Beautifully packaged with more than 1,000 photographs and illustrations, and manufactured with 100 percent post-consumer waste materials, this volume is the perfect gift for those who care about the future of the planet.
Over 85% of Americans today express concern about health and the environment, but only a small fraction say they know where to begin. Whether you are concerned about climate change, personal health, or just want to live more lightly on the planet, this book is for you. It helps you get past the worry and take positive action to improve both your health and the health of our environment. Based on a lifetime of research and practice, this practical guide for living green offers advice and solutions you can easily put into practice, like: *The 10 foods you should always eat organic to avoid pesticides, herbicides, hormones and antibiotics. *Affordable and practical ways to offset your "carbon footprint" and neutralize your personal impact on global warming. *The most chemically-intensive personal care, household cleaning and lawn care products, and their effective natural alternatives. *How soft plastic water bottles hurt your health, your pocket book and our environment, with a simple and refreshing alternative. *How a simple carbon filter can dramatically improve your everyday health and potentially add years to your life. *The truth about hybrids and flex fuels. *Why an organic mattress is the most important health investment you can make. Foreword by Jordan Rubin, New York Times best-selling author of The Maker's Diet.
A thorough yet accessible manual on green living. Sivertsen and her teenage son draw on scientific findings, personal experience, and interviews with celebrities and teens to provide readers with environmentally responsible lifestyle alternatives, from organic cosmetics to natural kitchen cleaners to green career opportunities. The "Five Rs"—Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rethink, Refuse—provide a framework for embracing an alternative to rampant consumerism. The book's incisive voice, using teen idioms, is accessible to those who have little or no background in environmental issues, yet the standards within will likewise engage readers already committed to being green. Though there is no index and the many pop-culture references may hinder the work's longevity, this volume will appeal to the target audience. Chapters are broken into frequent, user-friendly subheadings, and special interviews—many with energetic, activist teens—are clearly designated; decorative illustrations complement the text. Listings of green Web sites, charities, and organizations are included. In addition to being a handy, information-rich companion to Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth (Viking, 2007) and Laurie David and Cambria Gordon's The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming (Scholastic, 2007), Generation Green is also unique, for its central focus is not to explain the science behind current environmental challenges, but rather to reveal how young people can work to solve those problems in their everyday lives.
Why is there so much garbage, and where does it go? A Time magazine Hero of the Environment, Leonard has traveled the world tracking trash and its wake of destruction. Her investigations convinced her that the impossible dream of perpetual economic growth and the rampant consumer culture it engenders are the root causes of today’s environmental crises. A rigorous thinker in command of a phenomenal amount of information, Leonard believes that we must calculate the full ecological and social cost of our “stuff.” So she takes us through the extraction of natural resources and the production, distribution, consumption, and disposal of various products, documenting ecohazards and the exploitation of workers along the way. Drawing on her extensive research, gutsy fieldwork, and efforts to live “green,” Leonard condemns the endless barrage of advertisements, the plague of toxic synthetic chemicals, and such covertly deleterious inventions as the aluminum can. Not one to tout simple approaches to complex predicaments, Leonard instead offers hard facts, diligent analysis, and an ambitious vision in this comprehensive critique, calling for strict environmental laws, an end to overconsumption, zero waste, and a new social paradigm based on quality of life, not quantity of stuff.
Atlantic correspondent Shell (The Hungry Gene) tackles more than just discount culture in this wide-ranging book that argues that the American drive toward bargain-hunting and low-price goods has a hidden cost in lower wages for workers and reduced quality of goods for consumers. After a dry examination of the history of the American retail industry, the author examines the current industrial and political forces shaping how and what we buy. In the book's most involving passages, Shell deftly analyzes the psychology of pricing and demonstrates how retailers manipulate subconscious bargain triggers that affect even the most knowing consumers. The author urges shoppers to consider spending more and buying locally, but acknowledges the inevitability of globalization and the continuation of trends toward efficient, cost-effective production. The optimistic call to action that concludes the book feels hollow, given the evidence that precedes it. If Shell illuminates with sharp intelligence and a colloquial style the downside of buying Chinese garlic or farm-raised shrimp, nothing demonstrates how consumers, on a mass scale, could seek out an alternative or why they would choose to do so.
Comforting terms such as "sustainable development" and "green production" frame environmental debate by stressing technology (not green enough), economic growth (not enough in the right places), and population (too large). Concern about consumption emerges, if at all, in benign ways—as calls for green purchasing or more recycling, or for small changes in production processes. Many academics, policymakers, and journalists, in fact, accept the economists' view of consumption as nothing less than the purpose of the economy. Yet many people have a troubled, intuitive understanding that tinkering at the margins of production and purchasing will not put society on an ecologically and socially sustainable path.
Confronting Consumption places consumption at the center of debate by conceptualizing "the consumption problem" and documenting diverse efforts to confront it. In Part 1, the book frames consumption as a problem of political and ecological economy, emphasizing core concepts of individualization and commoditization. Part 2 develops the idea of distancing and examines transnational chains of consumption in the context of economic globalization. Part 3 describes citizen action through local currencies, home power, voluntary simplicity, "ad-busting," and product certification. Together, the chapters propose "cautious consuming" and "better producing" as an activist and policy response to environmental problems. The book concludes that confronting consumption must become a driving focus of contemporary environmental scholarship and activism.
Americans produce the most waste of any people on Earth, says Rogers, but few of us ever think about where all that trash goes. Rogers endeavors to show the inner workings of the waste stream, from the garbage truck to the landfill, incinerator or parts unknown. She points out that recycling, once touted as an environmental lifesaver, "has serious flaws," and has done little to mitigate garbage's long history of environmental damage. Rogers also includes chapters on the history of waste removal and disposal, highlighting early sanitation efforts in New York City, as well as the multi-billion-dollar, multinational business of garbage. Consistently engaging, the book delineates the myriad problems caused by the country's waste output, but offers very few concrete examples of what readers can do to improve the garbage situation; instead, Rogers stoically acknowledges that "while consumers making choices with the environment in mind is a good thing, it is in no way a real solution to our trash woes." Nevertheless, the book is an intriguing look into an often misunderstood and overlooked industry.
In Gone Tomorrow (2005), Rogers detailed everything that is wrong about wasteful packaging and choked landfills. Here she exposes how the “green” movement is failing to live up to the promise of sustainability and stewardship of the environment when the solutions are hijacked by economic and political interests. Industrial organic farms now resemble the conventional farms they were meant to replace; biofuels such as ethanol and palm oil raise food prices and replace precious rain forests, displacing indigenous peoples and creating more greenhouse gases than they save; carbon dioxide–offsetting projects are mismanaged into failure. Yet, despite the title, Rogers found solutions that do work, such as truly organic farming methods, cutting-edge green architecture in Germany and the UK, and plug-in hybrid vehicles. Yet our corporate and political leaders continue to incentivize what poses the least challenge to established power structures, leaving out those such as the dedicated, truly organic farmers, who can barely make ends meet. Once again Rogers’ clear-headed approach proves effective in uncovering the truths behind the mantle of greenwashing.
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