50 Green Projects for the Evil Genius [Paperback]

Jamil Shariff (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 18, 2008 | ISBN-10: 0071549595 | ISBN-13: 978-0071549592 | Edition: 1

50 Ways to Be a Green Evil Genius!

Who knew being environmentally conscious would ever be considered evil? With 50 Green Projects for the Evil Genius, you'll have wicked fun while reducing your impact on the planet and saving money.

Using easy-to-find parts and tools, this do-it-yourself guide offers a wide variety of environmentally focused projects you can accomplish on your own. Topics covered include transportation, alternative fuels, solar, wind, and hydro power, home insulation, construction, and more. The projects in this unique guide range from easy to more complex and are designed to optimize your time and simplify your life!

50 Green Projects for the Evil Genius:

• Features step-by-step instructions for 50 environmentally friendly projects, complete with helpful illustrations
• Shows you how to design, build, and install your creations
• Allows you to customize each project for your purposes
• Removes the frustration factor-all required parts are listed, along with sources

50 Green Projects for the Evil Genius provides you with all the plans and schematics you need to:

• Dramatically improve the fuel efficiency of your car
• Insulate the windows in your home
• Build a worm compost bin
• Audit your appliances with an energy meter
• Build a water purifier
• Set up a rainwater collection system
• Create a solar water heater
• Construct a homopolar motor
• Assemble a solar module from PV cells
• Create a wind turbine
• Assemble your own weather-protected human-powered vehicle
• Convert your car to biodiesel
• Build a contained composite structure
• And more

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jamil Shariff is a consultant with the Boxfish Group, a sustainable innovations incubator working with governments, businesses and advocacy groups to create policies and implement changes that achieve an efficient, healthier and more sustainable environment.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill/TAB Electronics; 1 edition (December 18, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071549595
• ISBN-13: 978-0071549592
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #317,332 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jamil is a writer, educator, multidisciplinary freelancer and consultant. His passion is for environmental technology, especially the obscure but useful, like biogas digesters, sand-bag houses, or velomobiles. He has a first degree in politics, and received his Masters degree in energy and the environment in architecture.

Jamil has frequently written and delivered technology based courses to disseminate his experiences with new technologies. These include sucking up used grease from restaurants to fuel the car he converted to straight vegetable oil himself, and building parts of the fibre-glass weather protection on his own velomobile. Courses he has taught range from post graduate classes at the University of East London on Stirling heat engines, to private training sessions on biodiesel production for a Calgary based cooperative.

His publication credits include See and Velovision print magazines, as well as frequent contributions to a variety of popular environmental websites. Jamil has served on the board of directors of well-known environmental groups, like the the Sierra Club, and the lesser-known but likely even more relevant, such as the Toxics Watch Society. He has been involved with international groups whose aim is to transfer renewable energy know-how to some of the least developed parts of the world.

His consulting experience includes government infrastructure value contracts, and leading ethics awareness communications projects for non-profit groups. He has also spent periods ghosting corporate communications, drafting environmental impact studies, designing websites and building online communities. His insatiable curiosity and hunger for ever newer (or older) ideas for inventions are what drew McGraw-Hill Professional to commision his first book: 50 Green Projects for the Evil Genius.

Jamil currently works for a sustainable innovations incubator called the Boxfish Group and is based out of Ottawa, Canada.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating book!, October 8, 2009

By 

Adam Hunt - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 50 Green Projects for the Evil Genius (Paperback)

I recently read this book and can recommend it wholeheartedly as a great broad-based introduction for anyone interested in getting started on making their lives more sustainable. Some of the projects are quite easy, others are more complex, but there is something for everyone here. Perhaps best of all adults will find lots of rainy-day projects that can be done with their kids, just watch out because you will probably discover that your kids are far ahead of you in understanding the need to make human habitation of this planet last longer.

Overall the book is well written and easy to follow with a wealth of photographs. Even if you don't actually do any of the projects, just reading the book will expose you to a new philosophy of living, one that not only reduces waste, but will start you asking, "Instead of throwing that out, what can we make of it?"

It is all contemplative food for thought, in a straightforward "how-to" book that is a call to think and then act!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Love it., October 16, 2009

By 

Ron Rancourt - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 50 Green Projects for the Evil Genius (Paperback)

I really enjoyed reading this book. The projects are well organized, from simple to more complex, and the additional background info into the energy+environment topics really drills home the message. I consider myself pretty well versed in the DIY stuff but I learned a few things from the book. Worthwhile purchase!

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting But Not What I Was Looking For, August 10, 2010

By 

J. Young (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: 50 Green Projects for the Evil Genius (Paperback)

This book has a lot of experiments you can try to see how different green concepts work and some theory behind them. It really seemed more like a primer on getting your head around some ideas rather than building useful everyday green solutions.

For example, there are numerous examples on how to generate electricity but little in the way of how to store that energy or feed it back into the power grid, etc.