Customer Reviews

Ed Begley, Jr.'s Guide to Sustainable Living: Learning to Conserve Resources and Manage an Eco-Conscious Life

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I bought Ed Begley's Guide to Sustainable Living because I wanted the latest information on conserving, managing and producing energy and didn't want to read more than one book on the subject. Begley's book is a great way to get up to speed, and he presents a ton of information very clearly.

The book is comprehensive, yet easy to understand. The only section that could have been more comprehensive was on decorating the home, but Begley does covers the biggest basics.

In his introduction, he writes: "For this book, I've tried to take a front-end thinker approach to going green. If you make the right decisions and do things in the proper order, you can put money in your pocket, reduce waste and pollution in the city where you live, reduce our overall dependency on Mideast oil, and lead a healthier and more toxic-free life."

The first section is on conservation and doing a green home energy audit. He explains the different types of audits available. The section reviews in fine detail the different kinds of lighting, insulation, windows and doors to save money by conserving energy.

The next section is on producing--as in solar, wind building and remodeling. In building and remodeling, he discusses the importance of indoor air quality, size of building and what materials to use.

There is a chapter on gardening and composting that includes gray water irrigation. I do think he went a bit overboard when he recommends not buying annuals because they have sallow roots and need too much water. Watering a few pots of annuals will make no difference in the big picture.

The next section is on managing home--heating, including geothermal and wood burning, cooling and heating water.

He has a section on decorating and cleaning. He limits the discussion of decorating to flooring, countertops, cabinets and paint. The cleaning including his own line of cleaning products.

The next chapter is covered outfitting a nursery for babies.

The resources at the end of the book were very good.

So, if you are into embracing a green lifestyle, I highly recommend this book.

Author of Harmonious Environment: Beautify, Detoxify & Energize Your Life, Your Home & Your Planet.

Good for a high level overview, but the implementations are $$$

While this book is very good at informing people of some of the options I found most to be of higher cost than most could afford. Some of the things like rain water harvesting are simple and low cost to put into practice but many of the others such as the gray water recycle system are very expensive,

Over all if you are looking for an introduction this is a good place to start.

Ed Begley, Jr. has been living green for years, long before most people deemed green living to be an environmentally-conscious lifestyle. His "Guide to Sustainable Living" is more recent than his previous book, Living LIke Ed, with up to date ideas on how to improve energy efficiency, recycle, reuse, and make your lifestyle greener overall. This book is more of a green living guide than his previous installment, although I miss the amusing sidebars contributed by his wife Rachelle in "Living Like Ed." Bottom Line: This book is a good read and well worth your time. If you implement even a small fraction of what Ed Begley does in this book, you will live noticeably greener and probably save some money as well as your usage of energy, water, and other items is reduced.

Steve Stillwater
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steve@livinggreenandsavingenergy.com

I read through this book in about a week. It was easy to read and gave me a lot of useful information to follow. I am new at being green but found I had already adopted several ideas he mentioned and gave me a few more that I immediately put into practice. I will admit that some of the things he talked about were a little over my head, however, he provided enough links and other sites to follow that helped piece things together and provided much more information than there was room for in this book. Great job Ed.

The same filter that Ed recommends that will cost you big bucks 35 for the kitchen counter replacement and 190 for the system from life-source. In contrast you can get nearly the same system at lowes (or online)for 65 and order the exact same filter (which is what actually does the job) here on amazon for 9.99. I am very disappointed that it seams that he has endorsed something that is a resale scam and will keep people from making the healthy change because it is unaffordable. If people were told instead that they could get these filters (Greenblock fxcl2) in this size and others and they could do it for far less money and make their water just as safe as by life source now that would be something worthy of praise.

Excellent read. Everyone can learn a thing or two about conservation even if you don't go to the extreme that Ed Begley Jr. does. Everyone should read this book.