The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet One Simple Step at a Time [Paperback]

Elizabeth Rogers (Author), Thomas M. Kostigen (Author), Cameron Diaz (Foreword), William McDonough (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 19, 2007

Ellen DeGeneres, Robert Redford, Will Ferrell, Jennifer Aniston, Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, Martha Stewart, Tyra Banks, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Tiki Barber, Owen Wilson, and Justin Timberlake tell you how they make a difference to the environment.

Inside The Green Book, find out how you can too:

- Don’t ask for ATM receipts. If everyone in the United States refused their receipts, it would save a roll of paper more than two billion feet long, or enough to circle the equator fifteen times!

- Turn off the tap while you brush your teeth. You’ll conserve up to five gallons of water per day. Throughout the entire United States, the daily savings could add up to more water than is consumed every day in all of New York City.

- Get a voice-mail service for your home phone. If all answering machines in U.S. homes were replaced by voice-mail services, the annual energy savings would total nearly two billion kilowatt hours. The resulting reduction in air pollution would be equivalent to removing 250,000 cars from the road for a year!

With wit and authority, authors Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas Kostigen provide hundreds of solutions for all areas of your life, pinpointing the smallest changes that have the biggest impact on the health of our precious planet.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Environmental matters get the star treatment in The Green Book. Rogers and Kostigen address the fact that Americans endanger the balance of the ecosystem by the amount of waste we produce, the amount of water we use, and the amount of energy we consume, and celebrities, including Robert Redford, Ellen DeGeneres, Jennifer Aniston, Faith Hill, and Dale Earnhardt Jr., contribute observations and suggestions for living green. In the hope that the glamour of the A-list will make discussion of environmental challenges more palpable, Rogers and Kostigen establish 12 aspects of our habitat, such as home, work, and school, and suggest better lifestyle choices in each arena. Small adjustments in the way we consume and dispose of resources add up to significant and positive environmental effects. Illustrating the results of green actions with descriptive rather than numerical analyses, Rogers and Kostigen write, for example, that if everyone in the U.S. used one less paper napkin per day, in a year's time we would have saved one billion pounds of landfill waste. An outstanding resource, The Green Book offers hope and practical suggestions. Crossland, Pamela

Product Details

• Paperback: 201 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press (June 19, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307381358
• ISBN-13: 978-0307381354
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.5 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (67 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #207,298 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #97 in Books > Science & Math > Environment > Environmentalism

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

94 of 106 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Buying Unwrapped Candy Will Not Save the Planet, December 28, 2007

By 

John Goodin (Austin, Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet One Simple Step at a Time (Paperback)

"The Green Book" is not so much a cohesive manuel on how to save the planet as much as a collection of little paragraphs highlighting insignificant things which would have minimal positive impact on the Earth. While there are paragraphs on insulating your home and sustainable forest products most of the book focuses on such things as consuming fewer staples, buying unwrapped candy (wrappers are difficult to recycle) and using non-petroluem based lipstick. (After reading that section I had visions of a woman driving her Denali across town to Whole Foods to buy all new make-up.)
The book is also riddled with factual errors. For example, in the section on phone books the authors stated that "Telephone books make up almost 10 percent of waste at dump sites." A visitor to the dump would be hard pressed to find a single phone book amongst the thousands of tons of asphalt shingles, old carpet, construction debris and other household waste that really fill the nation's dumps.
Although somewhat dated a much better book on this subject is "The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices: Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists." It details which consumer activities are the most harmful and least harmful and what everyday people can do to lessen their footprint on the environment. While it does not have cute little vignettes by Jennifer Aniston or Justin Timberlake it is written by real scientists who have provide a thought provoking analysis of environmental issues.

57 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical, Fascinating and Optimistic, June 22, 2007

By 

S. J. Raaen "steve r" (NYC, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet One Simple Step at a Time (Paperback)

This is great execution of a fantastic idea. It's non preachy and illustrates the million little things we can do to be greener without any real inconvenience. While it is a practical / how-to kind of a book, it also supports it's suggestions with statistics that are reminiscent of Freakonomics (or an even better book called Naked Economics by Charles Wheelan). Who would have known that if all vinyl floors were made of linoleum instead, we would have saved 600,000 barrels of oil?

There are 50 pages of web-site references, indexed by product and a well executed index for quick reference. The topics are broken down into bite sized pieces and the book just begs to be picked up again and again.

Even the celebrity comments are interesting and well written. Jennifer Aniston doesn't display an ounce of sanctimony when she points out that all we have to do is think about our consumption, and new, greener habits will develop. "If we all begin to learn from one another and sharesome of the things we do, we might just be able to affect the world for the better though these little rituals. In a curious way, this would be a great wave of awareness; doing the right thing without being told to or without having to think why."

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is good news for all of us!, June 22, 2007

By 

Jeff Levitt - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet One Simple Step at a Time (Paperback)

Can't afford a hybrid car? Don't have the funds to convert your house into a fully self-sustainable dwelling? Unfortunately, most of us can't help the environment as well as Bill Gates or Al Gore can. However, this book gives us the good news that we can all do our parts every day much more efficiently in little ways. Celebrities impart advice and tips are given to help you and me to make our lives a little greener. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to help save the world on a low budget!

- Jeff
Gimundo
Good News...Served Daily