pambo's Full Review: Sally Kneidel and Sadie Kneidel - Going Green: A W...
If you're interested in tackling some global issues, you could always start with your lawn. In "Going Green: A Wise Consumer's Guide to a Shrinking Planet," the authors bring huge issues about the state of the planet down to a human, even mundane level.
They aren't the only ones to have taken this approach but theirs is particularly effective, since they speak for their ideas from personal experience.
The book keys on seven main areas:
Choosing energy efficient and clean transportation Green housing Land use Food Green and worker-friendly clothes Forest use Investments
There are a lot of ways to take up their ideas and plenty of ways to get motivated. If you need a little guilt to get started, there's the reminder that with our purchases, we may be supporting companies that are destroying habitats, warming the planet or damaging people's health. The latest failures on Wall Street remind us that corporations exist to make money and may be doing things we don't like.
Or we may just feel it's time to do the right thing, with an eye on the future and the well-being of those who come after us.
With that in mind, the authors take a two-pronged approach--figuring out what they don't want to support, and finding alternatives that are both practical and sustainable. The book is written for the average person looking to revise a lifestyle and as such, is written in an easy, comprehensible style.
Transportation is a relatively easy one to take on and they offer ideas about biodiesel development, hybrid cars, battery-electric cars, fuel-cell cars, vehicles powered by vegetable oil and then on to bicycles. Next up are various issues involving public transportation, most significantly, the lack of it and the inaccessibility of many of our communities to anything other than polluting vehicles. (I know that whenever I think about trying to get around out here in suburbia using anything other than my car, it's daunting, nearly impossible. A little contract job is taking me into New York City recently, where public transportation and even long walks up Broadway are exciting alternatives to trying to get around by car. And bicycles don't do well out here on many suburban roads, where contrary to stereotype, streets are not gently curved, leafy and safe avenues.)
And they carefully go through each topic, laying out what the situation is for many us, studying the matter and then offering ideas, whether it's examining the argument for and against hemp and bamboo clothing, reviewing the use of animal byproducts in other animals' food or finding a company that provides schools with organic t-shirts or considering the choice of which kind of salmon to eat. There's a lot of information in a relatively short book.
The authors have done considerable research, but not just to produce statistics or hammer us with information available elsewhere. For example, they note that lawns are a peculiarly American fixation and say that lawns are the fifth largest crop in the United States (that was news to me and no doubt some will want to dispute it. But again, from a suburban perspective, I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers are right.)
But of more interest is the way they went about determining how serious an impact lawn treatments and fixations have on us by interviewing lawn-care specialists about their products. Not surprisingly, the chemicals, presence of non-native plants, overuse of water, and production of yard waste comes directly from the determination to have the greenest lawn on the block. It's their personal approach that brings home the reality of taking on big problems one step at a time.
One of the major aspects of this book is a call to action: encouragement to demand public policy changes, to make changes in our own lives and, by doing so, to setting an example for others.
This is a useful book for someone who wants to find an issue to make as deep or as simple changes as they're prepared to try.
The only fault I could find with this book is with the photos--perhaps because the book is printed on chlorine-free, recycled paper, it's a little off white and the photos tend to look a little muddy--rather dark and flat. But then, few, if any, people would choose this kind of book for the pictures.
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