Book picks similar to
Plastic Purge: How to Use Less Plastic, Eat Better, Keep Toxins Out of Your Body, and Help Save the Sea Turtles! by Michael SanClements
non-fiction
nonfiction
environment
science
Electrify: An Optimist's Playbook for Our Clean Energy Future
Saul Griffith - 2021
We have to do something now--but what? Saul Griffith has a plan. In Electrify, Griffith lays out a detailed blueprint--optimistic but feasible--for fighting climate change while creating millions of new jobs and a healthier environment. Griffith's plan can be summed up simply: electrify everything. He explains exactly what it would take to transform our infrastructure, update our grid, and adapt our households to make this possible. Billionaires may contemplate escaping our worn-out planet on a private rocket ship to Mars, but the rest of us, Griffith says, will stay and fight for the future.Griffith, an engineer and inventor, calls for grid neutrality, ensuring that households, businesses, and utilities operate as equals; we will have to rewrite regulations that were created for a fossil-fueled world, mobilize industry as we did in World War II, and offer low-interest "climate loans." Griffith's plan doesn't rely on big, not-yet-invented innovations, but on thousands of little inventions and cost reductions. We can still have our cars and our houses--but the cars will be electric and solar panels will cover our roofs. For a world trying to bounce back from a pandemic and economic crisis, there is no other project that would create as many jobs--up to twenty-five million, according to one economic analysis. Is this politically possible? We can change politics along with everything else.
Simple Acts to Save Our Planet: 500 Ways to Make a Difference
Michelle Neff - 2018
You’ll learn simple techniques to help protect the planet every day, like starting a compost pile to reduce food waste, utilizing travel mugs and reusable containers, and choosing eco-friendly products. By working to implement these simple strategies into your everyday life, you can take an active stand to protect the environment now— and make a real difference for the future.
Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water
Marc Reisner - 1986
It is a tale of rivers diverted and dammed, of political corruption and intrigue, of billion-dollar battles over water rights, of ecologic and economic disaster. In Cadillac Desert Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and business interests to ensure the city's growth. He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants, the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in the competition to transform the West.Based on more than a decade of research, Cadillac Desert is a stunning expose and a dramatic, intriguing history of the creation of an Eden—an Eden that may be only a mirage.
Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist
Kate Raworth - 2017
It has failed to predict, let alone prevent, financial crises that have shaken the foundations of our societies. Its outdated theories have permitted a world in which extreme poverty persists while the wealth of the super-rich grows year on year. And its blind spots have led to policies that are degrading the living world on a scale that threatens all of our futures.Can it be fixed? In Doughnut Economics, Oxford academic Kate Raworth identifies seven critical ways in which mainstream economics has led us astray, and sets out a roadmap for bringing humanity into a sweet spot that meets the needs of all within the means of the planet. En route, she deconstructs the character of ‘rational economic man’ and explains what really makes us tick. She reveals how an obsession with equilibrium has left economists helpless when facing the boom and bust of the real-world economy. She highlights the dangers of ignoring the role of energy and nature’s resources – and the far-reaching implications for economic growth when we take them into account. And in the process, she creates a new, cutting-edge economic model that is fit for the 21st century – one in which a doughnut-shaped compass points the way to human progress.Ambitious, radical and rigorously argued, Doughnut Economics promises to reframe and redraw the future of economics for a new generation.
The Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook: 77 Essential Skills to Stop Climate Change
David de Rothschild - 2007
The book presents 77 essential skills for stopping climate change—and for living through it. It is a fun, compelling, and sly deconstruction of a survival guide, think Boy Scout Handbook crossed with WorldChanging atop the Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook, that offers equal parts tongue-in-cheek suggestions, practical advice, factual information, and bluesky dreaming of ways to save the world.Each skill is presented on a spread featuring a bright, full-color instructional illustration, a brief introduction to the skill and its core ideas, a set of instructions, spin-off ideas, and scientific and environmental facts. The book also includes a resource guide that provides useful resources for the ecoconscious reader.
The Hidden Life of Trees
Peter Wohlleben - 2015
Much like human families, tree parents live together with their children, communicate with them, and support them as they grow, sharing nutrients with those who are sick or struggling and creating an ecosystem that mitigates the impact of extremes of heat and cold for the whole group. As a result of such interactions, trees in a family or community are protected and can live to be very old. In contrast, solitary trees, like street kids, have a tough time of it and in most cases die much earlier than those in a group.Drawing on groundbreaking new discoveries, Wohlleben presents the science behind the secret and previously unknown life of trees and their communication abilities; he describes how these discoveries have informed his own practices in the forest around him. As he says, a happy forest is a healthy forest, and he believes that eco-friendly practices not only are economically sustainable but also benefit the health of our planet and the mental and physical health of all who live on Earth.
Living in Denial: Climate Change, Emotions, and Everyday Life
Kari Marie Norgaard - 2011
Why have so few taken any action? In Living in Denial, sociologist Kari Norgaard searches for answers to this question, drawing on interviews and ethnographic data from her study of "Bygdaby," the fictional name of an actual rural community in western Norway, during the unusually warm winter of 2000-2001.In 2000-2001 the first snowfall came to Bygdaby two months later than usual; ice fishing was impossible; and the ski industry had to invest substantially in artificial snow-making. Stories in local and national newspapers linked the warm winter explicitly to global warming. Yet residents did not write letters to the editor, pressure politicians, or cut down on use of fossil fuels. Norgaard attributes this lack of response to the phenomenon of socially organized denial, by which information about climate science is known in the abstract but disconnected from political, social, and private life, and sees this as emblematic of how citizens of industrialized countries are responding to global warming.Norgaard finds that for the highly educated and politically savvy residents of Bygdaby, global warming was both common knowledge and unimaginable. Norgaard traces this denial through multiple levels, from emotions to cultural norms to political economy. Her report from Bygdaby, supplemented by comparisons throughout the book to the United States, tells a larger story behind our paralysis in the face of today's alarming predictions from climate scientists.
GREEN CLEAN: The Environmentally Sound Guide to Cleaning Your Home
Linda Mason Hunter - 2005
The latest front is the home, as households across the country adopt new ways to keep their homes clean and healthy-and ways to do it that are good for the environment. Green Clean is the definitive, step-by-step guide to cleaning better while using nontoxic, eco-friendly products. Room by room and stain by stain, Green Clean breaks down environmentally conscious cleaning into simple principles and easily mastered techniques that let readers set their own goals and develop their own cleaning plan. Also included are recipes for safe, simple, and economic cleaning solutions and the lowdown on the best eco-friendly cleaning products on the market today. Green Clean is an indispensable reference for today's home.For more green info: www.hunterink.com
How to Be Married: What I Learned from Real Women on Five Continents about Surviving My First (Really Hard) Year of Marriage
Jo Piazza - 2017
But before long, Jo found herself riddled with questions. How do you make a marriage work in a world where you no longer need to be married? How does an independent, strong-willed feminist become someone’s partner—all the time?In the tradition of writers such as Nora Ephron and Elizabeth Gilbert, award-winning journalist and nationally bestselling author Jo Piazza writes a provocative memoir of a real first year of marriage that will forever change the way we look at matrimony. A travel editor constantly on the move, Jo journeys to twenty countries on five continents to figure out what modern marriage means. Throughout this stunning, funny, warm, and wise personal narrative, she gleans wisdom from matrilineal tribeswomen, French ladies who lunch, Orthodox Jewish moms, Swedish stay-at-home dads, polygamous warriors, and Dutch prostitutes.Written with refreshing candor, elegant prose, astute reporting, and hilarious insight into the human psyche, How to Be Married offers an honest portrait of an utterly charming couple. When life throws more at them than they ever expected—a terrifying health diagnosis, sick parents to care for, unemployment—they ultimately create a fresh understanding of what it means to be equal partners during the good and bad times. Through their journey, they reveal a framework that will help the rest of us keep our marriages strong, from engagement into the newlywed years and beyond.
The Hot Topic: What We Can Do About Global Warming
Gabrielle Walker - 2008
Now one of the most dynamic writers and one of the most respected scientists in the field of climate change offer the first concise guide to both the problems and the solutions. Guiding us past a blizzard of information and misinformation, Gabrielle Walker and Sir David King explain the science of warming, the most cutting-edge technological solutions from small to large, and the national and international politics that will affect our efforts. While there have been many other books about the problem of global warming, none has addressed what we can and should do about it so clearly and persuasively, with no spin, no agenda, and no exaggeration. Neither Walker nor King is an activist or politician, and theirs is not a generic green call to arms. Instead they propose specific ideas to fix a very specific problem. Most important, they offer hope: This is a serious issue, perhaps the most serious that humanity has ever faced. But we can still do something about it. And they’ll show us how.
The Gorgeously Green Diet: How to Live Lean and Green
Sophie Uliano - 2009
And now, with The Gorgeously Green Diet, Sophie shows how to love food, live healthily, lose weight, and save money and the planet. Uliano offers three different lean and green eating plans-Light Green, Bright Green, and Deep Green. Each offers a cornucopia of the healthiest and most gorgeous food you've ever eaten as well as the secret to being healthy and staying that way. You'll learn how to reduce your impact on the environment by following the plan and how the Gorgeously Green Diet will improve your overall health. There are money- saving tips, including how to cook a healthy organic meal for five on less than it would cost to eat at Burger King, as well as nearly one hundred recipes and a gentle exercise plan. Readers can take the pledge to become green and lean, ask questions, and get support. This is the celebration of food, the planet, and healthy bodies that Sophie's many fans have been waiting for.
Laziness Does Not Exist
Devon Price - 2021
Devon Price, a conversational, stirring call to “a better, more human way to live” (Cal Newport, New York Times bestselling author) that examines the “laziness lie”—which falsely tells us we are not working or learning hard enough.Extra-curricular activities. Honors classes. 60-hour work weeks. Side hustles. Like many Americans, Dr. Devon Price believed that productivity was the best way to measure self-worth. Price was an overachiever from the start, graduating from both college and graduate school early, but that success came at a cost. After Price was diagnosed with a severe case of anemia and heart complications from overexertion, they were forced to examine the darker side of all this productivity. Laziness Does Not Exist explores the psychological underpinnings of the “laziness lie,” including its origins from the Puritans and how it has continued to proliferate as digital work tools have blurred the boundaries between work and life. Using in-depth research, Price explains that people today do far more work than nearly any other humans in history yet most of us often still feel we are not doing enough. Filled with practical and accessible advice for overcoming society’s pressure to do more, and featuring interviews with researchers, consultants, and experiences from real people drowning in too much work, Laziness Does Not Exist “is the book we all need right now” (Caroline Dooner, author of The F*ck It Diet).
Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth/Healing the Mind
Theodore Roszak - 1995
Its writers show how the health of the planet is inextricably linked to the psychological health of humanity, individually and collectively. Contributors to this volume include the premier psychotherapists, thinkers, and eco-activists working in this field. James Hillman, the world-renowned Jungian analyst, identifies as the “one core issue for all psychology” the nature and limits of human identity, and relates this to the condition of the planet. Earth Island Institute head Carl Anthony argues for “a genuinely multicultural self and a global civil society without racism” as fundamental to human and earthly well-being. And Buddhist writer and therapist Joanna Macy speaks of the need to open up our feelings for our threatened planet as an antidote to environmental despair. “Is it possible,” asks co-editor Theodore Roszak, “that the planetary and the personal are pointing the way forward to some new basis for a sustainable economic and emotional life?” Ecopsychology in practice has begun to affirm this, aided by these definitive writings.
An Almost Zero Waste Life:Learning How to Embrace Less to Live More
Megean Weldon - 2020
To put it simply: it is attempting to send no waste to landfills. Although you may have read or heard about “zero waste,” “sustainable,” or “green” living, the concept can sometimes seem too complicated, the author’s tone a bit self-righteous, or riddled with advice geared for people with 5 acres of land in the country with dreams of raising livestock and homesteading. This is not that book.Can a “regular” person do this? Absolutely! Zero waste isn’t necessarily about zero, but more about changing or altering the way we see the world around us, how we consume, and how we think about waste. It’s about making better choices when we can, and working to reduce our overall impact by reducing the amount of packaging and single-use plastics we bring into our life. Focusing on the positive, An Almost Zero Waste Life presents simple ways to reduce waste in every aspect of your life:Cleaning: Recipes for natural cleaners and how to ditch paper towels for good.Meal plans: Weekly menus and recipes for zero waste meals that use bulk pantry staples.Shopping: How to shop zero waste at big chain stores and ways to reduce food packaging.Bathroom: Sustainable beauty routine.Recycling: Ingenious ways to repurpose old clothing and how to recycle small metals, like razor blades.Compost: The basics of composting.And much more!An Almost Zero Waste Life will change the way you see the world around you, how you consume, and how you think about waste for a healthier planet and happier you.
Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret
Catherine Coleman Flowers - 2020
Once the epicenter of the voting rights struggle, today it's Ground Zero for a new movement that is Flowers's life's work. It's a fight to ensure human dignity through a right most Americans take for granted: basic sanitation. Too many people, especially the rural poor, lack an affordable means of disposing cleanly of the waste from their toilets, and, as a consequence, live amid filth.Flowers calls this America's dirty secret. In this powerful book she tells the story of systemic class, racial, and geographic prejudice that foster Third World conditions, not just in Alabama, but across America, in Appalachia, Central California, coastal Florida, Alaska, the urban Midwest, and on Native American reservations in the West.Flowers's book is the inspiring story of the evolution of an activist, from country girl to student civil rights organizer to environmental justice champion at Bryan Stevenson's Equal Justice Initiative. It shows how sanitation is becoming too big a problem to ignore as climate change brings sewage to more backyards, and not only those of poor minorities.