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Posted By Aaron Marcelli on November 7, 2009

I was quite anxious when I arrived at the court house to fulfill my duty as a citizen by appearing for jury duty.  From 9am to 5pm, minus a ninety minute break, I sat, and sat, and sat.  Come days end I never even got questioned for the possibility of serving on a jury, something I actually wanted to do.  Rather, I used my mind-numbing hours to finish a book I have just started two days earlier.

Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas Kostigen, along with minor input from celebrities such as Ellen DeGeneres, Tyra Banks, and Justin Timberlake, wrote a book simple entitled, the green book.  I had picked the book up several months ago at the Tennessee Aquarium as part of my attempt to be a not so taxing resident of planet Earth.  I found the book easy to read with a good flow and no fancy scientific or political terms.  The book did not make a huge argument for the green movement but rather took a solutions oriented approach, assuming the reader already knew about pollution, waste issues, and the dangers of global warming.

Each chapter took a general area of living (home, travel, sports, shopping, etc.) and provided short challenges, warnings, and suggestions on being more Earth friendly.  Again, if you are looking for a deep, scientific source on the issue, you will probably be unsatisfied with the green book.  But in being someone who does care and just wanted some practical guidance and a little insight on the issue, I found this book a good balance.  Though I would already say I probably have a smaller energy footprint than average American, I came away from the read with a list of several more steps I could take, such as:

• Buying bottled drinks over canned
• Begin recycling my bottles and cans
• Purchase carbon credits – you can do this at http://www.carbonplanet.com/shop/purchase_carbon_credits
• Pay more bills electronically
• Buy a water filter rather than drink bottled water
• Purchase energy star quality appliances
• Use retreaded tires
• Make my next car a hybrid
• Get my meat from the butcher
• Not buying cheese that comes individually wrapped
• Buy food in bigger bulk, especially canned food
• Get fresh produce over canned fruit
• Recycle my phonebooks
• Plug my household items into a power strip and turn it off when I’m not using it
• Buy recycled toilet paper

Anyone else know of any helpful, small things we could do in our day to day to lessen the amount of waist we put back into our air and landfills?

I know that I have some international readers in Brazil and Mexico.  Anything you guys see over there that gets the job done without being as wasteful as we are accustomed to in our American society?

Category: Book Reviews
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