The Green Book

As we again see another year gone and a new year before us, we turn to think of "big picture" themes for the upcoming year. One resolution we would obviously like to see people make is to "go green." As we watched our new eco friendly New Year's ball drop (made with 9,576 energy-efficient bulbs that use about the same amount of electricity as 10 toasters), we see that even Times Square can go green, so why can't we? One of our favorite booka on the subject is "The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet One Simple Step at a Time." With "The Green Book," going green is one New Year's resolution we can all keep.

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.

Environmental matters get the star treatment in The Green Book. Authors Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas 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 red-carpet celecbrities 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.

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!

The Green Book is complete with an exhaustive guide to online references for additional resources. For more information, visit the official website, at www.readthegreenbook.com.