The goal of this blog is to create a list of what I call super facts. Super facts are important and true facts that nevertheless are surprising to a lot of people, they are mind-blowing or misunderstood or disputed among non-experts. They are special facts that many of us can learn something important from or perhaps challenge us. However, I also make posts that are not super facts but feature other interesting information, such as this book review and book recommendation. The book is:
Green, American Style: Becoming Earth-Friendly and Reaping the Benefits by Anna M. Clark
Below I am listing the two editions on Amazon of this book. I bought the paperback version.
- Hardback – Publisher : BakerBooks (January 1, 2010), ISBN-10 : 1616643242, ISBN-13 : 978-1616643249, item weight : 1.01 pounds. It costs $10.95 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
- Paperback – Publisher : BakerBooks (April 1, 2010), ISBN-10 : 0801013348, ISBN-13 : 978-0801013348, 253 pages, item weight : 10.9 ounces, dimensions : 5.25 x 0.5 x 8.25 inches. It costs $4.99 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.
Amazon’s Description of the Book
Americans of all stripes are finding their footing in the green movement. What was once a road less traveled is quickly becoming a superhighway as those who were once reluctant find that going green is not about giving up. It’s about gaining more money, time, opportunity, health, and well-being even as we preserve the American lifestyle in a rapidly changing world. Green, American Style is a guide to going green and loving it. Its uniquely American perspective means it speaks to readers from their own paradigm, taking into account the largely conservative values of much of this country, its democratic and capitalistic history, and its resistance to reining in. More than a list of ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle, this book explores the green movement from the diverse perspectives of business, faith, and lifestyle, recognizing the economic, physical, and spiritual benefits of sustainable living.
This is my five star review for the book Green, American Style
Save Money Become Healthier and Save the Planet too
The author, Anna Clark, is the founder and President of the company EarthPeople LLC. In this book she presents hundreds of ways companies and citizens can become more environmentally sustainable, while becoming healthier and save money at the same time. Becoming “green” does not have to be a great sacrifice, and you don’t need to adopt a certain environmentalist attitude, or politics. There are practical advantages to you personally as you adopt a greener lifestyle. She refers to this as the green advantage. She is also stating that Green is patriotic. It is our best chance to preserve our way of life for the future.
Climate Change / Global Warming is happening, and the scientific evidence clearly shows that we are the cause. We know it is not natural. Unfortunately, a lot of people have a negative emotional reaction to this reality. Instead of arguing about this issue, and risking turning off some readers, the author focuses on the positives of sustainability and the things we can all agree on. Sustainability is not a political decision but a better way to live.
She is also not an all-or-nothing advocate. For example, she says that you can eat less meat, but you don’t need to become a vegan if that is not what you want. I can add to that that the average American eats 220 pounds of meat per year, which corresponds to 330 million tons of carbon emissions, or 5-6% of our total emissions in the US. If you eat 110 pounds of meat instead of 220 pounds of meat you have removed 50% of those emissions. If you go from eating 10 pounds of meat per year to being vegan you’ve reduced only 3%. All-or-nothing is hard and there are so many other ways that you can reduce your impact on the environment. You choose what fits you and reaching for the low-hanging fruit is smart.
At the same time, she does not shy away from the problems. She mentions the danger of being so dependent on oil, not the least considering national security, and the need for developing alternatives, preferably clean energy sources. She discusses freshwater scarcity, the world losing species at a rate thousands of times faster than the natural extinction rate, and the dangers of excessive carbon dioxide levels. She discusses the many toxins in our environment and how to avoid them.
In the book she describes her interviews and interactions with several important personalities in sustainability including the billionaire and oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens and the billionaire and CEO Roger Barnett. She advocates for eco-capitalism and for LEED certified buildings. She herself lives in a platinum level LEED certified residence. The book features a lot of resources and hundreds of links, and the second part of the book lists 85 easy ways to save the planet and money at the same time. It is not that strange. If you save energy and gasoline, and you waste less and you don’t buy things you don’t really need, you’ll save the planet and money too. In fact, you can easily save thousands of dollars. You may not know how to do that, but the book will tell you.
She also lists 25 ways to remodel your home to make it greener and saving energy. I found that we have already done several of the things listed. She also discusses gardening and composting. I can add that she correctly states that EVs not only save you gas money, but they are significantly cleaner than regular cars even with dirty grids. Due to some untrue rumors, there is some confusions about that. I can add that EVs has come a long way since this book was published.
The author also talked about the environmental studies program at St. Marks School of Texas, the school our boys attended. We live next to that school. This was more of a fun and for me personal portion of the book. The book also features some warnings. When you go shopping, there are third party-verification labels and non-specific generic labels that don’t mean anything such as “natural”, “cage free”, and “free range”. Be a smart shopper.
In summary, this book may be a bit old, but it contains a lot of useful and helpful information that is still relevant today. Therefore, I highly recommend it to everyone. You certainly don’t have to be an environmentalist to put the advice in the book to practice and save some money, become a bit healthier and save the planet at the same time.
About the Author
Anna Clark is president of EarthPeople (www.earthpeopleco.com), a consulting and communications firm that helps organizations of all sizes save money and bolster their brands through profitable green strategies. A featured blogger for Greenbiz.com and SustainLane.com, Anna writes on topics ranging from green living to leadership. Anna lives with her family in Dallas in one of the first residences in Texas to earn a platinum LEED-certified rating from the US Green Building Council. For the more on all things green, visit www.annamclark.com.
Click below to visit her web sites.
It must have been difficult to garner support for environmentally friendly alternatives in Texas. Or am I taring all Texans with the same brush? It is great to hear that the schools were implementing an environmental program. Can you tell me more about what a LEED certified rating is? We don’t use that system here.
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LEED = Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design is for building buildings using environmentally friendly materials, not wasting water, less emissions, and in the end having energy efficient buildings. There are four levels of LEED certification, certification (regular), silver, gold, and platinum. It is a worldwide program but not well known. It is explained in the book.
About Texas. Caring for the environment, reducing emissions, talking about climate change, is not as welcome here in Texas as it is in my native country Sweden, but there are still many people who cares about it. The funny thing is that despite Texas being an oil and gas state that rejects federal regulation, and despite Texas politicians strongly favoring fossil fuels, Texas is doing very well with renewables. Wind, solar, and battery storage have been expanding a lot in Texas because it is the cheapest, and Texas grid (called ERCOT) is pure free market competition. Whoever sells cheapest wins. This is a threat to fossil fuels, so the politicians are trying to change it. At the moment of me writing this 40% of the Texas grid (ERCOT) comes from solar. The link is a minute by minute update.
About the environmental program at St. Marks. It may seem surprising that a relatively conservative prep school would implement this, but they did. The teacher Dan Northcutt was the senior advisor for one of my sons. It is a fairly well known school in Dallas. Former US Presidential candidate Ross Perot sent his grandkids there, and one of them (his daughter’s son) was in my son’s class. Also, actors Luke and Owen Wilson and Tommy Lee Jones went there. George W. Bush’s daughter’s went to the sister school Hockaday.
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I like that there is room for moderation in her attitudes. Nice review.
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Thank you so much Anneli
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So much we can do as ordinary folk to help the environment. What I don’t understand is why everyone who believes in “green” doesn’t stop using plastic water bottles. I have. And, 50 years ago when I traveled to the USSR (aka Russia), everyone brought their own bag. No plastic or paper given out. Brilliant. I do that, too.
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I don’t use water bottles either. Drinking filtered water instead of using plastic water bottles is one of her 85 suggestions in the middle of the book. You save money, it is just as healthy, and protects the environment. I should say that plastic pollution in the ocean comes mostly from south east Asia. Less than 1% of the plastic pollution in the ocean comes from the US and less than 1% from Europe. That is because we have a good landfill system (it is not so much the recycling), so that part is less of a problem for us.
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It’s good that there are ways for citizens to pick up the slack while the national policy about this sort of thing is in let’s call it “complete disarray”!
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Yes, unfortunately you are right James. We have gone bakcwards a lot lately. However, it is seems to backfire, often in a good way. For example, the Iran war and the rise in the oil price have helped spur sales of EVs around the world. Maybe not so much here, because of our anti-EV policies, but we are 5% of the world population. EVs are becoming increasingly popular in the rest of the world.
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Thank you for this great review, Thomas. I love the cover and the broad range she covers without being dogmatic in her approach. “She is also not an all-or-nothing advocate.” She sounds like my kind of gal~!! xx
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Thank you so much Cindy. Yes you are so right. All-or-nothing does not help much and backfires and makes everything harder.
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I agree and there is constant gridlock then!! xx
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Yes you are right Cindy
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Interesting. I am going to show this to my daughter; she is a nutritionist, and this might be pretty interesting to her, too.
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Thank you so much Kevin. This book is a bit dated and your daughter probably has more recent information. However, someone should write a book like this again. Maybe Anna Clark and/or your daughter.
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Thanks for reviewing this book.
Many years ago. when people still bought colored toilet paper, my friend’s mother made a point of buying white toilet paper because it avoided adding dyes, etc. into the wastewater. When my friend protested that one person couldn’t make a difference, her mother replied, “You have to start somewhere.” That’s how I’ve come to see these sorts of things; You do what you can. You learn more, and maybe tomorrow you’ll do more. My present car is a gas/electric hybrid. My next car will probably be electric, but sure as hell not a Tesla.
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You are right Denise. There are hundreds of small steps that you can take, and you don’t have to what is hardest for you first. Back when this book was written EVs was a far stretch and even hybrids was a big step. Now a lot of people have hybrids. We have that too. Like you, maybe we get an EV next time. They are becoming very popular around the world. Maybe not here in Texas yet, but you can’t stop progress forever.
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Lulu: “Green is good!”
Chaplin: “Our Dada says there was a very similar motto in the 80s but it had one letter different, which changed its meaning completely …”
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