Armchair Enviromentalist

Karen Christensen

Description

If you've given up hope for planet Earth, here's the book to restore your faith. The Armchair Environmentalist takes a "can do" approach and shows that, in only a few minutes a day, each of us can make a big difference and become an intelligent protector of our precious planet. The Armchair Environmentalist focuses on what really matters - reducing our use of energy and water, creating a healthier environment at home and at work, making simple changes, and adopting easy new habits. Learn how to clean up the air as you enjoy your greener lifestyle, heat your home instead of the atmosphere, and protect wildlife no matter where you live.

Sujets

• Natural history

Informations

• Publié par: Berkshire Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2004
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781614729310
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Cover
Table of Contents


Cover

Title Page
Foreward
Introduction
Chapter 1: No Place Like Home—Green Home, Green Planet
Chapter 2: Organic Garden, Healthy World

Chapter 3: Bon Appetit! Better Food, Safer Planet
Chapter 4: Healthier You, Healthier World
Chapter 5: Greener Workplace, Cleaner Planet
Chapter 6: Greener Transport, Safer Planet
Afterword
About the Author
Berkshire Encyclopedia of Sustainability
Title Page

The Armchair Environmentalist
3 Minute-a-Day Action Plan to Save the World

Karen Christensen





Published by:
Berkshire Publishing Group LLC
122 Castle Street, Great Barrington, Massachusetts 01230
www.berkshirepublishing.com

Berkshire Publishing specializes in international relations, cross-cultural communications, global business and economic information, and environmental sustainability.

Ebook Edition Copyright © Karen Christensen 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Berkshire Publishing.



Ebook Edition • EISBN: 9781614729310
Print Edition • ISBN: 1840728620

Text Copyright © Karen Christensen 2004
Cover Illustration © Fiona Hewitt 2004 First Print Edition Copyright © MQ Publications Limited 2004





BERKSHIRE PUBLISHING
Foreword

By Jonathon Porritt

It’s more than 15 years now since I first encountered Karen Christensen’s wonderfully practical advice about ‘living more lightly on the Earth’. I wish I could say that they’ve been 15 years well-spent in terms of sorting out all the different environmental problems that now confront humankind—but, sadly, that isn’t so. Although it’s true that our awareness of the problems has increased enormously, driven largely by a constant flow of powerful scientific evidence, our efforts to redress those negative impacts on the environment, in practice , have been patchy and wholly inadequate. Politicians still don’t see how they can gain electoral advantage out of the environment agenda, and the response of most businesses has been slow and unimaginative.
Which inevitably leaves a lot of people worried about whether or not they themselves can make a difference as individuals. And here the picture is more encouraging. To be sure, there’s still plenty of confusion around, but more and more people now readily accept that we all have a slice of today’s environmental action. As Karen Christensen keeps reminding us, there’s a limit to what the politicians and businesses can do if we—as citizens and consumers—aren’t prepared to do our bit. “If we all do a little, it adds up to a lot”.
And over the next 15 years we have to hope for a rather more powerful impact not just on people’s behaviour but on society’s values. In that respect, it’s the celebratory element in ‘The Armchair Environmentalist’ that I find so inspiring. There really is no point being pious and boring about seeking out a more environmentally and socially responsible lifestyle. At its simplest (but often overlooked) level, environmentalism is all about celebrating the gift of life—including a living relationship with the rest of life on Earth. Better by far to be celebrating that gift in joy rather than permanently garbed in sackcloth and ashes.
There’s an interesting conundrum at work here. Even though it’s true that these days we all agree that learning to live more sustainably on this planet is absolutely necessary, that doesn’t necessarily make us feel good about it. Indeed, the more successful scientists and campaigners are in demonstrating that necessity, the less desirable it somehow seems to become. Necessity may well be the mother of invention, but if desire is the real driver of human behaviour and creativity, then the necessary has to be made desirable before any kind of transformation becomes possible.
And I fear that the genius and the creativity required to make it desirable would appear still to be in somewhat short supply. Just compare the often ludicrous levels of hyped-up-excitement that are generated around so-called ‘technological breakthroughs’—in biotech, nanotech, infotech, or indeed any other ‘tech’ that you like to think of—with the rather downbeat accounts of the need for things like energy efficiency, renewable technologies, pollution control and waste management. Psychologically, it sometimes seems as if we’re on a hiding to nothing!
Ultimately, it all comes down to what it is that makes us feel good about our lives. And the odd thing about the last 30 years or more of breakneck economic growth and consumption-driven affluence is that it absolutely hasn’t led to corresponding increases in personal wellbeing and happiness. Which is precisely why Karen Christensen’s own secret to happiness (“not getting more, but wanting less”) provides such a fitting foundation for her words of wisdom.

Jonathon Porritt

Jonathon Porritt CBE , Co-Founder of Forum for the Future, is an eminent writer, broadcaster and commentator on sustainable development. Established in 1996, Forum for the Future is now the UK’s leading sustainable development charity, with 70 staff and over 100 partner organisations including some of the world’s leading companies. In addition, he is Co-Director of The Prince of Wales’s Business and Sustainability Programme. He was Director of Friends of the Earth (1984-90); co-chair of the Green Party (1980-83); chairman of UNED-UK (1993-96); and stood down as Chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission in July 2009 after nine years providing high-level advice to Government Ministers. His books include Capitalism As If The World Matters (Earthscan, revised 2007), Globalism & Regionalism (Black Dog 2008) and Living Within Our Means (Forum for the Future 2009).
Introduction: Save the Planet? Who, Me?

Photo by Rachel Christensen.
Whenever I get the chance, I ask environmental experts the question you’re asking: What can I do to make a difference?
You’d be surprised at how the experts hate this question. They wish they could answer it, I think, but they really don’t know how the individual fits in. Instead, they talk ponderously about policy changes and government initiatives, tax incentives and corporate governance.
I’m not a professional environmentalist. I’m a busy entrepreneur and occasional author, and I started writing about saving the planet because when I was a new mother I looked for information and couldn’t find anything that worked for me. I needed practical ideas that wouldn’t take a lot of time or cost a lot of money, and an approach that didn’t demand I turn into a woolly-sweatered commune-dweller.
You and I can’t start a wind farm or set up a government committee or legislate taxes (though we should be encouraging these activities—and the Afterword will tell you how to lend your voice). We read about environmental problems or we see them right in front of us, in our neighborhoods and as we go to work, and we want to be able to do right now , in just a few minutes, that will make the world a better place. We really want to make a difference—even if it’s a small one—and we want to show that we care.
That’s what this book is about, the hundreds of little things we can do to help protect the beautiful planet we live on. These changes are not trivial. If we all do a little, it adds up to a lot.
By giving a few minutes a day to changing the way you interact with your personal bit of the global environment, you’re helping to reverse direction, and giving the planet a chance to regroup. You’re also helping design sustainable lifeways and working with millions of people around the world who care about the natural world and a healthy future for all of us, and for our children.
Everybody knows that there are changes we can make at home to help protect the earth, but many of them seem too complicated or daunting—or just plain trivial. Like you, I want maximum impact for the time I put in and I wanted to be able to do a little here and there. That’s why I walk or cycle whenever I can, keep the thermostat at 60, and used cloth nappies when my daughter was a baby.
It isn’t that I don’t like convenience. But I also like food that really tastes like something. I like to use skin cream made with ingredients that don’t cause birth defects or kill off fragile ecosystems. And I like the idea of being able to enjoy a sunny day without worrying about skin cancer.
This isn’t easy, I know. We are constantly bombarded with advertising that tells us about all the things we need and ought to want. Here’s a suggestion: think about the times in your life when you’ve been most content, the times of true joy and fulfilment. How much, really does all that ‘stuff’ really matter?
Most environmental books start with recycling, but in planetary terms it’s our use of electricity and other energy and our use of fresh water that’s has the greatest consequence, especially because there are six billion people on the planet and most of them would like to live like people in the urban, western world. We are polluting the environment with toxic chemicals and altered genetic material. And we’re spreading: housing and commercial developments sprawl across vast areas that used to be habitat for native plants and animals. Our invasive behaviour makes it hard—even impossible—for other species to survive.
You and I, people living in the developed world and urban areas, do far more than our share of damage. The up side, though, is that we have lots of opportunity to change, and that’s what this book is all about!
Chapter 1 No Place Like Home— Green Home, Green Planet

Photo by Bill Siever.
We’ve been living on Planet Earth like we’re making a one-night stop in a cheap motel. We throw towels all over the place, pile up the pizza boxes and soda bottle