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Product Description
Everyone talks about the weather but no one ever does anything about it. Sadly, that old joke is no longer true. A large body of increasingly compelling scientific evidence is telling us that many things we do -- from the kinds of cars we drive to how we heat our homes -- are directly affecting our global climate in unprecedented and alarming ways. But what can any one person do about this vast, global problem? Help fix it! And it doesn't have to be a do-it-yourself project; we citizens and stewards of the earth can unite in greater numbers and power than ever before.In "The Official Earth Day Guide to Planet Repair," Earth Day leader and renewable energy expert Denis Hayes tells us how changes in individual, local, and national energy choices can slow or even stop the dangerous build-up of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, while at the same time saving us money, helping the economy, creating new jobs, and enhancing human health. A how-to home improvement guide for the planet, the book: describes the problem of global warming today as well as its likely effects in the future considers the sources of energy available to us, and explains why one of them is the Earth's best hope offers dozens of ways to painlessly reduce your own energy use provides action steps to affect the world's energy use and help change policy tells where to go for further help and more information The first Earth Day in 1970 helped launch the modern environmental movement. Rather than waiting for elected officials to take action to address environmental abuses, environmental maverick Denis Hayes and his compatriots took the lead in bringing the subject to the forefront of American consciousness. Through threedecades, the idea of Earth Day has flourished, and now more than ever, individuals need to take matters into their own hands and create change from the ground up and from the whole earth down. As citizens and consumers, we hold a vast capacity for improving our environment and leaving a bright legacy for our children. For seasoned green veterans and environmental newcomers alike, "The Official Earth Day Guide to Planet Repair" is the must-have book for the next century.
Amazon.com Review
That most of the world's environments are in bad shape is by now well known. They need not remain that way, insists veteran environmentalist Denis Hayes, a coordinator of the first Earth Day in 1970 and now CEO of the International Earth Day Network. Many animal and plant species have been brought back from the brink of extinction since the dawning of the environmental movement, and more and more people are aware of the ecological consequences of their actions. But then, Hayes notes, more and more people are buying gas-guzzling SUVs, using energy-thirsty halogen torchieres, consuming fossil-fuel-squandering foodstuffs grown far from home out of season, and otherwise behaving as if the good times will never end. The cost of that behavior is mounting: witness the greenhouse effect, by which gases trapped in the atmosphere prevent solar heat from escaping, thereby warming the earth. "Within a few decades," Hayes warns, "you will breathe air containing twice as much CO2 as the air your grandparents breathed unless we radically change our use of carbon fuels such as coal and fuel."
There is much we can do, counsels Hayes. We can change our habits of energy consumption and develop sources of clean energy. We can agitate for the protection of air-cleansing forests--especially the vast boreal forests of North America and Asia, which, while less rich in biodiversity than the better-publicized Amazon rainforest, are far more effective at filtering poisons out of the air. We can try to leave a smaller footprint, ratchet up our consciousness just a little bit more, elect "green" politicians and boycott "brown" corporations. The list goes on. Thoughtful and well written, The Official Earth Day Guide to Planet Repair is a fine sourcebook for anyone willing to get started on the perhaps quixotic but just as certainly necessary task of fixing all the damage we have done. --Gregory McNamee
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