| A FARM IN MY HEART
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| Tuesday, 28 September 2010 06:00 |
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|  Subtitled, From the yard to the pantry and the table, this book is about the pure inspiration and endless appeal of the rural life. With plenty of full-page pictures of the people, places, produce, livestock and dishes that country life is all about, it will warm the hearts of many who harbour some deep longing to quit the hurly-burly urban experience for something closer to nature. Yet as appealing as it is, it's still a somewhat sanitised, romantic look at the rural idyll. But so delightful and alluring. Maybe if you can't have a farm of your own and escape to country is an occasional weekend thing at best, this one will help sooth the harried nerves of urbanites wishing for a more natural way of life.
Emilia le Roux & Francois Smuts
Tafelberg • ISBN 978 0 624 04729 2 |
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|  This is almost completely in line with the ethos of Simply Green, stating on its back cover that, 'Adopting eco-friendly principles of living does not mean having to forfeit stylish elegance in the home'. With plenty of pictures, informative and easily navigatable text, break-out boxes if you want to know more or go into a subject a little deeper, and an overall pleasing and engaging presentation, this one will help even the most cynical 'anti-greenie' see that going green doesn't mean having to wear made-at-home tie-dye rags, nor does it mean living in a run-down commune. This one is all about smart design combined with sensible utilisation and sustainable application of eco-friendly solutions to all the questions of modern living. Great one and a must have.
Dan Phillips
Carroll & Brown Publishers • ISBN 978 1 904760 62 7 |
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| Living Green
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| Tuesday, 02 March 2010 06:00 |
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This book outlines the social experiences of living in green built environments. Focusing on social sustainability, it showcases some extraordinary communities across North America paying particular attention to communities that have integrated social and human factors into their design.
Description
Social issues are, and need to be, a central part of environmental and economic sustainability efforts. Using stories of extraordinary communities across North America, Living Green showcases the social side of living green.
The book features communities that explicitly integrate social and human factors into their design and planning, and examines the impact living in these communities has on personal health, well-being and the capacity for pursuing sustainability. It includes interviews with developers, architects and residents, highlighting personal ideals and efforts to pursue a sustainable lifestyle.
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|  The Green Year, 365 small things you can do to make a big difference, by Jodi Helmer, is a perfect book for anyone who wants to green up their life but not does not want (or simply does not have time) to read reams and reams of information to do so. It seems to be written for us type A people (I guess I am selectively type A), who like lists and short tips.
Each day in a calendar year, the author shares doable, reasonable ideas for making better choices for the environment, and the health of your family. The tips are one sentence (love that!) and there is a paragraph or two explanation about why the issue or idea is important for the health of our planet. Under each tip you can list an alternative that worked better for your life and particular situation.
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| Power From the Sun
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| Wednesday, 02 September 2009 08:50 |
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|  Power From the Sun covers all aspects of solar electricity systems for the home. It begins by outlining the basics of electricity and solar energy then covers in-depth the technical information required to install and maintain a solar energy system.
Easy-to-understand, accurate and comprehensive, this is THE guide for anyone interested in installing a solar electric system.
Power From the Sun provides a basic understanding of electricity, solar energy and the sun, and solar site assessment. It discusses the types of PVs and PV systems, advances in PVs, charge controllers, inverters, batteries, and generators, as well as the installation and maintenance of a PV system.
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|  Global warming calls for nothing less than a new energy revolution to lead the world to a peaceful, sustainable, post-carbon world. The Climate Challenge lays out practical contributions that can be made on every level of society.
It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the urgency of global climate change. But when author Guy Dauncey assembles the world’s best solutions in one place, as he does in The Climate Challenge, a vision emerges of a sustainable energy revolution. He opens the door to a century of exciting change, characterized by renewable energy, sustainable farming, carbon-rich forestry, green cities, electric vehicles, high-speed trains, a blossoming of innovation, and a host of new “green collar” jobs.
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|  Present transport systems world wide are almost wholly fueled by oil products. As we begin to feel the effects of peak oil, Transport Revolutions offers a "soft landing" into oil depletion including the redesign of USA and China transport systems.
Modern societies rely upon prodigious amounts of oil for transport activity. The impacts over the near term of increasing oil scarcity and higher prices on transport will be among the major challenges facing humanity, and will require a revolution in thinking about how we move people and goods.
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 Consequent to the 'global meltdown', as some like to call it (more accurately, it is a global re-alignment towards actual - as opposed to imagined - value in real goods and services, and away from multi-generational derivative financial instruments with hugely inflated supposed 'worth'), there is a view that the environment should come way down on the list of critical issues to be addressed. The authors' view is that this is dangerous thinking, and we agree whole-heartedly. In fact, the financial re-alignment now underway, with huge incentives from the new Obama administration in the USA, is an opportunity not only for the US economy to re-invent itself based on emergent green technologies, but also for a similar surge to take place worldwide on the back of a dual push towards more sustainable energy, resource and waste management systems that will simultaneously also lead to a huge leap forward in dealing with the growing challenges of climate change and environmental degradation. The green gurus of the title might not be too familiar to most of us, but it is clear from their approach, as early adopters, to the challenges of today, that there is far more opportunity than threat in what is taking place, either on Wall Street or in the industrial heartlands of the US, Europe, and the Far East. The book is a little Northern hemispheric-oriented to be fully applicable locally; the interview with Peace Prize laureate Professor Wangari Maathai – whom we have named in the May/June 09 edition of Simply Green as our own greenCHAMPION (see page 86) – is among the most relevant and interesting of the 15 gurus covered. If you are looking for inspiration on where green business can go, this is a worthy read.
Laura Mazur & Louella Miles
John Wiley & Sons • ISBN 978 0 470 71431 7
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 Another in the '(fill in the blank) for Dummies' series, this one offers to teach even the least informed manager or business owner how to evaluate the sustainability of their existing operations, maximise their triple bottom line, green their marketing mix and increase profits and stakeholder goodwill. Clearly, there are a vast number of businesses whose managers and owners would do well to buy themselves a copy of this one. Laid out in an intuitive, icon-driven and bite-sized chunk format that one has become used to with this series, it ends with a few choice paragraphs in dealing with those who believe that climate change is a myth, or it's not man-made, or it's a passing fad or it costs too much to adapt to a greener production/service supply agenda. For the last few pages alone, this book is worth having on the shelf so that the next time you encounter a climate change denialist, you can save yourself the time and trouble of arguing with them, but can rather tell them to read Chapter 18 and give the book back to you when they're done. You'll probably find that they've changed their minds in the process.
Lisa Swallow
Wiley Publishing Inc • ISBN 978 0 470 39339 0
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 The recent hysteria over the 'swine flu pandemic', as the mainstream media were calling the latest new flu outbreak when the number of those infected was still in the hundreds and the dead a mere few dozen, shows just how easy it is to get into a panic that may or may not be worth the emotional energy and cost of getting all worked up over some or other 'threat'. The authors, both statisticians, have looked at a range of potential 'threats', from killer birds and alien abductors, to rising sea levels and range of more mundane potential 'problems', such as the drop in birth rates in developed nations, the nuclear family's breakdown, divorce rates, increased obesity and the bloom in elderly numbers, to 'death by phone', issues in the workplace, the global 'war on terror', crime, climate change, 'Frankenstein foods', resource depletion and a bunch of other things you may never have thought of, worried about or even heard of. They approach their subject matter with a certain amount of self-deprecation, careful to quote British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli's famous line: 'There are lies, damned lies - and statistics.' They are also mostly sceptical, offering a helpful toolkit for separating the usual media-driven nonsense from that which is worth thinking about, listing the ups and downs of a range of types of information and their source, from vested interests to 'weasel words', surveys, figures, percentages and actual numbers, anecdotes and statistics, graphs and charts, timeframes, defeatism (why am I being told something about which I can apparently do nothing - is it just to induce fear?), 'scare snobbery', scenarios, getting the big picture and maintaining a sense of proportion while accentuating the positive. They conclude by referring back to a poster widely used in the UK during World War II, which is as pertinent today as it was then: 'Keep Calm And Carry On.' Perhaps someone should alert the media. Amusing, interesting and useful, all at once - but be careful about which parts of this book you allow yourself to believe. Oh, and each issue they address, from bird flu to alien bogeymen, has a three-icon rating system: a chicken, to represent the degree of panic appropriate for the issue; a pair of dice, for risk; and a fist, for personal empowerment - each of which is scored between 1 and 10. Have fun, do more, worry less.
Simon Brsicoe & Hugh Aldersey-Williams
Viking • ISBN 978 0 670 91702 0
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