Summary
As interest in living a sustainable life has exploded, so has the green marketplace. It has become difficult to distinguish companies that provide truly eco-friendly products and services from those that "greenwash." Now, from the company that founded Organic Gardening when eating close to the land was far from mainstream and published Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth , comes this timely guide to all things green. Modeled on the classic Whole Earth Catalog , the touchstone for an earlier generation, Whole Green Earth Catalog is poised to become the bible of green living for the 68 million Americans--about one-third of U.S. adults--who now take environmental and social issues into account when they make purchases. Leading experts in every imaginable category--from home furnishings and appliances to clothing and children's toys, from pets and beauty products to travel and investing--share their authoritative tips, reviews, and advice. Whole Green Catalog - Edited by Michael W. Robbins, Designed by Wendy Palitz - provides succinct answers to such questions as: Can one go green and save money? Can people reduce their carbon footprint if they are business travelers? Is there an environmentally friendly disposable diaper? Beautifully packaged with more than 1,000 photographs and illustrations, and manufactured with 100 percent post-consumer waste materials, this volume is the perfect gift for those who care about the future of the planet.
Author Notes
Michael Robbins is the former editor-in-chief of Audubon magazine. He has written books and articles for numerous publications including New York, Discover, Mother Jones, Plenty and Popular Science .
Wendy Palitz is an art director who has worked for New York, Self, Travel Holiday, and Workman Publishing. She has designed books for Houghton Mifflin, Stewart Tabori & Chang, and National Geographic Books.
Renée Loux, author of Easy Green Living , is the host of the TV show Easy Being Green .
Excerpts
why green now? If not now, when? The perfect storm of global climate crisis, dwindling resources, and an unsustainable model of consumer appetite is upon us and growing in urgency. Now is the time for individual action. Never have everyday choices carried more consequences than right now. Think of the choices we can make--do make--every day as small steps, in either a positive or a negative direction. Each choice can work to benefit you, me, and our whole community--and ultimately, our global environment. How can we make those right choices? One at a time, with the help of this catalog. We've convened thought leaders in every imaginable category to share with you a wealth of green information and green ideas. Just a few years ago, there were very few "green" products on store shelves and little or no "green" components in many of these categories; they simply didn't exist or couldn't compete in the marketplace. The sheer size of the Whole Green Catalog illustrates the diversity of possibility, discovery, and potential. Consider the items reviewed here as the furnishings of one's life, the furnishings for a whole new world that we can all live (better) in. There is a fundamentally simple idea at play in this publication: We all need things with which to live in the world, and the things we choose (or don't choose) for our own lives can, in the aggregate, have a deep reaching impact and can make a significant contribution to renewing our world. This catalog is a browser book. Like the original Whole Earth Catalog, which helped to define the credo of its age, this is a resource guide to a special kind of life: then, an alternative lifestyle and now, a sustainable one. We don't expect anyone to read it straight through, and we did not structure it that way. It is designed for people to peruse, consult, find, and choose. And it is full of surprises and delights--on every page. Flip through, and you'll find that it opens many doors. The reviews in this catalog can foster a fresh way of thinking about where we are in time and in our world. Call it life-cycle thinking or thinking about the whole cradle-to-grave arc of the things we live with: where raw materials come from; how they are harvested or obtained; and how they are processed, transported, marketed, and packaged. Then, once their usefulness to you is ended, how are they passed on, reused, or disposed of. This is the "over the horizons" thinking that is fundamental to environmental awareness and action. So, can we buy our way to sustainability? Probably not, but we can, with our consumer choices, take steps in the direction of solutions rather than continue--again, with our choices--to move along in familiar ways that only contribute to the larger problems. While the green marketplace is no longer ahead of the curve or at the fringes, it is in process and getting better all the time. And in this new world of green, the same old laws of supply and demand still apply: When we demand greener things, the marketplace supplies them. We've grown in leaps and bounds from the seeds planted by the environmental movement over the last score of years, and this catalog speaks eloquently of that growth. We have arrived at a point where it is not a personal compromise to make these choices. To live a sustainable life, it's no longer necessary to forfeit comfort, convenience, and luxury or to freeze, drown, and starve in the dark. Today, we can choose to move in the right direction. --Renee Loux Excerpted from Whole Green Catalog: 1000 Best Things for You and the Earth by Michael W. Robbins All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
