Effective Going Green Techniques 1.0.1: 7 Days to a Greener Planet for Everyday People

Gail Hill Williams, Christian Coughlin, Ron Everett, Andrew Wetmore, Shaun G. Williams
Alegre Communications (2009)
ISBN 9780615304427
Reviewed by Marcy Blesy for Reader Views (12/09)

 

“Effective Green Techniques 1.0.1” by Gail Hill Williams, Christian Coughlin, Ron Everett, Andrew Wetmore, and Shaun G. Williams is a short, how-to guide full of tips to help make a greener planet.  Divided into 7 “modules,” the book follows a clear format.  The modules include ways to “go green” in the home and garden, with health and personal care, with family and friends, with food, with clothing and wardrobe, in career and business, and in travel and transportation.  Following each module, is a top 10 list of tips covered in it.  There is a fill-in-the-blanks section for the reader to complete about how he will use the information to improve in each of these areas of his life and what seven people he can inform about what he has learned.  There follows a journaling section for observations made based upon reading the module and any thoughts he would like to jot down and pursue later about making a safer environment.

The intentions of the authors are worthy.  The subject matter is timely.  However, the authors’ approach to writing this book did not engage me or make me more likely to “green” my environment, though I know that I should place more value in it.  The modules were not structured well, and the authors skipped around from one idea to another in a sometimes choppy manner.  Also, they leave you with a lot of unanswered questions.  For example, when suggesting that one buy organic and all natural skin care products, the author says, “BUT BE CAUTIOUS- just because these products are made from the above-mentioned ingredients does not mean they are less harmful than the other chemically-manufactured skin care products.  DO YOUR RESEARCH BEFORE INVESTING IN ANY NEW HEALTH REGIME!”   (They really did use caps.)  I know the author’s intent was to give basic information (hence, the 1.0.1 in the title), but how exactly am I supposed to research all of my natural skin care products?  Shouldn’t the book give me more practical advice? 

The book could also benefit from another edit.  There are several grammatical errors, missing words, and punctuation mistakes.   I did like the top ten lists of tips for “greening” our own personal environments.  I do think the tips are mostly helpful, but perhaps the lists could have stood alone in providing the information I needed from “Effective Green Techniques 1.0.1.”

Make comment on weblog