Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough and Michael Braungart- Maps the lineaments of McDonough and Braungart’s new design paradigm, offering practical steps on how to innovate within today’s economic environment. Part social history, part green business primer, part design manual, the book makes plain that the re-invention of human industry is not only within our grasp, it is our best hope for a future of sustaining prosperity.
Go Green: How to Build an Earth-Friendly Community by Nancy Taylor-Local author offers user-friendly suggestions and case studies for individuals, schools, hospitals, businesses and communities on building or remodeling a green home, starting green programs in the classroom or at hospitals, and finding out what really matters about transportation, food, and renewable energy.
It’s Easy Being Green: A Handbook for Earth-Friendly Living by Crissy Trask- What is the reason for the great divide between environmental sentiment and individual actions? Author and environmental consultant Trask seeks to answer this question–and solve the disparity–with a new book that makes it easy to be an environmentalist, no matter how busy or hectic one’s lifestyle.
The Green Book by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas Kostigen- Environmental matters get the star treatment in The Green Book. Rogers and Kostigen address the fact that Americans endanger the balance of the ecosystem by the amount of waste we produce, the amount of water we use, and the amount of energy we consume, and celebrities, including Robert Redford, Ellen DeGeneres, Jennifer Aniston, Faith Hill, and Dale Earnhardt Jr., contribute observations and suggestions for living green.
The Citizen Powered Energy Handbook: Community Solutions to a Global Crisis by Greg Pahl-Keeping an eye on the “triple bottom line” that adds “people” and “planet” to the usual focus on “profits,” the book divides “cleaner, greener, more ethical and more female sectors of our U.S. economy” into three areas: lifestyles of health and sustainability, socially responsible investing and corporate social responsibility.
Kicking The Carbon Habit by Bill Sweet- Makes the case for alternative energy and nuclear. Sweet writes very well. He is an engineer and understands the technology needed to reduce use of fossil fuel and science of climate change. His conversational writing style makes this an easy, informative read.
Ice Ages: Solving the Mystery by John Imbrie and Katherine Palmer Imbrie- A history of glacial geology and the discovery of the cause of the repeated ice ages during the Pleistocene. A good account of the role of changes in the distribution of solar radiation over the earth’s surface as a result of changes in eccentricity and the wobble in earths precession.
Sustainable Fossil Fuels by Mark Jaccard- A thorough review of energy: economics, environmental, technical, and social consequences of the move to a sustainable energy system. Very readable, interesting, funny, a great primer on the subject.
Sustainable Energy: Choosing Among Options by Professor Jefferson Tester and others at MIT- This book is extremely informative and without political undertones, and although it is dry and somewhat technical, it is written at a level that can be readily grasped by someone with a college education. The technical resource to Mark Jaccard’s more accessible summary.
Winning the Oil End Game by Amory B. Lovins, et al. 2005, Rocky Mountain Institute- An in depth analysis of our oil dependence and how we might become independent. The chapter on Saving Oil discusses transportation and is a primer on efficiency.
