Green Books

Solar Electricity Handbook

A practical and straightforward guide to using electric solar panels. Assuming no previous knowledge of solar panels, the book explains how solar panels work, how they can be used and explains the steps you need to take to successfully design and install a solar electric system from scratch using photovoltaic solar panels. Accompanying this book is a solar resource website containing lots of useful information, lists of suppliers and on-line solar energy calculators that will simplify the cost analysis and design processes.

June 2009

Author: Michael Boxwell

Solar Power Your Home for Dummies

This book takes the mystery out of solar energy and shows you how to put it to work for you! This is a friendly, hands-on guide packed with tips for making your home more energy-efficient though solar power. You’ll see how to survey your home to determine your current household energy efficiency and use, and evaluate where solar power would best benefit you. You’ll also calculate what the return on your investment will be before you make any decisions.

November 2007

Author: Rik DeGunther

The Real Goods Solar Living Sourcebook - 30th Anniversary Edition
 
The ultimate guide to renewable energy, sustainable living, green building, homesteading, off-the-grid living, and alternative transportation, written by experts with decades of experience and a passion for sharing their knowledge. This fully-updated edition includes brand new sections on Peak Oil, Climate Change, Relocalization, Natural Burial, Biodynamics and Permaculture. It also boasts the latest product listings and completely rewritten and expanded chapters.

July 2009

Author: John Schaeffer


Reducing Energy Costs

Consumer Reports created this book to offer relief from the rising energy costs that steadily drain your wallet. It’s jammed with easy-to-follow advice straight from Consumer Reports experts in the areas of home improvement, appliances and autos. You’ll discover that there’s nothing difficult or mysterious about saving energy dollars—it’s really just a bunch of little things you can do that add up to big savings. In fact, many of the tips are surprisingly cheap—or even free. As much as 30 percent of the money you spend on heating and cooling may be wasted through small leaks throughout your house. If your doors and windows are old and drafty you don’t necessarily have to replace them. This book discusses fix-ups that can drastically improve the efficiency of those old windows and doors which can save you the expense of replacing them. If it is time to replace them, you’ll learn how to buy the ones that are best for your house, climate, and budget. Should you fix that old washer, fridge or other major appliance, or is it time to replace it with a new, more energy efficient model? Consumer Reports testing and reliability experts help you make the right decision.
October 2006
Author: Editors of Consumer Reports

Insulate and Weatherize

An excellent resource for do-it-yourselfers on how to perform projects of greater complexity than are usually covered in books for amateurs. An engineer who trains builders in energy-efficient construction, Bruce Harley offers a wealth of information that will allow readers to improve their home's efficiency, saving both money and natural resources. After an introductory section that explains the underlying principles of heat transfer, insulation, and air quality, Harley demonstrates basics such as weather-stripping and moves forward through advanced projects including insulation and major upgrades. Increasing energy efficiency is one of the easiest ways for home owners to save money, so this book clearly guides you through how to achieve this.

October 2002

Author: Bruce Harley

Climate Cover Up - The Crusade to Deny Global Warming

Starting in the early 1990s, three large American industry groups set to work on strategies to cast doubt on the science of climate change. Even though the oil industry’s own scientists had declared, as early as 1995, that human-induced climate change was undeniable, the American Petroleum Institute, the Western Fuels Association (a coal-fired electrical industry consortium) and a Philip Morris-sponsored anti-science group called TASSC all drafted and promoted campaigns of climate change disinformation.

Leveraging four years of original research conducted through Hoggan’s website, DeSmogBlog.com, Hoggan and Littlemore documented the participation of lapsed scientists and ExxonMobil-funded think tanks. Then they analyzed and explained how mainstream media stood by — or in some cases colluded — while deniers turned a clear issue of science (and an issue for public safety) into a partisan argument that no one could win.
September 2009
Authors: James Hoggan and Richard Littlemore

Blackout
 
Blackout goes to the heart of the tough energy questions that will dominate every sphere of public policy throughout the first half of this century, and it is a must-read for planners, educators, and anyone concerned about energy consumption, peak oil, and climate change. Author Richard Heinberg is a journalist, editor, lecturer, and senior fellow of the Post Carbon Institute. He is one of the world’s foremost peak oil educators and the award-winning author of seven previous books, including Peak Everything and The Party’s Over.
July 2009
Author: Richard Heinberg

The Transition Handbook - From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience

If your town is not yet a Transition Town, here is guidance for making it one. We have little time, and much to accomplish' -- Richard Heinberg, Post Carbon Institute.  This is much more than just a book. It is a manual for a movement and not just any movement, but one which - in avoiding the collapse of civilization threatened by the twin crises of peak oil and climate change - could prove to be the most important social force humanity has ever seen' -- Mark Lynas, author of Six Degrees.

September 2008

Author: Rob Hopkins

Ten Technologies to Save the Planet

Everyone agrees we need to slash global greenhouse emissions. But how do we actually achieve that? Politicians can set targets and consumers can try to live greener lives, but the world will only avoid runaway global warming with the help of technological breakthroughs. In this fascinating book, Chris Goodall profiles ten technologies to watch, explaining how they work and telling the stories of the inventors and entrepreneurs driving them forward. Some of Goodall's selections, such as the electric car, are familiar. Others are more surprising. Algae, for example, can soak up carbon dioxide and produce fuel, while charcoal made from waste vegetable and forestry matter can lock carbon into soils and reduce the need for fertilizers. Cutting-edge and accessible, this is popular science at its most crucial.

November 2008

Author: Chris Goodall

Careers in Renewable Energy

This outstanding text reviews careers in solar, wind, geothermal, and hydroelectric energy, hydrogen energy and fuel cells, and nuclear energy as well as employment in green building, management, and transportation. The underlying theme—knowledge is power—aids in the common organization of each chapter, which begins with a brief factual introduction and explains career opportunities, salaries, and required education. A brief bibliography follows each chapter. A broad appendix includes a list of 50 schools where students can study for careers in renewable energy and Web sites for job listings, workshops, and professional organizations. Edifying and accessible, this volume is a must read reference for career seekers everywhere providing insight into our common future of a rapidly evolving renewable energy industry and an environmentally sustainable global economy.

March 2008
Author: Gregory McNamee

The Solar Economy - Renewable Energy for a Sustainable Global Future

The global economy and our way of life are based on the exploitation of fossil fuels, which not only threaten massive environmental and social disruption through global warming but, at present rates of consumption, but will run out within decades, causing huge industrial dislocation and economic collapse. Even before then, the conflicts it causes in the Middle East and elsewhere will be frighteningly exacerbated.

The alternate exists: renewable energy from renewable sources – above all, solar. Substituting renewable for fossil resources will take a new industrial revolution to avert the worst of the damage and establish a new international order.  It can be done, and it can be done in time. The Solar Economy, by one of the world’s most effective analysts and advocates, lays out the blueprints, showing how the political, economic and technological challenges can be met using indigenous, renewable and universally available resources, and the enormous opportunities and benefits that will flow from doing so.

June 2004
Author: Hermann Scheer

The Ecology of Commerce - A Declaration of Sustainability
 
Paul Hawken, the entrepreneur behind the Smith & Hawken gardening supplies empire, is no ordinary capitalist. Hawken is on a one-man crusade to reform our economic system by demanding that First World businesses reduce their consumption of energy and resources by 80 percent in the next 50 years. As if that weren't enough, Hawken argues that goals should be redefined to embrace such fuzzy categories as whether the work is aesthetically pleasing and the employees are having fun; this applies to corporate giants and mom-and-pop operations alike. He proposes a culture of business in which the real world, the natural world, is allowed to flourish as well, and in which the planet's needs are addressed. Wall Street may not be ready for Hawken's provocative brand of environmental awareness, but this fine book is full of captivating ideas.

June 1994
Author: Paul Hawkens

Build a Green Small Business - Profitable Ways to Become an Ecopreneur

From organic groceries to fuel-efficient cars and toxicity-free drycleaning, the opportunities to profit from a business that builds local communities, heals the environment, and feeds the growing green demand are almost endless. As an entrepreneur who has developed successful eco-friendly businesses, Scott Cooney gives you expert advice and guidance on starting, building, and growing a green business--and then delivers a gold mine of business ideas for every kind of product and service.

October 2008
Author: Scott Cooney

Democracy's Edge

"Our country is suffering from a serious 'democratic deficit.' a widening gulf between public opinion and public policy—and what ails America necessarily ails the world. A great many people do not like what is happening to their lives and their country, and what is being done in their name, but feel isolated and helpless, victims of forces beyond their control. With the clear thinking, plain talk, and penetrating insight that we have come to expect from her work, Frances Moore Lappé confronts these fundamental problems directly and constructively. It is both a guide to the perplexed, and a guide to action." -- Noam Chomsky

October 2005

Author: Frances Moore Lappe

Human Scale

Progress, as it translates into sprawl, congestion, resource depletion, overpopulation, the decline of communities and the rise of corporate rule, is quite literally killing us. In his landmark work Human Scale, Kirkpatrick Sale details the crises facing modern society and offers real solutions, laying out ways that we can take control of every facet of our lives by building institutions, workplaces and communities that are sustainable, ecologically balanced, and responsive to the needs of the individual. As relevant today as when it was first published in 1980, this remarkable book provides a fascinating perspective on the last quarter-century of "growth" and anticipates by decades the current movement towards relocalization in response to the end of cheap oil.
April 1982
Author: Kirkpatrick Sale

Community

Modern society is plagued by fragmentation. The various sectors of our communities - businesses, schools, social service organizations,churches, government - do not work together. They exist in their own worlds, as do so many individual citizens, who long for connection but end up marginalized, their gifts overlooked, their potential contributions lost. This disconnection and detachment makes it hard if not impossible to envision a common future and work towards it together. We know what healthy communities look like, there are many success stories out there, and they've been described in detail. What Block provides in this inspiring new book is an exploration of the exact way community can emerge from fragmentation.

September 2009

Author: Peter Block

The Urban Homestead

The Urban Homestead is the essential handbook for a fast-growing new movement: urbanites are becoming gardeners and farmers. Rejecting both end-times hand wringing and dewy-eyed faith that technology will save us from ourselves, urban homesteaders choose instead to act. By growing their own food and harnessing natural energy, they are planting seeds for the future of our cities. If you would like to harvest your own vegetables, raise city chickens, or convert to solar energy, this practical, hands-on book is full of step-by-step projects that will get you started homesteading immediately, whether you live in an apartment or a house.

June 2008

Authors: Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutson 

 

The New Organic Grower
 
Coleman's personable work draws together the experience and wisdom of his 25 years as a vegetable gardener in Maine. It includes nearly all the material in the previous edition, communicating a respect and feeling for "the land" and its processes. Every page is imbued with the wisdom and careful observations he and his associates have gathered; from soil structure to "mobile greenhouses" that expand the growing season, each method is thought through to its ultimate impact on the earth and on economic survival. Well-presented graphics illustrate methods and techniques. This new edition includes sidebar references and notes, new chapters on creating fertile soil (without importing items such as manure from sources that may not use organic methods), and use of existing information channels to learn of new information. Of interest for even the smallest veggie patch grower.

September 1995

Author: Eliot Coleman

Green Housekeeping

According to the EPA, "the air in the average American home is between two and ten times more polluted than the air just outside the threshold." Sandbeck, a onetime house cleaner and roofer, explains why a homemaker must avoid toxins and pesticides if the home is to maintain a balanced, healthy ecosystem. The first chapter—touting the benefits of tidying up and getting organized—is tedious, but the book hits its groove in a chapter on "Organic Cleaning." Here, readers learn that all too often the very products we trust to keep our homes clean contain toxins and anti-microbials that kill beneficial organisms. From preventing mold and mildew and controlling garden pests, to computer care and avoiding electrical fires, Sandbeck doles out knowledge with an easy-to-digest blend of authority and humor.

January 2008

Author: Ellen Sandbeck