BUILDING A BETTER WORLD IN YOUR BACKYARD

A grassroots do-it-yourself guide to environmentally friendly living.

“How do you, dear reader, find out if you really are an eco warrior or an unwitting eco poser?” asks popular YouTuber Paul Wheaton and co-author Klassen-Koop in their lively and engaging debut. Wheaton is a practiced communicator who relays lessons about the environment in clear, simple terms, and he acknowledges that a great many people react to dire world news by getting angry at the people they perceive as the bad guys in any situation when they’d feel better if they took positive action themselves. “For nearly every global problem,” he writes, “there are solutions we can implement in our backyard that save us money and help us live more luxuriant lives.” Wheaton hopes to counteract companies’ “greenwashing” of gullible consumers who want to do the right thing. Toward that end he lays out in great detail all kinds of ways people can drastically reduce waste that harms the environment while actually improving the quality of their day-to-day life. His suggestions include thought-provoking ideas about being a vegan versus an omnivore and about recycling, easily the most immediately pragmatic advice for general readers, including a tip on what do to with pizza boxes: “use the cardboard as a fire starter.” Heating costs, which Wheaton sees as the most important element of his plan, will present readers with challenges they might be unwilling to take up. For instance, Wheaton advocates keeping a home cold in winter except for discrete spots that people are using at the moment, and he also strenuously recommends a device called a “rocket mass heater” that he claims is much more effective than a wood-burning stove. But even if readers don’t buy into all of his solutions, they’ll find an enormous amount of useful information about living a greener and simpler life, generously illustrated with black-and-white artwork.

A guide to living a life kinder to the environment offers solutions to everyday challenges.