In fact I liked it so much I wrote a review of it which I’ve put on my website, along with links to amazon us and uk, available at http://www.howtopowertheworld.com/carbon-detox.html.

I’m sure the light hearted tone you took with the book has rubbed off on me when writing content for my site – it’s an important topic, but people are scared by the ramifications. We need to make it as accessible as we can, and a little humour can’t hurt!

By the way, if you want a source of hilarious climate “denier” arguments, might I suggest looking into the global warming section of Yahoo Answers:

http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/;_ylt=Ak3Mr47gGaQAAmPtzsZieQ8Fxgt.;_ylv=3?link=list&sid=2115500306

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been called a communist/liberal/conspiracy propagator/idiot/gullible… Oh well, they’re not going to stop me using a little common sense and encouraging others to do the same.

It’s an excellent book which I thoroughly enjoyed reading. Thanks for writing it!

Michael

Maybe this just highlights the systemic nature of the problem and the limits of individual action?

By the way, the carbon calculator method you use doesn’t recognise savings in the bank. Surely these need to be accounted for as they are almost certainly being invested and generating carbon.

[George replies. Dear Stuart- I think it is great that your emissions are so low. I don't think you should feel disempowerd- I think you should be out there amplifying like mad. You are showing that low carbon living is posisble and you are already practising it. You are right about savings in the bank, but it is hard to quantify savings (which are a lump) as annual emissions. So, rather like the Inland Revenue, I have assumed that they are covered under gross income or investment income. This is crude, but the emissions from consumption are very hard to evaluate accurately and most calculators duck this huge area. Carbon Detox is, I think, has the first calculator to even try to calculate, and I have had to simplify it to keep readers engaged. As I stress in the book, the calculator is an imprecise tool to give you an idea of where your issues are (with government in your case). Glad you enjoyed the book.]

Great book!

I’ve read Carbon Detox, and I am sure that it will stimulate people to take meaningful action to combat climate change. Your hands-on experience has allowed you take a critical look at what works, and what does not.

I have made a review, but it ended up at nearly 6,000 words!! I’ll try and get it posted on a personal blog at sometime with a link from your site, but in the meantime, here is a summary. I have made 9 categories of comment – the first 5 are things which I particularly liked about Carbon Detox, and the following 4 are those which are meant as constructive criticism for your kind consideration. I end with a challenge!

I liked:

1. About Really Believing It!
2. Motivating Behaviour Change (& Avoiding the Medusa Effect)
3. Segmenting People into Types
4. Importance of Social Interaction
5. Budgeting and Investing in Low-Carbon Living

Some constructively comments were about:

1. Needing More of a Focus on Creating Solutions
2. Transport Economics
3. Higher Commitment to Ecological Thinking (& Beware of Averages!)
4. The Possible Role of Contraction & Convergence (C&C)

I also end with a challenge/discussion on what a resident of Canada should do. Canada is the world’s least successful country in meeting its Kyoto emissions targets. Since 1990, emissions have increased by 27% in Canada, and they are now around 35% above Kyoto target levels

Best wishes,

Peter Winters

Checking amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Carbon-Detox-Thinking-George-Marshall/dp/1856752887/

I see no Publisher’s information and only one reader review.

Having just finished it, I can confirm that your book is absolutely awesome! I’m going to try and force it on as many people as I can.

cheers,
Michael Osborne

http://integralstrategies.org/envirocommunication.html
http://integralstrategies.org/climatechange.html

All best.

According to the 390 page 2006 United Nations report, “Livestocks Long Shadow” (see wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livestock‘s_Long_Shadow or download the document for free at http://www.virtualcentre.org/en/library/key_pub/longshad/A0701E00.htm)
the livestock sector “generates 65 per cent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2″ and “that livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, a bigger share than that of transport”.

Focusing only on carbon is a blinkered view of the situation. All aspects of climate change need to be considered, and carbon is only one part of the picture, and possibly not even the most significant.

I think it is time that activists such as yourself pointed out to the population that while changes to their carbon footprint are a worthwhile thing to do, other easy changes – such as moving towards a more plant-centered diet and reducing foods and products from the dairy and livestock industry – can possibly make a bigger difference to climate change than all the compact lightglobes, water-saving showerheads and ybrids put together.

[George writes: You are dead right Claire- people choose to be skeptics and then adopt or fit the incoming information to fit that stance. And one way to do that is to only read skeptic materials and ignore the rest. But I do hope the book will provide people with some arguments to take on the doubters and, in truth, I think we're all a bit in denial and can do with exploring that. Certainly I find it very hard to believe in climate change, and I've been working on nothing else fro eight years!]