Awards
Winner 2007 IVCA Clarion Award for Best Non-Fiction Book
Synopses & Reviews
That climate change is happening is now all too clear. Many of us want to take action to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions. Yet the lack of a consolidated source of reliable information on how to calculate one's individual emissions and the difficulty in assessing different options for effectiveness and cost savings has proven to be a major stumbling block. But personal actions to reduce carbon emissions, if replicated on a sufficient scale, might just save the planet.How to Live a Low-Carbon Life provides the first comprehensive, one-stop reference guide to calculating individual carbon emissions and it lays out clear plans for how individuals can reduce their emissions. Covering all aspects of modern life from transport to home heating to food sources and the vexing issue of vacations, the book provides easy-to-use tables for conducting a personal lifestyle carbon audit.Easy reference tables enable rapid carbon footprint calculations, and a companion website houses downloadable spreadsheets to facilitate a complete lifestyle carbon audit as well as up-to-the minute information on new products and carbon-reducing technologies.This is the most comprehensive guide to calculating and reducing individual and home carbon emissions. It provides all the information needed for people and families to understand their impacts on the world's climate. It gives us the information to enable us to adjust lifestyles and live a responsible life.Written in an optimistic tone, How to Live a Low-Carbon Life shows how easy it is to take responsibility and reduce our personal carbon emissions.Listen to Chris Goodall on NPR's Science Friday. Click here to download the audio file.
Review
"This is the definitive guide to reducing your carbon footprint."
New Scientist
Review
"...if you're fed up with reading about all the little things you can do for the planet and fancy getting stuck into some proper green living, this is the book for you." Your Environment (Environment Agency, UK)
Review
"Valuable ammunition for those who want to do something about global warming. The carbon-aware future is coming. Goodall [and Lynas] are the pioneers, and are doing a good job of taking us with them." Guardian
Review
"Chris Goodall's thoroughly researched book sets out in detail how we can each help the planet pull back from the abyss not through any high-powered international initiatives, but by ordinary individual actions in our daily lives. We ignore his advice at our peril." Robert Napier, Chief Executive WWF-UK
Review
"As this admirable guide demonstrates so clearly, a low-carbon lifestyle can be elegant, fun, rewarding and save us all a lot of money as well as the planet!" Jonathon Porritt, CBE (Founder Director of Forum for the Future and author of Capitalism as if the World Matters)
Review
"Full of the facts and figures you need to reduce your personal emissions as efficiently as possible...set within a political discussion about why no action is happening and what major social changes are needed for us to have a sustainable future." GREEN WORLD (The Official Magazine of the Green Party)
Synopsis
- Individual action is now recognized as one of the keys to tackling climate change the greatest challenge facing humanity
- Shows how consumers can conduct a personal and household 'carbon audit,' take decisive action for lowering their carbon footprint and save money
- User-friendly and comprehensive: includes tables for calculating carbon emissions and monetary costs and savings and methods for making choices for maximum carbon and cost reduction
- Companion website with easy-to-use spreadsheets and up to the minute figures and product information
How to Live a Low Carbon Life provides a comprehensive, one-stop reference guide to calculating individual carbon emissions and it lays out clear plans for how individuals can reduce their emissions. Covering all aspects of modern life from transport to home heating to where our food comes from to the vexing issue of holiday travel, the book provides easy-to-use tables for conducting a personal lifestyle 'carbon audit.'
This thorough and wide-ranging handbook provides all the information needed for people and families to understand their impacts on the world’s climate. It gives them the information to enable them to adjust lifestyles and live a responsible life. Written in an optimistic tone, it shows how easy it is to take responsibility and reduce our personal carbon emissions Companion website with easy-to-use spreadsheets and up to the minute figures and product information
Synopsis
Climate change is the greatest challenge facing humanity: drastic reduction of carbon emissions is vital if we are to avoid a catastrophe that devastates large parts of the world. Governments and businesses have been slow to act and individuals now need to take the lead. The Earth can absorb no more than 3 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year for every person on the planet if we are to keep temperature and rainfall change within tolerable limits. Yet from cars and holiday flights to household appliances and the food on our plates, Western consumer lifestyles leave each of us responsible for over 12 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year - four times what the Earth can handle. Individual action is essential if we want to avoid climate chaos. How to Live a Low-Carbon Life shows how easy it is to take responsibility, providing the first comprehensive, one-stop reference guide to calculating your CO2 emissions and reducing them to a sustainable 3 tonnes a year.
About the Author
Chris Goodall is chair of telecommunications software company Dynmark International, a member of the UK Competition Commission and Utilities Appeal Panel, and the Green Party's Parliamentary Candidate for Oxford West and Abingdon. He has an MBA from Harvard Business School and is a former director of Which? Ltd. Chris administers lowcarbonlife.net a website with the single purpose of helping individuals in the UK and elsewhere to do something about greenhouse gas emissions.