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Category: Investment, Water
THE GREEN BLUE BOOK: The Simple Water-Savings Guide to Everything in Your Life
March 15, 2010 - On March 22nd the entire planet will observe World Water Day - a U.N. initiative that aims to bring attention to the Earth's escalating water emergency. Wrapping our heads around a concept this big can be daunting—which is why Thomas Kostigen's new book couldn't be timelier or more useful. THE GREEN BLUE BOOK: The Simple Water-Savings Guide to Everything in Your Life (Rodale; March 16, 2010; Paperback original $16.99; 224 pages) explains how the breakthrough concept of "Virtual Water" and redirecting our daily actions can shore up the world's water supply.
THE GREEN BLUE BOOK is a comprehensive guide to the embedded water footprint of everything from blue jeans to bananas, as well as hundreds more. By revealing the "water cost" of everyday items and actions, Kostigen is able to show readers exactly how implementing some of his simple and unique solutions can save millions of gallons of water. Whether in our homes, offices, or at any point throughout our busy day--enacting these seemingly small changes can make a big difference in the silent but impending water crisis the world is facing today.
You may be surprised to learn that you likely use 656,000 gallons of water per year. That's the average water footprint of some one living in the United States. It takes into account the water you see coming out of taps, faucets, hoses, as well as the water you don't see but took to produce your food, clothes, household items, and other things that you own. Every single item & every single action has a "Virtual Water" content, which refers to how much water was actually used to make or grow something. THE GREEN BLUE BOOK popularizes this concept so people can begin making decisions that will aid in saving the planet's precious water supply (not to mention their hard-earned dollars).
Here are just a few of the hundreds of water-saving ideas ripped from the book's pages:
Every new pair of jeans costs nearly 3,000 gallons of water to make. Given that 450 million pairs are sold annually in the United States, that comes to nearly 1.4 trillion gallons of water—the equivalent of half of California's entire yearly urban water demand. Go vintage.
Use less energy. We use 50% of our water supply in the United States to create electricity. Turning off the lights saves even more water than turning off the tap in your home.
Better manage your food. We waste 40% of the food we produce in the U.S., and along with it 25% of the total U.S. water supply it took to grow it.
Here in the U.S., signs of the water crisis are all around the U.S.—wildfires (look at Southern California), droughts (36 states are expected to experience droughts in the next 5 years), rationing of water, and worse: Arizona has been forced to import its water, Georgia almost ran out altogether, Texas (our second largest agricultural state, behind California) is now the driest region in the country; and the poor Great Lakes are fending off water poachers—yes, water poachers.
We can actually prevent a full-on water crisis through better management – by individuals, companies, and governments. Beyond its comprehensive listing of products, actions and choices, THE GREEN BLUE BOOK provides an easy-to-use "water calculator," for readers to measure their own water footprints.
THE GREEN BLUE BOOK is smart, witty, and empowering. You'll never look at a drop of water the same way again.
Thomas Kostigen is a New York Times Times best-selling author. His books include You Are Here and The Green Book. He writes the popular “Ethics Monitor” column for Dow Jones MarketWatch and hosts a weekly broadcast for the Wall Street Journal Digital network. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.
Yelena Gitlin-Nesbit/ Yelena.gitlin@rodale.com
212-573-0296
Lauren Auslander/ Lauren.Auslander@pmkhbh.com
212-373-6136
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