In this groundbreaking book, the New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Green Book Thomas M. Kostigen reveals the vital missing link in today's environmental how we as individuals are connected to the most tenuous geography on the planet. Despite the recent prominence of "green" issues in the news, the direct relationship between our actions and the earth is too often ignored. But the seemingly insignificant things we do every day have the power to literally alter the landscape in the ongoing battle to resuscitate the planet.
My biggest complaint would be that I've read better books on the same subject. Not only is the information not new, but the advice given seems inadequate in light of the severity of the situations depicted.
"Five million people die unnecessarily each year because of illness related to lack of potable water. Half of them are children under the age of five. To bring it home, think about this: one child dies from lack of clean water every twelve seconds."
Kostigen then proceeds to tell you to turn off the faucet while you brush your teeth and to take showers instead of baths.
According to this book, turning the water off while you brush your teeth could save 1,400 gallons of water per year. Replacing ONE four-ounce serving of beef PER WEEK with veggies or soy can save 20,000 gallons of water a year. That's 20,000 gallons of water saved for changing ONE MEAL each WEEK for a year vs. 1,400 gallons saved if you turn off the water every single time you brush your teeth three times a day, every day, for a year. One seems like a lot less effort with a lot more payoff to me. "If you're not into going completely veg, how about getting a single patty on that bun instead of two?" The author can't stand behind the statement to cut out a burger for one fucking meal a week? Maybe I should be glad he mentioned it as an option at all, but let's face it, there's no pleasing me. >(
This book simply bummed me out instead of leaving me feeling connected or empowered to make a difference in the world.
If, however, it has never occurred to you to turn off the water while you're brushing your teeth, this is the perfect book for you.
10 years old now, this book is still relevant in highlighting the consequences all our actions have around the world, and why we should care (we will all have to change our lives sooner or later, it just depends if we want them to change for better or for worse).
The author does a good job of humanising climate change and introducing us to people around the world affected by our collective actions in an effort to spark compassion. He also offers facts (that are probably outdated, but good for grasping concepts) and useful tips that every one of us can take to make change.
The best thing the book does is to show the connection between a single action we take and the effect it could have even on the opposite side of the world. An example: the pollution from driving a car, incinerating trash, heating a home, etc travels through air currents and often lands in polar regions, creating 'dirty snow' that heats and melts snow faster. This not only affects communities living in polar regions, it also leads to sea level rise which in turn erodes someone's coastal home or floods their island. All of this may cause people to lose their lives, livelihoods, or to seek refuge away from their lost homes. In summary: if we care about each other, we should care about our actions, and educate ourselves to make good decisions in every area of our lives.
Comprehensive, however I don’t think I have learned anything new. But then again, maybe this might be helpful if you are new to the topic. There are also a few points I strongly disagree with, like the notion that you can’t find normal clothes in sustainable fashion lines, only the “hippie-clothes”. All in all, not a bad read on sustainability and personal choices
Thomas M. Kostigen begins his eye-opening new book on the world's environmental challenges in the Middle East, where pollution and neglect are steadily destroying the ancient sites that are the foundation of the Abrahamic faiths. I've seen this with my own eyes (there's a shocking crack in the retaining wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem big enough to climb through -- if you were a bit more nimble than me and didn't mind causing religious riots...) In "You Are Here: Exposing the Vital Link Between What We Do and What that Does to Our Planet" Kostigen travels from Borneo to Bombay (ok, Mumbai) on the trail of the trash and pollution that will be our bequest to future generations unless we heed some of the extremely practical advice he gives on energy and water saving (it isn't just about not flushing when you pee). He brings it all home when he returns to his apartment in Santa Monica, California, and drives slowly behind a recycling truck, watching vast amounts of paper drop out of blue bins. (Read a newspaper for one year and you've consumed four trees, he notes. Does that make you want to recycle?) I live in Jerusalem, which recycles only a third as much of its waste as the average of Israeli cities, and Israeli cities aren't exactly on the forefront of environmental issues. Wherever you live, Kostigen let's you know how you and your town can do better. An inspiring read which succeeds in making an often technical subject into a moving mission statement for us all.
“You Are Here” by Thomas M. Kostigen is a global tour of man’s impact on the environment from global warming to the problem of waste. The book is wide in scope and easy to read, but doesn’t present anything new in terms of solutions (recycle, take public transportation, reduce water use, etc.). While a good overview of environmental issues, Kostigen fails to prioritize them based on urgency or potential consequences. For example he seems to think that the problem of waste disposal is equivalent to the global reduction in biodiversity. They are not. Opening a new landfill a far easier than bringing back an extinct species.
Unfortunately the book also suffers from an abundance of dumb factual errors that could have benefitted from the Google. A few examples from one short paragraph:
“There are two man-made things it’s said you can see with the naked eye from outer space: the Great Wall of China and Fresh Kills (a landfill in New York)”. While this may be “said” it’s simply not true. However you can see many other man-made things from outer space. Snopes has a good take down of this myth.
“From 1948 until 2001, Fresh Kills took in refuse from America’s largest city – and piled it high – so high that it is the tallest point on the Eastern Seaboard of the country.” Mount Washington in New Hampshire is the tallest point on the eastern seaboard at 6288 ft. The Fresh Kills landfill is 225 feet tall, which really isn’t even close.
Another in the long list of of books detailing just how shitty we are to the planet. Kostigen does a good job detailing the plight and connecting "us" to it. My only slight is that I just didn't like him as the author. He was in the book more than i would have liked. Each chapter took on one particular place on Earth that illustrates the extremes to which we might find ourselves.I particularly liked the section about Mumbai and the one on the Great Lakes.
I found it really interesting to read a decade-old book about climate change. One thing that separates this book from others is connections Kostigen makes between our daily actions (water usage, waste, etc) with climate change and other impacts to people around the world. It was interesting comparing the approach to climate change a decade ago to how things have shaped up since then. Its subtle but the differences are there. We don't hear about reduce, reuse, recycle, even though a circular economy is still important today. It's been interesting watching the commercialization of sustainability efforts and products. I'm definitely a sucker for those products but I wonder how genuine or impactful these efforts are. Anyway, I enjoyed this book -- especially the stories that took me beyond just the US but to places like Mumbai.
What an interesting book. There were things I disliked about Kostigens writing and the book is slightly outdated, having been written 13 years ago. However, all the content was very interesting and I am glad to be more knowledgeable on a subject I’m passionate about.
This information is old news now. This shows how little we have done in the past 12 years, even though we know there is a huge problem and we need to do something….now.
I wanted to like this. I read Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver and Mark Bittman and I am a literal treehugger, so when I saw this at the library I picked it up, expecting their quality of writing, thinking, organization, and insight. In the first chapter (beyond which I did not read), Kostigen leaps about in his narrative more than I do in ordinary, unedited, nonpublished speech.
I expected structure and follow-up to his ideas. I didn't find much of either. I could have overlooked more of his awkward style and technical glitches if his development and structure had made the effort worthwhile. They didn't.
" don't think that their individual efforts can make a difference... But the truth is that every action makes a difference" (15). Then he gives an example: "If we all {adjusted our thermostats}, we'd save...." That is an example of the effect of collective, not personal effort. One must be able to measure the kilowatt hours that individual efforts save, even if the measurement is milliwatt seconds (I'm making that up): give that figure instead.
A "handful of critics ... assert that the realities of global warming have been grossly exaggerated by self-interested, left-leaning pundits and politicians. Let's set the record straight and get this nonsense off the table. The facts are irrefutable" (17). Fine and dandy. But his next paragraph does not give pertinent facts and irrefutable references but explains the difference between weather and climate.
He begins in Jerusalem, looking for a stone to call the geographic center of the three major monotheistic religions (it would connect the Via Dolorosa, the Western Wall, and the Dome of the Rock). By the end of the chapter, he's waxed indiscriminate: this rock, another rock, a metaphorical rock, does it matter? Yes it does, since that rock is the image you found your book on. I lost patience there on page 18 but decided to finish the chapter.
I shouldn't have finished that paragraph. He writes, "{Limestone} is made of carbon, which, other than oxygen, is also the biggest element in the human body" (19). That "also" serves no purpose, but by this point I was trying to see only the ideas and not the grammar. Too bad the idea sounded ridiculous. Biggest, even though other elements in the body, such as magnesium, calcium, zinc, and iron, have more protons and electrons in them? He didn't mean the largest element but the one constituting the largest share. I suggest "primary" instead. It's correct, it reads well, and most important, it does not reduce the sentence, and in this reader's case, the book, to sloppy science.
The author travels to several focal points on today's environmental front and manages to tie in what is happening in these trouble spots with our everyday habits that, it turns out, have global consequences. He visits Mumbai, India, where people have to recycle virtually everything in order for the city not to become literally flooded with garbage. He catches a glimpse of our possible future when he stops in Linfen City, China, one of the most polluted spots on Earth due to multiple coal fired manufacturing plants, and sees rainforest destruction firsthand in Borneo and the Amazon, where a cycle of deforestation precedes industrial agricultural production of palm oil and soybeans which result in depleted oxygen in the atmosphere. Other stops in Alaska (melting ice flows and disappearing shorelines), Hawaii (a garbage patch twice the size of Texas caught up in the Pacific Ocean's currents), New York (the world's largest landfill at Fresh Kills, now closed), the Great Lakes (where battle lines are beginning to be drawn around fresh water sources) and Jerusalem, Israel (where the monuments of three world faiths are fast eroding from air pollution) underscore today’s major environmental crises.
Kostigen’s final ruminations on his return home to California reveal how such seemingly minor things as turning off the faucet when brushing one's teeth or shaving, turning out lights when leaving rooms, setting the thermostat a bit warmer in summer or cooler in winter, or recycling more and throwing out less can indeed have positive repercussions in the far corners of today’s world, as well as in our own backyards. He explains it all quite succinctly, never losing hope that a more enlightened future is at hand, in a snappy narrative that is a fast read. If you only pick up one book on the environment this year, you couldn't go wrong with this one.
This book makes you really think about how we are all connected on this planet and how everything each of us does, choices we make, affect each other.
It's written well, highly informative and thought provoking. The only reason I didn't give it five stars is because after reading it I felt very depressed and defeated. I didn't feel there was enough info on how each of us can really make a difference. Maybe there was and I focused on the negative, I don't know. I just know it scared the pee out of me.
I don't think I'll ever be able to buy a new computer without thinking what happens to all of our old ones.
We definitely need to wake up and change how we live, this book will give you that insight.
Reader beware: I found it to be very discouraging.
I still would recommend it to everyone, I would just prefer it had some upbeat ideas in it with more hope for mankind. I recycle, I don't drink out of plastic bottles, I conserve water and try my best to conserve energy-use around our house. I grow my own garden. After reading this book, I realize I need to do much, much more than that.
I had already changed my mind about buying everything "new" a while back. But there are some things that I see American's and other developed nations will have trouble giving up(including me), new appliances, new TV's, new computers--it's a constantly changing technical world out there and everyone wants to have the latest and best model. My parents kept a refrigerator for over twenty-five years. Now we are lucky if we can squeeze ten years out of one. So ask yourself, if 75% of the population is buying this stuff new, what's happening to the old appliances etc. that we toss?
Great information that everyone should have! Unfortunately, I can see how this book would be hard to get through unless you’re really into the subject. If you’re tempted to put the book down, please skip to the Great Lakes chapter. It’s highly digestible, memorable, and has lots of simple actions you can undertake to help. I particularly liked the idea of advertising virtual water use. I know it would make a difference in my consumption.
An anecdote that I must share… This afternoon I was outside, reading the last few chapters, when one of the ropes on my hammock broke. “Well,” I thought, “it’s almost five years old. I guess I should throw it away and buy a new one.” No, no, NO! It was just a few pages ago that I read we should only be throwing out what is extremely difficult or impossible to recycle. “OK, so I’ll toss the metal rings and wood supports, and keep the rope for who-knows-what… Or, I could add a six-inch piece of rope to re-attach the ends and use the whole hammock for a few more years!”
That is the kind of paradigm-shift that I expect everyone will achieve after reading this book. The information is so powerful you can’t help but think twice – or three times – about your everyday actions.
Passing this to a friend who showed an interest. Keep it moving, Am!
Once again, I pick up a book to become convinced on the reality of man-made global warming, and I'm left sorely disappointed. Skeptic books are very much seeped in science, while climate alarmist writers like Kostigen, Suzuki, etc. only state their ideology as 100% fact, with no need for debate. Would have rated this book lower but he did have some interesting stuff on conservation, actual airborne pollution, recycling, etc. Too bad his arguments for these otherwise valid points always revert to reducing our carbon footprint to combat global warming. Why, again, is that exactly? Oh right, just trust you. I'm getting tired of hearing that from environmentalists while climate-skeptic scientists continue to pump out contradictory data yet consistently get rebuffed by alarmists when they invite them to debate competing climate theories. Kostigen et al need to do much better than that.
Learned so much by reading this book - a topic I've been deeply passionate about since 1989!!!!!!!!!
It has a whole chapter about the world's largest landfill, on Staten Island. Having just been there for 5 weeks, I am truly sad I never made it to Fresh Kills, the only other man-made thing you can see from outerspace beside The Great Wall.
Fresh Kills is closed, but some tours operate still. Used this book as the main research behind my environmental education projects for three airports for employees.
Makes me want to do a lot more than I already do to change my 'footprint.' (My New Year's Resolution for 2012 was no more styrofoam ... that means bye bye Sonic and I WILL NOT buy eggs - or other products -in styrofoam when alternate packaging is available...)
Before reading this book I was among the skeptics that believed in "global warming" but thought it wasn't as bad as anyone was saying. After reading this book I can't believe what a difference it has made on me. Every chapter brings us to a different part of the world where there is a disaster on the environment occurring. For example the book discusses air pollution in China, deforestation, ocean pollution, and the lack of water. I actually took some of Kostigen's advice and changed some of my habits to try and do my part. I recommend this book to everyone.
Even though this book is called "groundbreaking" it really isn't--I think by now we all know that wasting water is bad and throwing away our computers and cell phones creates damaging waste. But this book does uniquely portray the places where the impact of these actions is already in full force, thus making it clear that the demise to the planet is not something that will happen in the future but is happening now. It's more of an environmental travelogue--this is your planet on trash.
I think this book should be read at all. It is not preachy nor political. Instead, the author tries to show how what we do in our daily lives effects the rest of the world. He wants us to know WHY it is important we conserve, recycle, and find alternative sources to energy. It is wonderfully written and I highly recommend it!
This book has a pretty narrow target audience: those who don't really know anything at all about the sad state of our planet but can be convinced to read a book that tells them why they should care. I just kept finding myself thinking...it's a valiant effort, but I only picked up this book because I already care, and there is nothing here I don't already know.
For those of us who are longtime "earth muffins" and "tree huggers", the facts and figures in the book will come as no surprise.
I did learn about the illegal "trade" in toxic waste, such as computers, batteries, and other parts that we in the developed countries are often told are being safely dealt with. That was an eye-opening chapter.
I enjoyed reading this book - it brought me back to my university days of reading more factual text that made me think. For me it was also a nice break from travel only reading I have been doing lately. This book allowed me to travel to different areas and learn about world problems we have caused there. I nice little read.
Pretty good. I'm a little behind on my nonfiction, so I've had this book a little more than a year. The author's moving around discussing topics and concerns from different regional and cultural locations definately made the issues more personal. I learned some things I didn't know, and as the goal would be- it succeeded in heightening my awareness.
This book was very eye-opening. It was educational, but in a conversational tone and was not at all preachy. I actually enjoyed Thomas Kostigen's dialogue, while learning facts and statistics. The stories of his travels were inspiring and thought-provoking. I recommend this book to everyone.
Great information! Very readable. The author very successfully links environmental issues to the personal every day living on this planet while giving some simple things to do to help change the health of our planet.
I just think everyone should be required to read this book! All of the exact facts and numbers can make it seem a little like a textbook, but the knowledge gained here may prove to be much more useful than most of what welearned in school.