Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #407636 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 64 pages

Synopsis
Did you know that changing just one high energy lightbulb to a low energy one saves 75kg of carbon dioxide a year? That's 7,500 party balloonsful. This full-colour book provides hundreds of practical ideas for making small changes to your lifestyle that can make a big difference to the environment. In eight sections "How Many Lightbulbs?" will inspire you, your church and your community towards actions that will reduce your ecological footprint, from turning off the tap, to starting a church compost heap. Start making strides to shrink your ecological footprint today.

Customer Reviews

Good intentions
Some useful tips but, a lot that have been published already or are just common sense. Would benefit from more creative ideas and more depth to the topics and ideas. Perhaps a more theological perspective would be appropriate, as it is supposed to be a Christian resource.

A pocket guide to shrinking your environmental footprint
"How many lightbulbs ...?" is a pocket-sized guide to shrinking your ecological footprint aimed at Christians - though most of it has much wider relevance. The media often treat issues like global warming as beyond our control - but this shows how each one of us can each make a real difference.

Published as part of the Church of England's "Shrinking the footprint" campaign, it is stuffed full of practical ideas. Each of the chapters on broad topics like Water, Energy, Waste, Biodiversity and Lifestyle is divided into three sections. The "You" section has practical ideas to implement around the home. "You and your church" has suggestions for the church leadership to discuss as well as sources for worship ideas. "You and your community" includes ideas for use whilst at work, shopping, on holiday etc. Scattered through the booklet are relevant quotations and fascinating facts - did you know that changing a high energy light bulb for a low energy one saves 75kg of carbon dioxide a year - that's enough for 7,500 party balloons! There are also several dozen useful websites and contact phone numbers.

The authors, Claire Foster and David Shreeve, are environmental advisors to the Church of England. I expect they insisted that the beautifully-produced booklet was printed on fully recycled paper, and that some of the profits should be donated to develop the gardens around Liverpool cathedral. My only criticism is not about the contents of the book at all, but of the marketing adopted by the publishers. This is an important practical guide that should be purchased and acted on by every (Christian) household. But I can see few churchgoers who will be inclined to fork out £4.99 for a booklet of 64 small (4" x 6") pages - that's nearly 8p a page! Surely the print run should have been measured in six figures with a much lower selling price.