Showing titles in Sustainable & Green Living

I am a half-arser. A shave-one-legger. A rinse-the-plates-and-tell-myself-any-residual-dirt-will-improve-my-immune-system-er. And yet, I still want to live better, improve my relationships, build a career, enjoy hobbies, have ethics, and live a full, passionate, varied life. And it's possible. This book will teach you to harness the power of half-arsedness to improve the things you actually care about improving, without expending more than you have to give. It's not going to turn you into a superhuman, but it will help you feel more human.

In The 15-Minute City: A Solution to Saving Our Time and Our Planet, Carlos Moreno delivers an exciting and insightful discussion of the deceptively simple and revolutionary idea that everyday destinations like schools, stores, and offices should only be a short walk or bike ride away from home. This book tells the story of an idea that spread from city to city, describing a new way of looking at living that addresses many of the most intractable challenges of our time.

Discover nature's apothecary. A prepping green pharmacy revolution is underway in Carlos Mack's latest book "Natural Medicine and Herbal Remedies for Preppers: Survival Secrets of Wilderness Wellness." Are you ready to unlock the incredible healing power of plants and nature's remedies? In a world where the pill bottle often seems like the go-to solution, there's a revolution underway, and it's happening right in your backyard.

What if we were less reliant on our cars? What if there were safe cycling paths to take us places instead? What if those paths led to the next town, the next village and the countryside beyond? This was the dream of a group of Bristolian idealists in the 1970s when they founded Britain’s National Cycle Network, which now runs to nearly 13,000 miles across the country. Journalist Laura Laker sets off on an odyssey around the UK to see where the NCN began, and where it is now.

Hedgerows, moors, meadows and woods - these hold a veritable feast for the forager. In this hugely informative and witty handbook, John Wright reveals how to spot the free and delicious pickings to be found in the British countryside, and how to prepare and cook them.

Over half a century ago, John Rowlands set out by canoe into the wilds of Canada to survey land for a timber company. After paddling alone for several days, he came upon "the lake of my boyhood dreams", which he named Cache Lake because there was stored the best that the north had to offer-timber for a cabin; fish, game, and berries to live on; and the peace and contentment he felt he could not live without.

Many of us spend our days cooped up indoors, disconnected from the natural world around us. Cities, technology, and our fast-paced modern lives cause us to overlook the absolute wonder that abounds in nature. This comprehensive guide is your first step into the rewarding world of herbal gardening... and get this, no green thumb required!

74-year-old Derbyshire man Ken Smith has spent the past four decades in the Scottish Highlands, living alone in a log cabin nestled near Loch Treig, known as 'the lonely loch'. He has no electricity or running water. He lives off the land, fishing for his supper, chopping wood, and even brewing his own tipple. For the first time, Ken shares the story of his life.

In May 2022, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences released a paper that measured fourteen European countries on three factors: biodiversity, wellbeing, and nature connectedness. Britain came last in every single category. The findings are clear. We are suffering, and nature is too. Enter ‘Wild Service’ – a visionary concept crafted by the pioneers of the Right to Roam campaign, which argues that humanity’s loss and nature’s need are two sides of the same story. Blending science, nature writing and indigenous philosophy, this groundbreaking book calls for mass reconnection to the land.

When Charles and Perrine Hervé-Gruyer set out to create their farm in an historic Normandy village, they had no idea just how much their lives would change. Neither one had ever farmed before. Charles had been circumnavigating the globe by sail, operating a floating school that taught students about ecology and indigenous cultures. Perrine had been an international lawyer in Japan. Each had returned to France to start a new life.

If simplicity is an art, then Dominique Loreau is a master. Having lived in Japan for many years and inspired by oriental philosophy, Dominique Loreau discovered the beauty of a life well lived through the art of simplicity. Her lifestyle rests on the principle of 'less is more' and imbues all areas of existence, from the material to the spiritual.

Most gardeners realize that plants need to be fed but know little to nothing about the nature of the nutrients involved or how they get into plants. Teaming with Nutrients explains how nutrients move into plants and what both macro-nutrients and micro-nutrients do once inside. It shows organic gardeners how to provide these essentials.

Ready to unlock the secrets to a lush garden oasis, even if you’ve never held a trowel in your life? Tired of old, boring gardening books? Ahhh, livin’ the dream. Your own delicious organic food forest growing right outside your window. A harvest so bountiful, it feeds you, your family, and the whole neighborhood. Year-round abundance. Yummy homegrown tomatoes. What a life! Sounds like true wealth, doesn’t it? And yet, sometimes, the dream seems so far out of reach. Ever felt this way?

To grow produce of the highest nutritional quality the essential minerals lacking in our soil must be replaced, but this re-mineralization calls for far more attention to detail than the simple addition of composted manure or NPK fertilizers. The Intelligent Gardener demystifies the process, while simultaneously debunking much of the false and misleading information perpetuated by both the conventional and organic agricultural movements. In doing so, it conclusively establishes the link between healthy soil, healthy food, and healthy people.

The story of a personal housing crisis that led to a discovery of the true value of home. Aged 31, Catrina Davies was renting a box-room in a house in Bristol, which she shared with four other adults and a child. Working several jobs and never knowing if she could make the rent, she felt like she was breaking apart. Homesick for the landscape of her childhood, in the far west of Cornwall, Catrina decides to give up the box-room and face her demons. As a child, she saw her family and their security torn apart; now, she resolves to make a tiny, dilapidated shed a home of her own.

Call it "Zen and the Art of Farming" or a "Little Green Book", Masanobu Fukuoka's manifesto about farming, eating, and the limits of human knowledge presents a radical challenge to the global systems we rely on for our food. At the same time, it is a spiritual memoir of a man whose innovative system of cultivating the earth reflects a deep faith in the wholeness and balance of the natural world. As Wendell Berry writes in his preface, the book "is valuable to us because it is at once practical and philosophical."

What would the city of the future look like if we tried to build a better life from the ground up? And would anyone want to live there? Here, Des Fitzgerald takes us on an urgent, unforgettable journey into the future of urban life, from shimmering edifices in the Arizona desert to forest-bathing in Japan, and from rats in mazes to neuroscientific studies of the effects of our surroundings. Along the way, he reveals the deep-lying and often problematic roots of today's green city movement, and offers an argument for celebrating our cities as they are.

It's amazing how little can change in a decade. In 2009, a book transformed the way we see our frying pans, thermometers, and tuna sandwiches. Daily life was bathing us in countless toxins that accumulated in our tissues, were passed on to our children, and damaged our health. To expose the extent of this toxification, environmentalists Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie offered themselves to science and undertook a series of over a dozen experiments to briefly raise their personal levels of mercury, BPA, Teflon, and other pollutants.

If the power grid fails, it’s not just your lights that go out. It’s your water supply. It’s your heating and cooling system. It’s all your usual ways of cooking food or doing the laundry. Without the grid, life as we know it changes in an instant.

When it comes to reducing animal suffering, many people aren’t sure where to start or which options are most beneficial. Charitable donations? Volunteer work? Dining at vegan restaurants? Meatless Mondays? The truth is that you have far more power than you think to make a real difference. Inspired by the effective altruism movement, The Impactful Vegan teaches listeners how to audit their impact and follow methods that have been scrutinized, evaluated, and determined to do the most good for animals.