Review: The Pocket Idiot's Guide to Your Carbon Footprint

As most of you know, I’m on a green journey, trying to live a greener, more eco-friendly lifestyle. During this journey, I’ve been trying to reduce my carbon footprint by recycling, conserving water, and performing other tasks. However, I never fully understood or knew how to calculate my carbon footprint until I read The Pocket Idiot’s Guide to Your Carbon Footprint ($9.95), thanks to an opportunity from the Family Review Network and The Complete Idiot’s Guide Series.

What exactly is a carbon footprint? According to the book, a carbon footprint “sums up the impact human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of greenhouse gases produced. A carbon footprint includes many things, but for measuring convenience, all factors are converted to units of carbon dioxide (CO2)."

The beginning of the book really got my brain working, covering the basics of carbon footprints and energy—it was like I was back in high school, learning about chemistry (although now I actually paid attention to what I was reading)!

Subsequent chapters focused on different ways to reduce your carbon footprint in various areas, such as at home, at work or school, and on the roads. The book provided a lot of simple suggestions that you could implement right away to reduce your carbon footprint, some of which I’m sure most of you are already doing, such as lowering the thermostat on your water heater, turning off the water while you brush your teeth, or recycling your glass, aluminum, and plastic containers.

The book also provides a lot of statistics about energy usage, helpful definitions, and information on future initiatives and plans to help reduce our energy consumption.

The Pocket Idiot’s Guide to Your Carbon Footprint was a very interesting and enlightening read. What I really like about the book is how it doesn’t tell you that you need to go out and buy a hybrid car or buy only locally produced foods to reduce your carbon footprint. The book makes you think about the various factors involved in your daily decisions regarding shopping, commuting, or working, and notes how there really is no "right way" that suits everyone in terms of reducing your carbon footprint. Everyone is different and can find a way to reduce his or her carbon footprint that suits his or her lifestyle.

Whether you have installed solar panels on your home, use reusable totes to shop, or installed CFLs in all of your light fixtures, every bit helps, and we can all make a difference in creating a healthier environment.

Thank you to Penguin Group for providing the product(s) for review and/or giveaway.

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