Customer Reviews

contains plenty of ideas and insights which will be very useful to anyone who’s already started down the path to light living Review by Patrick Whitefield, author of the Earth Care Manual, review in Permaculture magazine

Review

Marshall’s book is quite unlike any other on climate change. Out of 300-odd pages only six are about the consequences of climate change. He attempts to turn climate change right round and present it as a positive opportunity for a change of lifestyle. He calls living a low-carbon life ‘light living’ and depicts it as the new chic, the new – if you’ll forgive the pun – cool. This is a pretty tall order. There’s inevitably at least an element of sacrifice in adjusting our lives to low carbon living.

There’s one major flaw to this book: if it’s aimed at people who aren’t yet convinced that they want to do anything about global warming, how do you get them to read a 300 page book on the subject? Nevertheless it’s an important book because it represents a major turning point in thinking on how we communicate about climate change. It’s the first book to fully acknowledge that just telling people the facts not only doesn’t work but is counter-productive. It also contains plenty of ideas and insights which will be very useful to anyone who’s already started down the path to light living and who wants to encourage others to join them.

If you can persuade your as yet inactive friends and relations to read it, please do. It has more chance of convincing them to get into gear than anything else I’ve seen yet.
(Posted on 15/07/2010)