Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century
by Alex Steffen
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 340)
Read in May, 2008
recommends it for:
hopeful people
This compendium of ideas presents many suggestions for changing and improving our planet. At over 600 pages there are many contributors to this volume. Divided into logical chapters to include Stuff, Shelter, Cities, Community, Business, Building, Politics, and Planet. I would have preferred that Food be a separate chapter since I am very interested in food sovereignty. As is the nature of this type of book, the various tones set by the authors alternate between preaching to the choir and just...more
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Read in June, 2008
Absolutely imperative read for those keeping abreast of environmental and social causes. Great both as a reference guide to amazing organizations, websites, and books, or simply just to read and soak up its positive energy. Refreshingly optimistic and clearsighted perspectives throughout, and well-organized. It essentially just acts to compile and touch upon all aspects of sustainable and progressive activities, and it does a commendable job in being as inclusive as it could possibly be. For som...more
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recommends it for:
anyone who cares about the planet - especially Danelle...
This is an amazing book! While it weighs about eight tons, it's full of useful information. It's topics range from how to identify a good-green product (beware - boca burgers are bad - Phillip-Morris!), where to buy them, how to better understand product design and it's impact on our planet, why Wal-Mart is so evil, why smart architecture and community planning is good, and the list goes on. The title says it all: it's anything you might want to know about how to live in the 21st century, and...more
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Read in October, 2007
This book is a huge tome with a zillion little articles grouped into seven main categories (stuff, shelter, cities, community, business, politics, planet). Most of the focus is the environment, but there is also a bit on human rights and social issues and things that have broad implications for the future of humanity. The tone is mostly informative: a description of lots of important issues and various clever ways people are making progress (both through technology as well as just community/pe...more
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Holy smokes. This was wicked awesome. An encyclopedia of stuff to educate oneself on environmental and sustainable issues, trends, technologies, etc. The sections are divided nicely so you can find what you're most interested in (Stuff, Shelter, Cities, Community, Business, Politics and Planet). The entries are succint but chock full of real information. Plus, it gives all kinds of references for further study on anything that particularly floats your boat. And you know what else? It's re...more
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recommends it for:
anyone who is feeling hopeless about the current state of the world.
Hopeful and invigorating. A progressive book on social and environmental change. Instead of dragging the reader through a state of desolate fear and self-hatred, this environmental book takes a different approach. Every article is full of inspirational ideas, movements, and changes real people are making in their local and global communities.
I may be slighlty biased; my good friend Jer contributed to this book. Nonetheless, I was impressed.
For more articles that did not make it into the b...more
I may be slighlty biased; my good friend Jer contributed to this book. Nonetheless, I was impressed.
For more articles that did not make it into the b...more
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Read in June, 2008
recommended to Ash by:
blogsrecommends it for: "the light green,"
I wanted to love this book and it just kind of fell flat for me. A lot of the information wasn't new or is already dated. Also, I found that there was just not enough detail to make each entry really instructive.
The book is a nice over-view of trends in the recent green movement but left me wanting a lot more. For someone unfamiliar with "going green" this is a good book to start with or would make a good gift since it is a beautiful book. However, for detailed information I'd ...more
The book is a nice over-view of trends in the recent green movement but left me wanting a lot more. For someone unfamiliar with "going green" this is a good book to start with or would make a good gift since it is a beautiful book. However, for detailed information I'd ...more
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Read in August, 2008
Will definitely inspire your inner idealist. I bought the book thinking it would be like those "1 Million Simple Things You Can Do to Rock the World." Instead, this anthology recounts major projects and dreams going on to green our planet, to promote justice everywhere, and to build sustainable communities. So the scope is pretty large. A great resource for finding ordinary and extraordinary ways of helping our world.
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This book is like a giant catalog of all the great things happening on around the world to keep the planet (and the humans) going. Hence, this will be on my to-read list for a long time. I love that the ideas and projects featured in this book are international and sometimes more obvious than we'd like to admit. This is a great coffee table book to pick through when you have a few minutes here and there.
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Read in November, 2006
recommends it for:
Everybody
I loved this book (actually still have a little ways to go through it), because it gives a lot of great ideas about how to approach many of our social and environmental problems today. Many of the approaches are less about technology and more about community building, which I really appreciate.
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Totally biased reader of this one, but I think it is an important book and is gifted at making someone feel like if you care about urban planning you also care about nanotechnology or social entrepreneurship and architectural design for the poor. Really splendid.
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Last year, I saw this book on display at the good 'ole B&N, and I really wanted to have it. I was in this " I-gotta-save-the-world" mode. But at "that" time, I didn't have money, and at "this" time, I still don't have money. Well, one day, huh?
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Encylopedia of ideas and information to enlighten as well as help innovate (i.e. get our creative juices flowing) the changes we need to make to live greener and not kill our earth to death. Extremely interesting and very motivating.
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Read in November, 2007
Admittedly, the fact that it was designed by Sagmeister appealed to me more than the subject matter, but it's a most interesting read nonetheless. And I suspect the more I read, the more I'm going to like it.
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Read in August, 2007
recommends it for:
anyone who cares about the future
This is an amazing catalog of practical ideas that just might change the world. While occasionally disorganized (thus 4 stars instead of 5), this book is very inspiring and guaranteed to spur your own ideas.
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Read in October, 2006
recommends it for:
everyone.
an encyclopedia of articles about ideas that will help to guide us to some of the solutions for a sustainable society. thorough and inspiring. find out how you can help save the world, literally.
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Read in March, 2007
Truly mind bending...full of information on the impact we have on our planet as well as innovative ways folks have come up with to soften our impact. Will blow your mind and inspire you.
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Love the concept - things we can do to make the world a better place socially, economically, environmentally - just like the blog that inspired it better - www.worldchanging.com.
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Read in January, 2007
recommends it for:
humans alive in the current century
I love this book. I'll probably always have this in my 'current reading' - it's huge, though the articles are short. Great for pick-up-and-read moments.
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Read in May, 2008
So good I'm using it to teach my environmentalism course! It's the self-proclaimed encyclopedia of environmentalism "for the iPod generation".
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