I had personally really enjoyed reading the book, "How To Reduce Your Carbon Footprint". This is because at school, I am involved in NEAT, North Toronto Environmental Action Team, along with serving as a green rep for my home form class. I liked this book because it had 365 ways to reduce the footprint. This means that if I made a goal to complete 1 method every 2 days, I would've done everything in the book in 2 years and have a far lower footprint. In addition, I loved the visuals and the overall illustrations in the book. It mainly included attractive and appealing colours such as yellow, green, and blue. But, it also included less Earthy colours such as pink, purple, red, and orange to stand out. Nowadays, with the 'green movement' onset, the only colours that seem to be used are green, yellow, white, and black. This is apparent for many companies’ or products such as Planet Earth, Green party, and Earth Hour. The unnatural colours definitely made the book stand out and become more visually attractive. Not to mention, I liked how the author balanced the book with some very simple methods to some complicated ones. For instance a very simple suggestion would to be to "switch off lights and equipment when not in use" (Yarrow, 98). Whereas as more difficult method would be to "equip your kitchen with a Bokashi bucket, a composter that is small enough to fit in the kitchen" (Yarrow, 63). Thus, making it a suitable book for both a beginner with nearly no previous knowledge and a future home energy advisor. In contrast, I disliked how the author uses repetitive ideas for different areas of carbon consumption. An example of this would be swapping items. In one section, she writes about swapping clothes. Closer to the end, she mentions the same concept with toys. Overall, I would rate this book an 8 out of 10. It reminded me of events in my personal life because I wasn't quite aware of the carbon cycle and the footprint until grade 6. Since then, my family and I have made small changes in our lifestyle. For example, buying a frontload washing machine, always turning off and unplugging unused electronics, buying organic food occasionally, and recently planting 5 Japanese Maple Trees. I found this book truly helpful and interesting to read because over the past 5 years since my first exposure to carbon footprints, I haven't been consistent on some energy-saving habits; and lost some motivation on the way. With all the rigours of high school, it slapped me back on track and taught me a very worthwhile lesson: that all the small effort I put into it overtime, the more consistent I am with having a rewarding low carbon footprint that saves the Earth and my money!
