Hide 

Drip irrigation is the best way to help any plant flourish and survive tough times, especially during short or long droughts. Pick the wrong "stuff" and you easily can feel overwhelmed. Robert Kourik's Drip Irrigation for Every Landscape and All Climates clearly explains how to use less water yet increase the yields of vegetables and promote the growth and flowering of all plants — trees, shrubs and container plants — in any climate, even where it rains irregularly.

In the tradition of the original groundbreaking book, this fully revised edition incorporates new information essential for gardeners, including how to manage limited water supplies with precision and efficiency, without the clutter of hundreds of widgets and gizmos, and the knowledge is shared in Kourik's inimitable, friendly, down-to-earth and easy-to-understand style.

Drip Irrigation for Every Landscape and All Climates reveals how to:

• Utilize drip irrigation for everything you grow — trees, shrubs, hanging plants, container plants, and vegetable and flower gardens — and save up to 50 percent of your water compared to sprinklers.
• Use a streamlined configuration of hardware and tubing.
• Choose the best, sturdiest hardware that will last for decades in your home landscape and vegetable garden.
• Pick tubing that has no emitters punched on the outside — these have a tendency to break off — and use this tubing buried beneath the surface to irrigate without losing any water to wind or evaporation.
• Roll out a drip system in a very short period of time, avoiding tedious hours punching in emitters or adding smaller tubing to reach each plant.
• Capture and reuse gray water and cistern water for irrigation.
• Construct a system in which the main parts are effectively hidden or can be simply attached to an existing garden faucet.

Hide 

Wind power is the fastest-growing source of energy in the world, and by the year 2020 it is projected to supply at least 12 percent of global electrical demand.

Wind Power Basics provides a clear understanding of wind and wind energy systems including turbines, towers, inverters and batteries, site assessment, installation, and maintenance requirements.

Whether you're considering your own small-scale wind energy system or just want a straightforward, detailed introduction to the benefits and challenges of this rapidly emerging technology, Wind Power Basics is the guide for you.

About the author:
Dan Chiras is a respected educator and author who has published more than 25 books on residential renewable energy and green building, including Power From the Wind. He is the director of the Evergreen Institute, where he teaches workshops on small wind energy systems, solar electricity, passive solar design, energy efficiency, and green and natural building.

Hide 

There’s never been a better time to “be prepared.” Matthew Stein’s comprehensive primer on sustainable living skills — from food and water to shelter and energy to first-aid and crisis-management skills — prepares you to embark on the path toward sustainability. But, unlike any other book, Stein not only shows you how to live “green” in seemingly stable times, but to live in the face of potential disasters, lasting days or years, coming in the form of social upheaval, economic meltdown or environmental catastrophe.

When Technology Fails covers the gamut. You’ll learn how to start a fire and keep warm if you’ve been left temporarily homeless, as well as the basics of installing a renewable energy system for your home or business. You’ll learn how to find and sterilize water in the face of utility failure, as well as practical information for dealing with water-quality issues even when the public tap water is still flowing. You’ll learn alternative techniques for healing equally suited to an era of profit-driven malpractice as to situations of social calamity. Each chapter offers the same approach, describing skills for self-reliance in good times and bad. Chapter subjects include: a survey of the risks to the status quo; supplies and preparation for short- and long-term emergencies; emergency measures for survival; water; food; shelter; clothing; first aid, low-tech medicine and healing; energy, heat and power; metalworking; utensils and storage; low-tech chemistry; and engineering, machines and materials.

Fully revised and expanded — the first edition was written pre-9/11 and pre-Katrina, when few Americans took the risk of social disruption seriously — When Technology Fails ends on a positive, proactive note with a new chapter on "Making the Shift to Sustainability," which offers practical suggestions for changing our world on personal, community and global levels.

About the author

Matthew Stein holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from MIT. He is an engineer, author and building contractor. He has also worked as a schoolteacher, carpenter, and rock-climbing and ski instructor. As the owner of Aloha Aina Builders, Stein has built hurricane-resistant, energy-efficient and environmentally friendly homes. As a mechanical engineer and president of Stein Design, he has designed consumer water-filtration devices, commercial water-filtration systems, photovoltaic roofing panels, medical bacteriological filters, drinking fountains, emergency chemical drench systems, computer disk drives, portable fiberglass buildings, and automated assembly machinery for Applied Solar, Hewlett-Packard, Seagate, Plantronics, Duraflame, Haws and IGT. He currently resides with his wife, Josie, in the High Sierra Mountains near Lake Tahoe, Calif. For many years, Stein has pursued avid interests in renewable energy, alternative healing, sustainable growth and preventative medicine.

Recommended Product for Wiser Living: Today, more than ever before, our society is seeking ways to live more conscientiously. To help bring you the very best inspiration and information about greener, more sustainable lifestyles, MOTHER EARTH NEWS is recommending books to readers. For 40 years, MOTHER EARTH NEWS has been North America’s “Original Guide to Living Wisely,” creating books and magazines for people with a passion for self-reliance and a desire to live in harmony with nature.

Hide 

CLEARANCE ITEM. PREVIOUS RETAIL PRICE WAS $24.95. AVAILABLE ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the urgency of global climate change. But when author Guy Dauncey assembles the world's best solutions in one place, as he does in The Climate Challenge, a vision emerges of a sustainable energy revolution. He opens the door to a century of exciting change, characterized by renewable energy, sustainable farming, carbon-rich forestry, green cities, electric vehicles, high-speed trains, a blossoming of innovation, and a host of new "green collar" jobs.

The Climate Challenge draws on working solutions from around the world, and lays out the best actions for students and scientists, musicians and mayors, policy-makers and presidents, showing how it is possible to reduce our carbon footprint to almost zero by 2040. Each solution describes steps that are already being used in homes, schools, businesses, cities, and governments around the world - with full scientific references to help the reader dig deeper and push farther.

If you worry about climate change, whether you are an enquiring teenager, a concerned householder, a farmer, forester, business leader, city mayor, or global policy-maker, this book will help you join the movement to help restore the planet's climate and build a new green economy.

About the author
Guy Dauncey is an author, speaker, and futurist who is President of the BC Sustainable Energy Association, and founder of the Solutions Project. He has authored or co-authored nine books, including the award-winning Stormy Weather, Enough Blood Shed, Cancer, and Building an Ark.

Hide 

How efficient are front-load washing machines? When is it time to replace your old refrigerator? These questions and many more are answered in The Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings, a one-stop resource for consumers who want to improve their home's energy performance and reduce costs. Zeroing in on the most useful response can be a challenge — this 9th edition guide cuts through the confusion.

Well-organized and highly readable, The Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings begins with an overview of the inter-relationships between energy use, economics and the environment. Chapters focus on specific areas in the home, such as electronics, lighting, heating, cooling, ventilation, kitchen and laundry, and provide helpful explanations for each, including:

• describing energy use characteristics
• drawing comparisons between the available technologies
• outlining the most cost-effective repair and replacement options
• providing step-by-step guidance for finding the right equipment
• describing how the equipment operates
• summarizing how much energy is used or lost

Hide 

CLEARANCE ITEM. PREVIOUS RETAIL PRICE WAS $24.95 AVAILABLE ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

In the Age of Scarcity now upon us, fresh water shortages are an increasingly serious global problem. With water restrictions emerging in many developed countries and water diversions for industrial, urban and environmental reasons stirring up oceans of controversy, there is a growing thirst for innovative approaches to reducing our water footprint.
Dry Run shows the best ways to manage scarce water resources and handle upcoming urban water crises. Featuring original interviews with more than 25 water researchers and industry experts, this book explains water issues and proposes solutions for homes, buildings, facilities and schools. Examining the vital linkages between water, energy use, urban development and climate change, Dry Run demonstrates best practices for achieving "net zero" water use in the built environment including:

• water conservation strategies for buildings, factories, cities and homes
• rainwater harvesting
• graywater reuse and water reclamation systems
• water efficiency retrofits
• onsite sewage treatment
• new water reuse and supply technologies.

Hide 

Fermenting Revolution delivers an empowering message about how individuals can change the world through the simple act of having a beer. It is also the first book to view all of the important trends in human history as fundamentally revolving around beer.

Globalization pitches the corporate worldview that is essentially selfish, rewarding the few while demeaning the many and devastating nature, against the sustainability movement that calls for cooperation, the protection and celebration of nature and the nurturing of equitable communities. Beer exemplifies the struggle. This book:

• Traces the path of brewing from a women-led, home-based craft to corporate industry
• Describes how craft breweries and home-brewing are forging stronger communities
• Explains how corporate mega-breweries are saving the world by pioneering industrial ecology
• Profiles the most inspiring and radical breweries, brewers and beer drinkers who are making the world a better place to live

Hide 

CLEARANCE ITEM. PREVIOUS RETAIL PRICE WAS $24.95. AVAILABLE ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

Finding community is as critical as obtaining food and shelter, since the need to belong is what makes us human. The isolation and loneliness of modern life have led many people to search for deeper connection, which has resulted in a renewed interest in intentional communities. These intentional communities or ecovillages are an appealing choice for like-minded people who seek to create a family-oriented and ecologically sustainable lifestyle - a lifestyle they are unlikely to find anywhere else.
However, the notion of an intentional community can still be a tremendous leap for some - deterred perhaps by a misguided vision of eking out a hardscrabble existence with little reward. In fact, successful ecovillages thrive because of the combined skills and resources of their members.
Finding Community presents a thorough overview of ecovillages and intentional communities and offers solid advice on how to research thoroughly, visit thoughtfully, evaluate intelligently and join gracefully. Useful considerations include:

• important questions to ask (of members and of yourself)
• signs of a healthy (and not-so-healthy) community
• cost of joining (and staying)
• common blunders to avoid.

Hide 

Where would you find your groceries if your supermarket's shelves were suddenly empty? The threat of earthquakes, trucker strikes, power outages or a global market collapse makes us vulnerable like never before. With spiraling fuel prices and unstable world economies, individuals and communities are demanding more control over their food supply.

Food Security for the Faint of Heart is designed to gently ease readers into a more empowered place so that shocks to our food supply can be handled confidently. As well as acquiring new skills and ideas, there are other compelling reasons to get better prepared. The local economy gains support and encouragement to expand, in turn boosting food's taste and nutritional value, along with the health of people and ecosystems. Community support helps low-income families eat higher quality food, and the preparation provides a psychological edge in an emergency.

Chapters are devoted to useful, transferable skills, including:

• Preserving garden food
• Saving freezer food during a power outage
• Managing through an earthquake
• Preparing quick herbal medicinals
• Foraging for wild food

Hide 

CLEARANCE ITEM. PREVIOUS RETAIL PRICE WAS $27.95. AVAILABLE ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

Recently, thousands of North American schools have begun to take a critical look at their grounds and realize the enormous potential for transforming barren expanses of asphalt into a diversity of exciting natural spaces for learning and playing.

This compendium of articles from Green Teacher, North America's leading environmental education magazine, brings together the best strategies for school-ground renewal. Greening School Grounds provides an overview of the school grounds greening movement, complete project plans, and subject integration. From vegetable and butterfly gardens to an amphibian oasis and avian attractors, this comprehensive guide offers a trove of curriculum tie-ins, activities, and plans for educators, parents, and students.