Environmental Tips: How You Can Save This Planet

Joan Buchanan is a writer, storyteller and instructor, and author of
Taking Care of My Cold.

This handy collection of Johnson’s newspaper columns is most
successful at providing useful, clear “envirotips” in nine chapters
that cover topics from household garbage to transportation. A directory,
references, an index, and blank pages for jotting down additional ideas
complete the book. The directory, conveniently laid out by province,
will be especially helpful for those wanting addresses of government
agencies and nonprofit groups.

This book will be a useful reference for tackling specific household
concerns. In addition, it offers some suggestions not to be found in
other recent environmental handbooks, such as an interesting method of
ridding a house of fruit flies. The laundry tips are also comprehensive.
Yet a few of the tips don’t seem practical, such as the one that
recommends buying shoes made of “canvas, suede and other materials
that do not need polish.” In some climates, this advice will not work
satisfactorily.

Some of the diagrams are helpful (for instance, one shows the
differences between tin cans that are soldered with lead and those that
aren’t). However, many of the cartoon illustrations are inappropriate.
Meant to be funny, they often seem to contradict the text’s message,
confusing readers; for example, a man using a push mower on his lawn
grimaces painfully, though the text advises that such a method be used.

The occasionally patronizing tone the author adopts in the theoretical
and anecdotal sections gets in the way of his more straightforward
“envirotips.” In the “Kids for Ecology” chapter, for example, he
addresses his young audience directly as “little kids.” Children
eight years old and up won’t take kindly to such condescension.