The Little Green Library Reviews: The Sustainability Secret

Posted on July 19, 2017

The Little Green Library Reviews
The Sustainability Secret
By Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn


Welcome to the Little Green Library Reviews! This year Green Calgary is looking to help you set and keep a green goal and part of that initiative is the new Little Green Library - a collection of materials for you to browse and borrow to enhance your knowledge of green life. To help you decide what to read from the library, our staff are writing reviews of the material. First up, Hillary from our Green Hub read The Sustainability Secret by Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn (2015). This is what she had to say about it:

"This investigative novel, expanding on the documentary Cowspiracy (Andersen & Kuhn, dir. 2014), looks into the animal agriculture industry and how it is, unknown to most, the largest contributor to climate change worldwide.  Current UN statistics show that agriculture, forestry and other land use cause 24% of global greenhouse gas emissions while the transportation sector only produces 14%. These shocking statistics and other comparisons leave readers feeling like there is nothing to do but change their diets in order to live a lifestyle that truly reflects sustainable behavior.
 
"Discussing topics of greenhouse gases, water use, factory farms, ocean dead-zones, rainforest destruction and more Andersen and Kuhn display how simply choosing to eat animal products affects more than just the animals life. One pound of beef requires 2,500 gallons of water and for every one pound of fish that is caught there is five pounds of bycatch. Andersen and Kuhn emphasize throughout the book how this is not sustainable. Their solution is veganism. By choosing to eliminate animal products from your lifestyle, they point out exactly what you would be saving: “1,100 gallons of water, 45 pounds of grain, 30 square feet of forested land, the equivalent of 20 pounds of carbon dioxide, and one animals life” every single day.
 
"They challenge all people who consider themselves to be an environmentalist to truly act in ways that reflect that title. After reading about the immense destruction that the agricultural industry has done and will continue to do, readers finish the novel with the profound feeling that they need to change their diet to change the world."


Thanks to Hillary for that review. Would you like to read The Sustainability Secret? You can take a look at it in our Green Hub today and borrow it if you sign up for an annual membership! Want to become a founder of the Little Green Library? You can do that, too. Drop off your environmental books or donate here.