Green Book Authors

You feature a range of celebrity contributors, from Jennifer Aniston to green architecture icon William McDonough. Who are your favorites?

Elizabeth: One of my proudest moments was getting Dale Earnhardt, Jr. in the book. To reach the NASCAR audience, make them aware of the environment, start shifting habits, is so exciting. Among my favorites is Jennifer Aniston talking about how she's the three-minute shower girl. Another, one of the funniest pieces in the book, is Owen Wilson's where he talks about his first entry into the green movement, and before he knew it, Ed Begley, Jr. [considered the greenest man in Hollywood] is his new hero. These stories make you realize that everyone's doing their part.

This book is chock full! Whose idea was it to take on this labor of love?

Elizabeth: The inspiration started way back when I created a show for MTV called Trippin' [with Cameron Diaz], and there was a written factoid where we told the MTV audience a shift of habit they could do at home. After I finished making the show, I realized the environmental movement hadn't yet created simple solutions that the everyday person could do in their life, and I partnered with Tom and we went off and wrote it.
Thomas: The book has put all kinds of things in my brain that people shouldn't have in their brain. I can tell you not only how much electricity you use in terms of kilowatts per year, I can tell you the carbon emissions from kilowatts, I can make that into a relative thing for the world and I can do that across water, energy, and oil. I'm the guy in the corner that has all these very freaky factoids that's great fodder for cocktail chatter.

What's your eco sin?

Thomas: Even though I know all these crazy facts about pulling the plug out on every appliance in the house, my electric toothbrush is the one thing that's stuck in the wall because the batteries die. But I don't know how I can live without it.
Elizabeth: One eco-sin is that I use baggies in my son's lunch. I can't figure out how to put chips in his lunch without a baggie. I reuse them, but I'm sure there's probably some kind of baggie that's not a baggie.

What do you hope to accomplish with this book?

Thomas: The book is meant to be fun and positive. Anybody who reads any part of it makes a shift and it's a very simple thing, whether it's unplugging their cellphone charger or turning off the water when they shave. Those physical things become infectious and they want to do more. Just by drinking Budweiser, for example—they're one of the largest recyclers of aluminum on the planet—you're becoming an environmentalist. Buying bigger packages at Costco—buying in bulk means less packaging. People can feel good about it saying, 'I already do that.' People basically want to do good in the world and if you give them the opportunity, they will do it. And we've been able to provide them with almost 500 opportunities.
Elizabeth: This was written without judgment or finger pointing. Part of the idea for the book was: How do you have the most while giving up the least? And, you know, most of these solutions save people time and money. We're not telling people to buy a Prius and get new insulation. Nobody can't find one thing that they can't do in this book.

Any final words?

Elizabeth: This book is carbon-neutral ....
Thomas: And it's the first book from Random House that's 100% recycled, on recycled paper. As Random House is the biggest publishing company in the world, we hope we're setting a precedent that will continue to other books as well.

What kinds of changes have each of you integrated into your lives recently?

Thomas: The biggest change for me was drinking tap water. Tap water is tested more than bottled water, it's cheaper, obviously, and you realize, 'Well, this is what I used to drink for most of my life before someone implanted in my brain that I was supposed to drink from a plastic bottle every day, several times a day.' So, with 60 million plastic bottles being tossed on a daily basis, you think, 'Tap water tastes fine, and I don't need to contribute to that mess.'
Elizabeth: I would say toilet flushing. My son and I don't flush the toilet when we don't have to. I explained to him that for most people in Africa, one toilet flush is the equivalent to what they use daily for cooking, cleaning, and bathing—that's their full consumption of water a day. You start to think, 'How long can we go without flushing the toilet?' It becomes this weird game that goes on in our house. I don't know what goes on in anyone else's house.

What's an example of a shift of habit that you recommend?

Thomas: We were looking at different receipts that you get from the gas station or from the ATM, and we said, 'Why do you need that little piece of paper?' And it's just little things, mindless shifts like that. Why leave the lights on in the room? Why not use the sleep mode on your computer? Why keep the water running while brushing your teeth? So then it was, okay, what happens if you do turn off the water? How much water do I save per year—it's about five gallons per brush, by the way—but if everybody in America did it, or everyone in the world, what would that water look like then? That's the relative factor that I think makes this book stand out.
Elizabeth: One of the most interesting factoids I learned was that Americans consume 17 billion quarts of popcorn a year. If more of us shared our popcorn, we could save up to 2.5 billion quarts a year worth of packaging [from going into landfills]. Another: We use 2,200 paper napkins a year; on average, six a day. If all of us give up one paper napkin a day, as a nation, we would save a billion pounds of paper from going to landfills a year. So, it’s like, who can't give up one paper napkin a day?