Book Review – Living Like Ed
I’m sitting in artic Tennessee and feel like I’m an extra in the movie “The Day After Tomorrow” depicting the world in turmoil due to global warming. Well, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit, but the bitter cold, along with low gas prices, is a perfect combination to lull me into energy and environmental complacency.
I just finished reading, “Living Like Ed” by Ed Begley, Jr. His book is a “guide to the eco-friendly life.” I read it mostly out of curiosity to see how this long-time environmentalist and celebrity viewed biofuels. It was actually quite surprising in that he is very much in favor of ethanol, specifically E85, even more than biodiesel.
Most celebrities are out tooling around in their vegetable cars touting biodiesel, and rarely out in their flex-fuel vehicle (FFV) touting E85. (Maybe its because driving with grease is sexier than driving with corn.)
His book has some good tips that don’t border on the extreme – Ed is known to recycle EVERYTHING. But since this is an alternative energy blog, I’ll give you a brief run-down on his “transportation hierarchy.
- Walking
- Riding his bike
- Public Transportation
- Electric Car
- Hybrid Car
- Fly
His wife Rachelle actually drives the hybrid car. We should get her a flex-fuel plug-in electric vehicle from one of the manufactures currently working on them, and then they can feature it their show, “Living With Ed” that airs on Planet Green TV. Any takers?
Well, since it’s cold out, I’ll stick with driving my ethanol fueled vehicle for the time being and implement some of his good, indoor green tips like researching how to put a solar panel on my roof or install my own personal wind turbine in my back yard (Ed already has both).
2 Comments »
Paul
A shift in how we look at the planet and our place on it has to occur and in some sectors it has but the main stream media and general population do not get it – the earth is a gift but not an infinite gift – we have to live sustainably and be clearly conscious of our tenuous location in an airless solar system.
My book “JourneyHome” while telling an entertaining story tries to get the point across. As long as each of us does that in our little corners of the planet we might raise consciousness enough to live within our means.
flee
A good start would be not to insult the population in general. You speak of motivating more to be conscious of environment, a good thing, but don’t believe yourself to be within infinite wisdom. You accuse or proclaim we are all foolishly destroying the planet? How to know we’re unaware or not smart enough to know better?
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