healthier, happier and richer

While world leaders are in Copenhagen grappling with global greenhouse gas emissions, most of us have more prosaic issues to sort out this week – what to get friends and family for Christmas, how to do something for charity and, perhaps stirred by Copenhagen, how to do something to help reduce global emissions.

I wrote a book, The Economical Environmentalist, which was published by Earthscan in October. The book sets out how I (supplemented with examples from a couple of other people in different housing and financial circumstances) reduced my emissions and tries to give a warts-and-all account of the experience. It has also got a careful analysis of the cost-effectiveness of my actions – that might provide tips for others.

I will be giving all my royalties for the period 16 December to 23 December to two charities that are working with communities in Kenya and UK to help them reduce their emissions. The publisher Earthscan has also generously offered a 25% discount, and free postage and packing for the week long period.

Stopping deforestation is one of the cost cost-effective and useful things we can do to combat climate change, so I am delighted to support Wangari Maathai and her charity Green Belt Movement, which has been working with the rural poor in Kenya for 30 years. In addition, I am delighted to support Cambridge Carbon Footprint and the London Carbon Conversations, which attempt to improve carbon literacy among participants through a course of a few structured evenings discussing food, transport, holidays, heating to support and educate people in their attempts to reduce their emissions.

What do you need to do?

• Go to my website (The Economical Environmentalist) and buy the book from there. To access the discount from Earthscan, you have to enter the promotion code EE25.
• Forward this email to ten people from your contact list, who might be interested in the book and are preferably not known the person who sent you this email.

I will post how much money is raised on the website. Here is what some people have said about the book:

“Climate change will not be solved by Governments and businesses alone; it will take the efforts of people and communities changing their purchases and habits. It is rare to read a book that so well combines solid analysis and real life experience with wit and candour. Vaze has drawn on his skills as a former Government economist to produce such a guide. This is an excellent book aimed at anyone genuinely interested in reducing their own emissions…”

(Nicholas Stern, IG Patel Professor and Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.)

“One of the cheering points about the book is that the author is neither proscriptive nor preachy: he’s an economist, he’s given you what must be the clearest and most accurate data available on every possible lifestyle choice.”

(Natalie Bennett, editor of The Guardian Weekly, London.)

Prashant is the Chief Economist at Consumer Focus which campaigns for the fuel poor