Tom Kostigen Calls Pollution As He Sees It

Before we get into our interview with Thomas Kostigen about his new book, You Are Here, he’s got some tips on how to use your computer in a more environmentally conscious way…

Kostigen’s last book, The Green Book, had plenty of similar “green living” advice, but, he told us during a recent trip to New York, he realized afterwards that while he was telling people what to do, he hadn’t been as effective in showing them the consequences of their prior actions. “How do you connect the iconic image of the polar bear on the melting ice cap with the flick of a light switch?” he asked rhetorically. So he travelled around the world to see just what we’ve been doing to the earth, from the erosion of Jerusalem’s ancient stone walls to the deforestation of Borneo in pursuit of palm oil (“it was surprising to me, and I’m very conscious about what I buy”), from the Texas-sized mass of garbage floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean to the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island…

The research that went into You Are Here was, and is presented as, an “experiential journey,” which Kostigen modeled consciously on the template established by travel writer Paul Theroux: “You see what I see,” he explained, “you feel what I feel… The path of awareness from home, around the world, and back to home… is meant to be an awakening, so readers can make the choice to live their lives differently.”

Did Kostigen bring his environmental concerns to HarperCollins while they were negotiating the book deal? It came up “within the first two minutes,” he said, explaining how he persuaded the company to print the book using soy ink on 100% recycled paper to lessen the environmental impact.

Although the environmental movement has made great strides in recent years, we wondered if the current economic crisis might not reduce people’s attention span for “green thinking,” but Kostigen pointed out when past environmental practices begin to hit people’s pocketbooks, it’s an excellent spur towards thinking about how to use our resources more efficiently. For all the progress that’s been made on green issues, though, there is much work still to be done. “To keep [the environmental movement] sustainable beyond a trend,” he cautioned, “we have to provide a lot more infromation… The problem is getting it out there on a mass level.” He’s critical, for example, of the prevalent use of terms like “carbon emissions” instead of plain language like “pollution.” “We should talk about it in natural terms,” he said. “It’s the stuff that comes out of our tailpipes. It’s the things that get into our water. That’s the discussion that needs to occur.”

“This isn’t a problem we’re going to solve tomorrow or next year or the next decade,” he continued. “This is a lifetime commitment… that’s the mentality that has to set in.”

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