So how will you deal with global warming? The Global Warming Survival Handbook gives us 77 essential skills to stop global warming, or live through it. Written by David De Rothschild, self-described adventurer and the founder of Adventure Ecology, the book lays out 67 ways to stop global warming and 10 ways to live through it if we can’t.

I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt about this book at first. I was fuzzy at best as to the whole Live Earth thing, and now they have an “official companion” book? But after getting into it a bit I found myself really engaged.

The book is basically a series of ideas (the book calls them skills) presented in an easy-to-understand way. Each “skill” comes with a little chart that shows you the cost, the time, the effort, and the impact of that skill. This is followed by a brief explanation of the skills intent, and a URL to check out for more information. In fact I was pretty freaking amazed that my main gig, The Sietch, was mentioned on page 71! They had not contacted me about entering the site into the book, but it was nice to see some love for my work.

The art for this book really brings it all together. It is the same style you see in the helpful airline pamphlets that show calm faced people serenely crashing their jets into the ocean while using their seat as a flotation device. Only this time, it’s funny. The artwork and the style of writing are witty and, at times, I laughed out loud (Skill 20 is “put on a sweater” featuring a four part comic showing you how to put on a sweater with the first frame reading “Place your head through the neck hole. Be careful. If you accidentally enter a sleeve, you could be seriously injured.”). This marks perhaps the only time I have laughed about global warming.

I would consider myself pretty jaded with the “10 easy steps” style of solving global warming, which is why I was pleased to find that aside from the obvious stuff (recycle, use CFL’s, ride your bike), the book went out of its way to highlight several more in-depth strategies for addressing climate change. For instance, skill 36 is “decongest down town”, and skill 40 is “retrofit your career.” And just in case we don’t make it, there are even 10 tips for what to do when the global warming guano hits the global warming fan.

I was pleasantly surprised with the Global Warming Survival Handbook. Heck, it even has a glossary and resource guide on the last couple of pages. For someone just getting started on the path to a greener lifestyle, or someone already pretty far down the road, this book will offer a bevy (yes, a bevy) of useful and interesting skills for making this world a better place. I would highly recommend checking a copy out from your local library and give it a read.