The SNJ’s new columnist Karen Eberhardt-Shelton was born in California but grew up in England.

She now lives in Stroud and is currently working on an education project called Learn, Think, Act and is hoping to develop an eco-community land trust.

Her thought-provoking columns will focus on how we all have to take responsibility for our actions and for our planet.

Why informative books are so important: verba volant / scripta manent – ‘spoken words fly away, but writing remains’

THERE was a man named Ray Anderson, once chairman of a business called Interface, one of the world’s largest makers of commercial carpet tiles.

He read Paul Hawken’s book, The Ecology Of Commerce, and had a complete environmental change of direction.

Be curious.

Reading increases knowledge.

‘There’s no way we are ever going to approach the limits of knowledge,’ said Cornell biologist, Tom Eisner.

“If we don’t preserve the library of nature, insects, forests, wetlands, oceans, desert, it will be lost forever.’ Imagine if lettering, the alphabet, words had never been invented.

We would still be scrolling on stone in caves and drawing images in the dirt.

Think of the immense accumulation of books revolving around history, science, nature, travel, life stories, discovery, the arts, you name it. . .

When the earth disappears in a few billion years, will all those books wind up in a nice warm library somewhere in the universe?

As a child I would come home from school, grab an apple and curl up in a soft chair with a book.

I visited the local library probably more than anybody in town.

Nothing seemed more fascinating than exploring the stories and ideas preserved on paper.

How else can one have access to so much information?

It could take years to do the research on your own; the blessed author (or authors) have managed it all to our advantage.

We just have to pick a title, spend the money and start reading, learning, expanding, becoming more informed and aware.

“Without information, so-called choice means nothing.”

Reviews highlight some of the best parts and main points but they can’t provide everything, so there’s no substitute for getting embedded in the text of Tony Juniper’s What Has Nature Ever Done For Us?, Andrew Simm’s Cancel the Apocalypse, or Keith Barnham’s The Burning Answer: A User’s Guide to the Solar Revolution.

The relentless acceleration of global warming, increasing levels of extinction, pollution, population growth, and so much more indicate a dangerous indifference to being well informed about what’s really going on, how and why it’s all happening, and what to do about it.

Reading wakes you up, draws you in to the beating heart of change, its causes, effects and repercussions, and might even lead to action.

Reading informative books takes you beyond general awareness and on to the details and main points relating to tricky subjects, controversial issues, and misguided situations.

Forget the publishing date: Small is Beautiful in 1974, Silent Spring in 1962, A Sand County Almanac in 1949, Cradle to Cradle in 2009, Wild Law in 2011 – all in their own way as relevant now as when they first came out (and all easy to find on the internet).

Absorbing an ongoing array of enlightening books allows you to escape the ‘mindset’ of a fixed opinion and blinkered awareness, guides you beyond the norm, and offers life in a way you’ve never known it.

Read and grow wise.