If anyone has ever reprimanded you for keeping the water on while brushing your teeth, here is a real fact that could end this nasty habit: If you shut that water off every time you brush your teeth, you can conserve up to five gallons of water per day. If everyone did this in the United States, we would conserve more water than the amount used by New York City in a single day.

This is just one of many tips and facts in the New York Times bestseller “The Green Book” (which is printed on 100 percent recycled paper), which aims to help people make a healthy impact on the welfare of our planet. The book was compiled by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas M. Kostigen.

Tips are organized into different categories such as entertainment, school, home, shopping, sports, etc. Each category consists of short and easy-to-read paragraphs about related topics. For example, in the school section, some of the paragraphs discuss pencils, pens, and textbooks.

Interspersed between these categories are some pages from different celebrities (including Tyra Banks, Will Ferrell, and Martha Stewart) stating what simple measures they do to help the planet. And, Cameron Diaz and William McDonough wrote the forward.

What makes this book so remarkable is the fact that you can open it at any random spot and immediately become engrossed with the content. Each paragraph gets quickly to the point and displays facts in a very simple and understandable way. The lifestyle tips are fairly easy to follow, and most people will choose to incorporate them into their own lives after reading the provided facts.

Every paragraph also makes readers feel that they can actually make a difference in the world. A single act by a single person can help the Earth in a remarkable way.

It’s also nice to know exactly how you are helping the Earth. When someone tells you to turn off the lights you might obey at the time but forget later. The only thing it seems to affect is the electricity bill. Very few people consider exactly how much energy is wasted. This is why this book is so helpful and interesting — it puts facts into perspective and phrases them in a memorable way.

For example, if people just purchased one less article of clothing out of the average 48 bought per year by every American, the energy saved per item by the reduced transportation and manufacture would equal half a gallon of gas. Furthermore, if one in every 10 Americans bought their next piece of clothing secondhand, the energy saved could fly everyone in Hollywood to New York City.

In addition, the reader is exposed to an inspirational page about Jennifer Aniston’s three-minute showers, which include time spent brushing her teeth. According to Aniston, every two minutes in the shower is equivalent to the amount of water an average person in Africa uses in a day for all their daily needs: drinking, bathing, cooking, cleaning, etc.

So even if you are not totally convinced that you should brush your teeth in your three-minute showers every day, I would strongly encourage you to read this book. Making a difference has never seemed this easy before.