Synopsis New York liberal Colin Beavan sets out to entirely erase his environmental "footprint" for one year in this witty and insightful look at the drastic effects, both positive and negative, that can result from reducing one's impact on the planet. Beavan's grand experiment forces him to completely forego common comforts such as plastics, television, air conditioning, and motorized transit, but by far his greatest challenge is to stop producing any trash, which means no packaged food or goods, no toilet paper, and no disposable diapers for his baby daughter. Despite the lack of these seeming necessities, Beavan manages to keep his sense of humor throughout the year, though by the end he realizes that the effort to keep up such a lifestyle is not feasibly sustainable. His extreme effort should be sufficient to encourage more readers to follow his example and take more steps to reduce their own impact, though perhaps not entirely.
| Key Details | | Author: | Colin Beavan | | Language: | English | | Publisher: | Picador USA | | Format: | Paperback | | ISBN-10: | 0312429835 | | ISBN-13: | 9780312429836 |
| Additional Details | | Edition Number: | 1 |
| Size | | Length: | 276 pages | | Height: | 8.3 in | | Width: | 5.5 in | | Thickness: | 1 in | | Weight: | 11.2 oz |
Publisher's Note
A guilty liberal finally snaps, swears off plastic, goes organic, becomes a bicycle nut, turns off his power, and generally becomes a tree-hugging lunatic who tries to save the polar bears and the rest of the planet from environmental catastrophe while dragging his baby daughter and Prada-wearing, Four Seasons–loving wife along for the ride. And that’s just the beginning. Bill McKibben meets Bill Bryson in this seriously engaging look at one man’s decision to put his money where his mouth is and go off the grid for one year—while still living in New York City—to see if it’s possible to make no net impact on the environment. In other words, no trash, no toxins in the water, no elevators, no subway, no products in packaging, no air-conditioning, no television . . . What would it be like to try to live a no-impact lifestyle? Is it possible? Could it catch on? Is living this way more satisfying or less satisfying? Harder or easier? Is it worthwhile or senseless? Are we all doomed or can our culture reduce the barriers to sustainable living so it becomes as easy as falling off a log? These are the questions at the heart of this whole mad endeavor, via which Colin Beavan hopes to explain to the rest of us how we can realistically live a more “eco-effective” and by turns more content life in an age of inconvenient truths.
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