No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet

This is the autobiographical story of Colin Beavan, an author in New York who becomes greatly concerned with the negative impacts humans are having on the environment and embarks on a journey to discover what it looks like to live life in New York with a wife, small child and a dog while having no net impact on the environment. Beavan makes this transition gradually, making the following lifestyle changes over the course of a year: no production of trash whatsoever, almost entire reduction of carbon emissions, no impact eating through consumption of locally grown, organic foods, only purchasing previously owned or used goods, no coal-powered electricity and making positive impacts on the environment. He does not simply talk about the experiences, however, but explains his motives for undertaking the No Impact project, shares information about the degradation of different environmental resources and integrates his own personal struggles and past experiences in an occasionally heart-wrenching narrative style. This journey is clearly moral as he wrestles with the relationship between humanity and nature and searches for answers to human realities of suffering and death. Beavan ultimately concludes that while action by individuals is absolutely necessary to the restoration of our environment, a fundamental culture change must take place for the degradation of our habitat to come to a halt.The brilliance of this book is its simplicity and acknowledgement of humanity; changing how we live is just plain hard, and Beavan never shies away from that fact but is instead brutally honest about how much he struggled at times. His writing is very accessible and even when he's sharing a lot of information about ecological crises around the world his terms are never so technical that the average person wouldn't be able to understand. Furthermore, he provides illustrations that make big numbers make sense for the individual, something that is rarely done but incredibly powerful. He has a very positive view of human nature, which is sometimes inspiring and empowering and other times comes off as rather naive. He is very upfront about his political and religious beliefs which I found refreshing and helpful for contextualizing his arguments and actions, whether or not I agreed with them.The actions he takes to live in a more sustainable way are well researched and quite practical. He admits that he does not really expect the average American to put all of his ideas into practice (and that he was only able to do so because it was part of his job to carry out this whole project) but he writes of many people who were able to take a few of his ideas and integrate them into their everyday lifestyles. I found this helpful because I think living sustainably often sounds like a lot of work. It's helpful to get lots of ideas of different ways to live that are simultaneously minimally disruptive to the environment and our present lives. If reducing our contribution to the ecological crises of our day is so easy to do then we can feel empowered instead of helplessly complacent. That said, his ideas are significantly more relevant to other people living in large cities.

This book is a pleasure to read. It skillfully weaves together a story about a family on a mission with facts about the state of our planet, cultural observations, and bits of age-old wisdom. Minimizing personal environmental impact is the premise here, but spiritual growth (expanding our awareness and taking responsibility for what's happening in all areas of our lives) can be found in the text or subtext of almost every page. Reading it through forces us to take an honest look at whether our current habit patterns contribute to our happiness or just keep us in a constant state of distraction. This book is anything but a self-righteous diatribe on the failure of our species to live sustainably. Rather, we get a frank look at someone's personal experiences figuring out how to be a better human being, filled with trials and failures that we can all relate to. The door is then opened for us to stop criticizing and laying blame on everyone else for our problems, and start taking action to discover happier, more aware and honest lives.The one page that left a sour taste was 222, about the BBC journalist who insisted on knowing what they did in lieu of toilet paper. The author's bitterness towards people's understandable fascination with the toilet paper issue erupts here, and the self-righteous tone of it feels totally out of place in an otherwise humble and beautifully written book. Better to just say, "we used water," or leaves or whatever the case may have been.Besides that one quip, reading "No Impact Man" made me feel noticeably more self-aware. I am more thoughtful about how I affect the world around me with every thought and action, and I find myself making positive changes in my behavior, even without any conscious effort to do so. To me, that is the standard of an excellent and worthwhile book. Thank you for your contribution, Mr. Beavan.

This book is, at once, hilarious and thought provoking. When asked the question do you want to inhabit a filthy, overpopulated, dying planet where people are living in poverty and the environment is degrading and animals are going extinct at an alarming rate, most of us would answer a resounding NO! But then, what happens when we're asked to actually DO something about our eco-friendly, green, and sustainable beliefs? Most of us don't have the time, give money to groups who do that for us, or say it's too bewildering to try and figure out what is sustainable and what is not. But the planet IS dying! Colin Beavan actually commits to doing something about it and drags his family along with him. He does it in Manhattan, a simultaneously easy and difficult place to start a no impact revolution. He relates his year long experience in a very funny and poignant way throughout this easy-to-read story. The story of his efforts to make no impact on his environment in every facet of his daily life holds the reader's interest. And then there's the focus of the book and the foundation of the story...how can each of us do our part to keep our planet from dying and becoming a horrible overpopulated, polluted, empty (no wildlife, no vegetation) ball of rock and acid water. Turns out an individual can do a great deal. Turns out we need to convince industry to follow our lead. Turns out that this is a very entertaining and intellectually challenging book that cannot be judged by its cover or seemingly simple story line. Nicely done Colin Beavan!

I have been feeling helpless in the face of the human impact on Mother Earth and her creatures but with no answer, as an individual, that would change this. The title of this book fell into my lap and reading it has reawakened my sense of being a person who tries anyway. I have been eliminating my toxic load by using home made cleaners and toiletries for some months now, have always shouted “turn off the light” when my son leaves his room and kept tabs on the eating gauge so this it isn’t too high. Now I see that whilst these are small steps, they will add up alongside learning to take a step outside my comfort zone and seek out like minded organisations to volunteer with. Thank you for writing this book, it has taken me a while to find it and it is ever more relevant in 2018.

After watching the documentary, I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to buy the book. The documentary came across as a bit whiny, and focused a lot on No Impact Man's wife and her reluctance to certain parts of the project. However, I am very glad I bought the book. It is brilliant and I'd recommend it to everyone, hence the five stars.One drawback I would like to mention is that the book still doesn't go in enough detail for me. At the beginning of the appendices, there are about 15 links to blog posts you can read for more info. I fail to understand why these weren't included in the book, considering it is actually a much shorter book than you'd think. An entire 15% of the book consists of appendices, references and acknowledgements. A further 25% of the book is an index, which incomprehensibly is placed at the back and is a bit pointless in a Kindle version (you can just use the X-Ray function). My copy cost £4.99 from Amazon.co.uk. I normally make a point of never buying an e-book for more than £4 so I put it on my wishlist and waited. And waited. And ran out of patience, which sadly is not one of my virtues, and bought it anyway. The book was listed as having 282 pages, but as you will only really read about 60% of those, I effectively paid nearly £5 for roughly 170 pages.I still think the book is worth it, and I will probably open the Kindle app on my Mac and check out all those blog post links, but I just wanted to make any potential buyers aware of the above.

Really enjoyed this book. I love that the author wrote about all the trials and tribulations of living with no impact. It was a fascinating read.

I enjoyed reading this book. I had read another book by Beth Terry which is very practical in terms of exactly how to go plastic free but this book is a good companion because it’s more about the journey. I would definitely recommend to anyone trying to be more environmentally friendly.

Wonderful book - really opens your eyes to what we can all do (and stop doing) to help our planet. Funny, sad, brilliant and informative. A must read for the modern generation.