No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process
Colin Beavan

When I first saw the “No Impact Man” blog some months ago, I couldn’t help but dismiss it as yet another environmentalist scare tactic that was going to point out what I was doing wrong, and would attempt to change my habits through furthering my guilt.  Although I consider myself an environmentalist, it sometimes becomes daunting to try to make sure that I am doing everything to minimize my impact.  Even the premise of a no impact man seems absurd at best. (More after the jump)

Fortunately author Colin Beavan takes a revealing and uncomfortable introspective venture into what exactly it takes to be a no impact person (that is a person who takes steps to maintain a neutral impact on the earth’s resources).  Admittedly, I remained skeptical during my journey through the book (and I still don’t think it’s possible to achieve no impact), but Beavan managed to pull of an insightful narrative without merely projecting his own guilt onto the reader.

No Impact Man (or No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process as the book is officially titled) takes the reader through a year in the life of Colin Beavan as he experiments reducing his net environmental impact to zero.  Instead of just focusing on the ecological merits and pitfalls of the project, Beavan throws the reader into the emotional and mental struggles associated with such a project.  No Impact Man presents a refreshingly honest perspective on exactly what it takes to truly reduce our ecological footprint (and it turns out it takes a lot more than simply buying organic food).

No Impact Man carefully balances relevant environmental advice with a narrative that pulls the reader into the life of Colin Beavan and his family as the struggle through their efforts.  Beavan rarely holds anything back as he documents his progress allowing the reader into the most personal aspects of his life.  At times the reader will probably find that Beavan’s life is amusingly different from their own and while we certainly want to know that our peers share the same struggle to be more “green” it goes to show that we all have bad habits to eliminate if we are going to make the necessary changes to our lifestyles.

Beavan writes in an extremely approachable level while avoiding placing guilt on the reader.  In many ways No Impact Man is inspirational as it allows the reader to understand that they are not the first person to hit stumbling points in their own path to sustainability.  Most importantly No Impact Man creates a discussion around many sustainability issues and show where the major hangs-up exist in getting people to accept sustainability as a worthwhile effort.