Are You a "No Impact" Person?

The City of Highland Park has a “ONE BOOK, ONE HIGHLAND PARK” program that I decided to look into this year… the book chosen for reading and discussion is No Impact Man by Colin Beavan. The book is subtitled “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.”

On Wednesday, October 14, 7 pm at the Highland Park Library, you can see No Impact Man, the documentary. The film provides a front row seat to the strains and strengthened bonds that result from the Beavan family’s yearlong experiment with making as little environmental impact as possible.” (HPPL website)

Beavan will be at the Highland Park Library at 7PM, Wednesday, October 21 to talk about his book and the year he spent trying to eliminate the impact his sucking up the fossil fuels while producing mounds of trash lifestyle had on the environment.

The City of Highland Park has been studying ways to create sustainability on a city wide basis. You can go to the NoImpactMan.org website to participate in the The No Impact Experiment, a one-week “carbon cleanse.”

You might think Beavan is some kind of neo-hippie back-to-the-earth type, but you’d be wrong. Beavan lives in New York City, in an apartment. On the 9th floor. With his wife and baby. The story of how he tries not to produce any trash, to eat locally (that does not mean the local deli), avoid any transportation that runs on fossil fuels (like subways, cars and elevators) and to use as little electricity as possible, is fascinating. The ways in which it has made him a happier human (and no, I don’t mean the book sales) are intriguing.

The Beavan family doing Manhattan

No Impact Man is an easy read and I promise you it’s not a bummer book. You can reserve a copy at the Highland Park Library, buy it at the local Borders and other bookstores, or you can borrow my copy. Or just come to meet Colin Beavan and find out what impact you can have, or not have, as the case may be.

I hope you’ll consider reading the book and joining the discussion in Highland Park on October 21. And online, on October 25:

Highland Park is the first city to take the challenge! Join your friends and neighbors and live a no-impact lifestyle for one week… and maybe longer. Colin Beavan’s No-Impact Project will guide you in making a different lifestyle change each day for a week. Visit hplibrary.org Sunday, October 25, to join in.

Visit the No Impact Community. A community action site inspired by the No Impact Man project.

––Peggy S.