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 by Colin Beavan.

4/5 rating. 224 pages.

Book #36 of 2021. Read April 25, 2021.

This is a phenomenal book about Colin and his family’s experiment to live a year with as small an impact on the environment as possible. This includes no transportation, local food, eating vegetarian, and eventually no electricity. (I also got this book from a Little Free Library which I really thought was fitting).

This book is part memoir, part discussion of his experiment, and part philosophy book about the reasons for our cultural norms. Colin’s talk about the ludicrousness of our current lives is amazing. He calls out the fact that we live in a throw-away culture but are not any happier for it.

The best part of the book is that not only is Colin not preaching or judging those around him – he actively calls out his hypocrisy anytime he approaches doing this. Instead, he is putting his money (and energy) where his mouth is. After living so long saying that things needed to change, he decided to conduct this experiment and actually make changes in his life.

I think I probably was not prepared for the soul-searching Colin does and this book prompted in me. I try to live a good life, but it seems like I am still confused about exactly what that entails and this book probably will have an outsized impact on what exactly I decide the good life is for me. All I know is that it will be something along Colin’s statement of one filled with less things, more time with friends, and more love!

As Colin said: “I’ll wish for only one thing, I think. That I loved better. That I had been better at loving and not being distracted by stuff or accomplishment. This life is so short and it will soon be over. What will we use it for?”

Quotes:

“[A] life lived with less emphasis on acquisition might have the effect of leaving more time for richer, less resource-intensive life rewards, making both the planet and the people happier.”

“I simply wanted to see if we could learn to behave like good guests while enjoying a good life.”

“For my grandparents and all my adoptive uncles and aunts who were their friends the belief that we shouldn’t waste seemed to come not from environmental ideas but arose simply as an outgrowth of the idea that we should act with gratitude for this life we’ve been granted and all that comes with it.”

“Why, as the trash seemed to suggest, didn’t moderately well-off cosmopolitan families like this one take the time to cook a decent meal?”

“Why are you more concerned with where you’re going than where you are, the Zen master might just as well have asked? Why are you more concerned with what you’re going to do than what you’re doing? Why aren’t you paying attention to how you live your life right this very moment? Why are you wasting this moment? Why, indeed, are you wasting your life?”

“When did taking care of ourselves become something so unimportant that it should be got out of the way rather than savored and enjoyed? When did cooking and nourishing my family become an untenable chore?”

“Every year, we junk some 4 to 5 trillion plastic bags worldwide, according to the Worldwatch Institute.”

“When was it that I began to believe that the most important thing about what I was doing was getting it over with? Knowing how to live is not something we have to teach children. Knowing how to live is something we have to be careful not to take away from them.”

“Dad, we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.” – Kurt Vonnegut’s son

“- American adults average seventy-two minutes a day behind the wheel of a car, according to the Worldwatch Institute. – That’s more than twice as much time as the average American father spends with his kids, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.”

“- According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 17 percent of the average American’s income goes toward the costs of owning and running a car.”

“But, still, I enjoy feeling a little like a grandmother, feeding all my friends. There is something wonderful about it, and wonderful about playing host and everybody just being able to kick their shoes off and relax.”

“The project is about figuring out how we want to live.”

“‘There is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come,” he writes, referring to the No Impact project.”

“What we’re really doing is taking apart our whole life. Instead of just living the way of life we’ve inherited and been told to lead, we’re taking it all apart and seeing how we want to put it back together. It’s not that we’ll never use it again. It’s that we’re doing this yearlong experiment in order to decide if we will.”

“Each of us as individuals needs to take responsibility for this world we live in. We need to stop outsourcing our political power to politicians. We all need to believe that we can make a difference.”

“Already, around the world, people with preventable waterborne diseases occupy half the hospital beds. More children have died from diarrhea than people have been killed in war and conflict since World War II. A child dies every eight seconds from drinking dirty water.”

“It’s not just me who’s scared and lonely and worried and isn’t sure how to help myself. We don’t know how to help ourselves, but there is one thing we do know how to do. We know how to help each other.”

“Waste fewer resources. Waste less life.”

“If we use technology, in other words, to rebuild the current system so that it can last forever, then we miss the opportunity to ask whether the current system really delivers the good life. We miss the opportunity to have happier people as well as a happier planet.”

“Just because our individual actions are not remembered does not mean they’re not crucial.”

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