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Friday, September 4, 2009

No Impact Man: the price of inspiration


As I was trolling the blog universe months ago looking for good blogs, I remembered "No Impact Man." I'd heard about this blog over a year ago and I'd started following it but following blogs was one of the many things I dropped when I spent so much of my time revising my cookbook last year. Now, No Impact Man is one of the blogs I regurarly follow. In fact, I was so inspired, I ordered No Impact Man, the book.

I counted down days until the book arrived While I waited, I found this very cool trailer for the No Impact Man movie at http://cookingupastory.com/no-impact-man/ . If this trailer doesn't sell you on the story, go back to your McBurger dream world and find another blog to read.

Friday No Impact Man arrived. After taking this photo, I immediately got into Colin Beavan's story--the differences between Colin and Michaele and everyday dilemmas like visiting his inlaws, blowing his nose, enjoying a slice of pizza from a favorite vendor. I laughed out loud when I read the chapter "How to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint and Anger Your Mom at the Same Time." Turns out, everything we do, even visiting with family has an impact on the earth one way or another. Colin didn't make exceptions to his experiment; if he cheated, he cheated. Making exceptions was a big disappointment with other books like Plenty by Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon.

I couldn't put the book down without being inspired to do more for the planet. Colin Beavan's writing is compelling, funny and inspiring. From the moment he gathtered his trash and spread it in across the floor examining who he was by what he used, I become more self-aware every time I think about tossing anything a garbage can, or buy anything in a container. I once threw out an entire box of plastic PCC Natural Markets' deli containers and the sight of all that throwaway plastic placed in a garbage can by me because it couldn't be recycled and of course the store doesn't take it back, made me vow to never to order deli again unless I can buy it in a returnable container or my own glass container.

Trying to have no carbon footprint is a Zen experiment, a dance with nature with every choice we make. Knowing that a community of bloggers interacting with No Impact Man are doing positive things to help the planet is downright inspiring. And inpiration is something we could all use more of these days.

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