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. (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009) Hardcover,  274 p. ISBN 9780374222888

Is it possible to live in New York City and be a No Impact Man, making no impact on the environment? Colin Beavan decided to try for one year, but first he had to persuade his wife to go along with the scheme. Their goal required them to give up anything that would entail adding any toxins or non-biodegradable wastes to the air, the water, or the ground.

Plastic requires the drilling and processing of oil. They had to give it up. Conventionally grown food requires fertilizers manufactured, likely as not, from oil. They adopted a completely organic lifestyle. Trash requires disposal and large exhaust-belching trucks to haul it. They had to give up buying anything that required packaging. They also had to give up electricity, including not only television, but air-conditioning, elevators, and subways.

What kind of life is left after embracing inconvenience to absurd lengths? Is it a more or less satisfying life? Does it ultimately make things easier or more difficult? Is it necessary? Or even worthwhile? What difference does the lifestyle choices of one family of three make on the world anyway? Can society as a whole change its ways so that sustainable living becomes easier and more convenient for everyone?

Beavan’s account of his experimental year explores these and other questions. His writing moves easily among the information he learned from research, his personal experience and feelings, and his observations how the project affected his family. Although many readers will feel guilty about their own excesses in comparison with the Beavans’ sacrifices, his tone is not preachy or hostile. For one thing, he had to confront and acknowledge his own failures. For another, he writes with great wit and humor.

Beavans presents no blueprint for how other people can duplicate his experiment. His specific solutions to the various problems he describes living in New York City will not necessarily work elsewhere. Anyone who wants to try something similar will have to adapt his ideas to their own local realities. While not everyone can or should attempt to be a No Impact Man as Beavans did, this book points the way to the kinds of changes everyone can make that will have a huge global payoff with little personal inconvenience.

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