Since the release of the No Impact Man book and film I have been privileged to be in conversation with many groups. And always, someone asks me with great earnestness, “What can I do?” Many times, in other words, people ask me for how-to-save-the-planet directions. “Just start,” I say. And then I pause while they […]
Activism and Social Change
Trust the spark within and find your own path
The world acts as one
Last Saturday, citizens from 181 countries gathered in 5245 separate actions to demonstrate for a global agreement that called for no more than 350 ppm of atmospheric carbon dioxide. When have so many people from so many countries ever agreed on anything?
No Impact Week: Taking the environment into our own hands
As you may have heard, thousands of people have now signed up to participate in the No Impact Project’s week-long experiment in environmental living, which begins on October 18, hosted on the Huffington Post. That so many people are willing to make such a deep commitment demonstrates to themselves, to their neighbors, and to their elected officials that the […]
Respecting commitment
So yeah, that’s me at the end of Climate Ride in front of the capitol on the day that Senators Boxer and Kerry introduced the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act into the Senate in an attempt to mitigate climate change (I was physically able to do part but not all of it). But […]
If you’re at a loss for how to help
This post is dedicated to my friend Amy Wilson. Lately, I’ve been giving a lot of talks and answering a lot of questions and, often times, people ask how they can help. This is a wonderful question, but waiting for someone else to answer it is not quite as wonderful. Let me say why. The […]
Inspiring the change we need
As a culture, we’re having a really hard time facing up to depth of our environmental crises and our climate change problems. That’s not to say we shouldn’t keep trying. We must. But with all the trade offs between the different issues in Congress, we’re having a hard time getting the change we need. Why? […]
A stunt or not a stunt. That is NOT the question.
Last week, Elizabeth Kolbert, a respected New Yorker journalist who writes admirably about issues to do with our climate catastrophe and the environment, wrote a scathing attack on my book, No Impact Man. Sadly, casualties on the battlefield of Kolbert’s wrath included not only me, but also the work of James McKinnen and Alisa Smith (authors of 100 Mile […]