One more quote from No Impact Man

In No Impact Man, Colin Beavan wrestles with the question of whether individual action has any significance in our current ecological struggles. His answer is both yes and no. He writes:

I'm not sure that reducing individual resource use is the entire way forward. At the root, religious philosophies say to do less harm, yes, but they also say do more good. There is a limit to how much less harm I can do. But my potential for good is unlimited. All of our potentials for good are unlimited.

The question becomes not whether we use resources but what we use them for. Do we use them to improve lives? Or do we waste them? My life itself is a resource. How shall I use it?

I agree with Colin that it will take both individual and collective action to effect that need to occur. Us giving up our car is certainly a tiny drop in the bucket, but it does have an impact, and it also increases the awareness of the people around us (and ourselves), and that can ripple outward in a powerful way.

a few thoughts from No Impact Man

I'm currently reading and very much enjoying Colin Beavan's book, No Impact Man. Tracy and I were fans of his blog, even before the book and the movie came out

In his section on reducing carbon footprint and on stopping using fossil-fuel based transportation, Beavan offers these interesting statistics about cars and America:

• American adults average 72 minutes per day behind the wheel of a car (twice as much as the average American father spends with his kids).
• 17 percent of the average American's income goes toward the costs of owning and running a car.
• Americans spend the equivalent of 105 million weeks of time sitting in traffic jams.
• People who ride bikes or walk to work are 24 percent more likely to be happy with their commute than those who drive cars.

I think we'd qualify for being pretty happy with our commutes right now. And we're on our way to cutting expenses, though we've been doing a bit of investment in our bike infrastructure lately.

It's a very thoughtful book, much more than just an attention-grabbing stunt.