I kept stumbling across No Impact Man (aka as Colin Beavan) over the past few months. He was on Twitter, via his blog, and then there was the trailer to his movie. Each time as I skimmed the stories or posts at high speed I thought to myself, "Cool stunt, I should interview him sometime soon," and moved on.
Then my dear friend Amy Wilson called me up and told me she was working with Colin Beavan while he was on book tour in the Bay Area, and said that he was "the real deal." Amy eluded to something that his critics have spoken to, which is that now that the main stream sees there is money to made in the world of green (aka people learning how to live a more sustainably), that there are a lot of people out there figuring out to make a buck on green.
With that said, I have yet to come across someone who makes an extreme "green" life style change who isn't truly dedicated to the issue of raising mass awareness about the state of the environment. Here's his interview with Current Green:
And with that said, there is a place where the rubber meets the road, and there is a difference between people who preach green for their living, and those who actually live a sustainable lifestyle. Colin is a refreshing breath of air and embodies both.
I found Collin's social experiment of unplugging from the grid fascinating. Mostly because all the people I know who made the choice to live off the grid live in Alaska or Northern Idaho or Northern California...you know...out in the boondocks. Colin chose to unplug, and stay right in the center of it all: New York City. And I agree with Amy, he is the real deal. Colin and his family invested a year of their life to showing the world there is another way, and confronts the most famous story of our time: that you need to buy more, do more, and work more in order to be happy. And he manages to tell the story in a charming, accessible informative manner absent of self righteousness.
What makes me stop in my tracks: he managed to stay in the heart of the city, but create a new pace of life that most of us are only capable of tapping when we leave the city.
Enjoy the interview (special thanks to our studio crew who wasn't planning a drop in guest that day). You can follow Colin on Twitter @noimpactman, [ http://twitter.com/noimpactman] his blog, and on his impressive project website: NoImpactProject.org. Or just go crazy and read his book.
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