Stephen Dent Inspired by the “No Impact Man”

Stephen Dent, Founder of the Dent Planet Defender movement and creator of the webpage www.dentplanetdefender.com, has spent years searching for notable members of the sustainable lifestyle movement. Over the years, Stephen Dent has found men who have gone green which helps the environment more than you might realize. This year Stephen Dent has had the pleasure of reading the book No Impact Man, which just might prove to be the greatest environmental act of the decade. If you’re not into reading, or just don’t have the time, Colin Beavan, author of the book, also made a documentary movie version of the book, by the same title.

In short, Colin Beavan spent one year living with his wife and children in their Manhattan apartment while making no impact on the earth, leaving no carbon footprint. You can imagine what a monumental feat this must have been, and sticking to it for an entire year, with small children in the house, must have been difficult beyond description. So, how does one go completely off the impact grid for a whole year?

The No Impact Man lived in an apartment without electricity, washed the family’s clothes in the bathtub, and made their own soap. The family never took any form of transportation that wasn’t self-propelled, never ate out, and only bought food that was grown within 200 miles of their home. The measures taken were extreme to say the least, and the project had physical and emotional repercussions as well, with Beavan’s marriage almost ending as a result of the project.

Stephen Dent doesn’t want his fellow planet defenders to take such life altering measures. They aren’t sustainable and the cost isn’t worth it. The point of the book (and film) is to show how much we can change to reduce our impact on mother earth. If each person could make even a few of the changes that he talks about, when all those small changes add up, we would have an enormous change taking place across the world. We can reduce our impact by using less water (and I can’t emphasize this one enough, we MUST reduce our water usage), making less trash by re-using bags and containers, buying cloth grocery bags, etc., eating more locally grown food and thus keeping the cost of produce down as the gasoline prices continue to soar. These are all small, unobtrusive changes in our lives, but together they make much more than a small difference!

Please visit our website for more information on living green, and specific tips on how to reduce your impact on nature and our futures here on earth. www.dentplanetdefender.com