Eco-living challenges: You’ve seen them before. People get book deals and sell the movie rights for their tales of living sans modern conveniences. Some appear to be income-driven stunts and others are earnest missions for the sake of Mother Earth, usually plotted with the hope that a year of not bathing will teach us all to stop whining about the pains of reusable bags. But I have a couple of problems with doing those challenges myself:
a) I don’t buy into the idea that my records of extreme (and temporary) lifestyle change will inspire the world to make significant change. After all, we’re inundated with stories of dramatic weight loss from all angles (TV, movies, and magazines, to name a few), and they haven’t vastly altered our country’s obesity problem, from what I can tell.
b) I haven’t sold a book deal (although if you’re interested, I’m currently running an Earth Month special…), so I currently have to do other things to make money and, as such, I can’t devote all all of my time to neutralizing my carbon output and finding ways to live like I’m off the grid.
So, instead of trying to be the next martyr of eco-living, I’m going to what it’s like to really concentrate on doing a few of those “small things” that everyone’s always telling us to do for the sake of the environment. They’re not documentary fodder, by any means, but by focusing on these small things (which, if you’ve ever tried them, are actually fairly big things to work into your already-busy days) for Earth Month, I hope that we can all learn a thing or two about how to make eco-friendly living work for you. More »
