In November 2006, Colin Beavan was worried about the War in Iraq and its relation to climate change.
He noticed that America was pumping money, time and resources into fighting a war he felt was only to acquire energy, yet all citizens were unhappy with the results. Rather than fight a war for energy, he felt that America should develop its own resources and spend money to provide less fortunate Americans with homes and food.
In order to attract attention to this problem, he and his family began a year-long project in which they turned off the power in their apartment, stopped using plastic, became organic, and lived with as little environmental impact as possible. He documented his experiences in his work No Impact Man, a website, book and documentary, which is now taught on college campuses across the country.
This project shows he’s a man who practices what he preaches. And now he wants to take that preaching to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Beavan, the Green Party’s candidate for New York’s 8th Congressional District, formerly the 10th District, which includes Coney Island, Marine Park, Gerritsen Beach and Manhattan Beach, plans to transform the economy, introduce new energy resources, and involve citizens in the democratic process by changing American culture’s focus from corporations to local communities.
