March 21, 2011

Environmentalist Colin Beavan to speak April 11 at Morningside College    

Self-proclaimed environmentalist and “No Impact Man” Colin Beavan will present a lecture at 7 p.m. on Monday, April 11, in the UPS Auditorium in Morningside College’s Lincoln Center, 3627 Peters Ave. 

Beavan’s lecture, which is free and open to the public, is titled “Leaving Your Mark” and will focus on how people can reduce their impact on the environment through lifestyle changes. The lecture will be based in part on Beavan’s 2009 book “No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet and the Discoveries He Makes about Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process” and the movie “No Impact Man” that documented his family’s efforts to make as little environmental impact as possible for one year.

The lecture is sponsored by Morningside College’s Committee on Environmental Sustainability and TOES, a Morningside student organization committed to the principles of sustainability.

In November 2006, Beavan launched a one-year experiment to make zero impact on the environment while living in the heart of Manhattan. Beavan, along with his wife and two-year-old young daughter, turned off the electricity, went organic, ate only locally produced food, avoided automated transportation and stopped using paper products, including toilet paper. The project was featured in The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor and other national and international news outlets.