Fruits of my labors in a slight lull at the moment, I’ve enjoyed whole minutes of reflective thought about what it’s been like to grow my food for the past half year. Reading has nuzzled yet again into my nighttime routine (notable in that whole handfuls of pages are now absorbed before eyelids clunk shut). Roughly one month behind in reading my only subscription, The New Yorker magazine, I just came upon Elizabeth Kolbert’s August 31st published critique of recent books detailing various persons’ explorations into rather extreme life-style alterations in the name of ‘green’ and/or ’sustainable’ living.
I understand one of her observations, that many of the actions taken by such persons can be viewed as largely purposeless, perhaps pointless. As admittedly spotlight hungry, short-lived experiments, the authors have discovered some changes to their lifestyles that they may continue, whereas most of their 100-mile diet and zero-carbon emission moments will continue solely on the printed page of yet another tree, cut, milled and pulped in the name of humoring pleasure-seeking audiences. Ending her writing with a suggestion for one author to expound upon the year of experimenting in order to create larger cultural impact seems a suitable review of the entire do-it-yourself-er environmental movement.
I would argue, in addition, that the exploratory nature of these immense life-style changes is no less daunting in our modern times than the deprivations explorers of years past endured. We’d like to think the changes to our living, necessary in order that the planet may not combust from our uses and abuses, will be painless. Yet in order for such change to be painless, the pioneers must sift through their brain cells, their chicken coops, their muscle fibers and more, so that they may discover ways of living 
that we all may have access to.
I recently viewed Mountains of the Moon, the story of Captain Richard Francis Burton’s and Lt. John Hanning Speke’s expedition to find the source of the Nile river in the name of Queen Victoria’s British Empire. It strikes me that these two vastly different men included money and glory amongst their needs and goals for such a discovery. Also, they were willing to suffer deprivations and imperil their lives and relationships. They enjoyed all of this; such a life gave them fulfillment alongside adventure, pride, etc.
Those who would start a trash-free life-style, commit to zeroing their carbon emissions, eat food from within a small mileage distance – these people are not just depriving themselves. They are as subject to monetary restrictions as any explorer. They are as subject to criticism as any odd feat. Should their story be bought for movie rights, all the better. If there is a critique to be made of the personal-change-of lifestyle-environmental-book, it is as Kolbert suggested: substantiated follow-up. We cannot expect all of these authors to continue, but those who push on are due for refining their findings and reporting thereafter.
The numbers of people enacting changes in their lives with regard to environmental concerns grows daily. All the better for those who publish accounts of their doings; in the masses of communications swirling around the internet in particular, the responsibility of those in the spotlight appears a bit less demanding than, say, the era of explorers. I took large, large, inspiration from Barbara Kingsolver’s first-year account of gentleman farming (Kolbert’s description), enough in fact that from the time of reading it until now I have set the goals of teaching myself various baking, farming and otherwise food-related skills. Certainly due to burgeoning values regarding my place on this planet, but also because many of these things have added substantially to the fulfillment I feel in life. There have been some deprivations, and there have been many glorious moments. I would love to read a follow-up book by Kingsolver, yet I’ll wait patiently. The inspiration was planted, sprouted and has raced my mind into fields beyond fields. As I await other’s stories, the day is up to me.
