Our Journey to Sustainability: How Everyday Heroes Make a Difference

Explores the motivations, successes, and visions of individuals working tirelessly to heal our planet through 150 personal stories.

Everyday, countless individuals are hard at work, seeking solutions to environmental problems and creating new ways to live sustainably. It takes the combined effort of many to secure a healthy future, from electric vehicle owners to animal lovers, journalists to artists, scientists to indigenous communities and cities. But what is it that motivates people to act on behalf of the planet?

That is the question at the heart of Our Journey to Sustainability: How Everyday Heroes Make a Difference. Compiling 150 stories from personal interviews, research, and his own experiences, Jon R. Biemer explores the varied motivations that inspire environmental action and presents over twenty-five sustainable wisdom tips that readers can implement in their own lives, suggesting real-world ways to make a difference. Readers will visit cities and towns across the country, indigenous reservations, and wildlife preserves. They will be introduced to the heroes in the trenches who are creating a healthier environment, on scales both small and large, while learning how actions can add up to great results.

Biemer profiles a mix of modest and impressive efforts by youth advocates, professionals in the prime of their career, and post-retirees. Some folks are just doing a day's work, while some are fighting for environmental justice. Our Journey to Sustainability shows what it really takes to recycle, repair cell phones, recover a brownfield, and halt a freeway, and highlights the real-life dreams of entrepreneurs who are revolutionizing geothermal energy, the clothing industry, the way boats are built, and much more. Eco-heroes are everywhere, and their initiatives are the substance of realistic hope for our planet.

Jon R. Biemer has more than forty years of experience creating sustainability. His practices and causes include free cycling, repair cafes, village building convergences, environmental education, solar and wind energy, and energy efficiency in homes, municipalities, and industry. Biemer is a mechanical engineer and holds a certificate in process-oriented psychology. He has managed utility energy conservation programs and now provides organizational development consulting to nonprofits. He is the author of Our Environmental Handprints: Recover the Land, Reverse Global Warming, Reclaim the Future (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021) and a member of the Society for Environmental Journalists.