Small Stories, Big Changes: Agents of Change on the Frontlines of Sustainability

The author of Industrial Evolution “has set aside his considerable voice and has conveyed new voices from the growing grassroots movement” (Jeff Barney, owner/chef, Saxapahaw General Store).

A remarkable cast of characters inhabit the pages of this book. Meet Tim Toben, who developed a high rise with the lowest energy consumption of any building in the southeastern United States, was foreclosed upon, and lost millions in the process. Gary Phillips held the line against real estate developers in Chatham County and was run out of office for his efforts. Elaine Chiosso has been protecting her watershed by fighting on behalf of the Haw River for twenty-eight years.

Unflinchingly honest and compulsively readable, Small Stories, Big Changes provides an intimate look at the personal experience of being a pioneer in the sustainability movement, laying bare the emotional, spiritual, and financial impact of a life lived in the service of change. Activist, farmer, publisher, philosopher or entrepreneur; each writer has a unique personal tale to tell.

Small Stories, Big Changes is a book written by ordinary people doing extraordinary things; whose lives have been transformed by their willingness to commit themselves unreservedly to the creation of a better world. Empowering, hopeful, and inspiring, this rich tapestry of voices from the vanguard of change is a must-read for anyone dreaming of a brighter future and seeking a counterbalance to a canon of work that is laced with doom and gloom.

“Estill chooses to share the baton with a select group of sustainability pioneers and the result is not only compelling and heartwarming, but historic and revolutionary.” —Carol Hewitt, author of Financing Our Foodshed