Q&A with environment activist Lyle Estill

Lyle Estill is a writer who stumbled upon the path of being an environmental activist by accident and then continued his journey to eventually become the co-founder of Piedmont Biofuels. In his latest book, “Small Stories, Big Changes: Agents of Change on the Frontlines of Sustainability,” he assembled stories from various activists with stories to tell. He will be discussing his book at Bull’s Head Bookshop today.

Estill spoke to staff writer Zhai Yun Tan about the purpose of the book.

Daily Tar Heel: What is your book about?

Lyle Estill: It is an anthology of 14 different authors whom are all pioneers or have been on the front lines of societal change. Some of them are well-known writers who have been publishing for many years, and some of them are new voices who are just appearing for the first time.

One of them is Tim Toben. He has a chapter in there about Greenbridge, which is the skyscraper in Chapel Hill that has the lowest energy consumption per square foot than any building in the Southeast. There’s Blair Pollock who developed the Orange County recycling program, and there’s Eric Henry who developed the Cotton of the Carolinas, the first organic cotton crop in this state since Reconstruction.

It’s a collection of interesting people with interesting stories. It shows the personal, emotional and spiritual side of being an agent of change.

DTH: What inspired you to come up with that idea?

LE: I was in Paris at the time reading all the American writers in Paris during the ’20s and ’30s. I was enjoying Hemingway and Fitzgerald, feeling jealous and thinking what a great time that was to be alive. Wouldn’t it be interesting to be arguing with Gertrude Stein all night? Then it dawned on me that it is what I do. That is the life that I have except that instead of being with the 1920s and ’30s artists and writers in Paris, the people around me happen to be the same kind of people that are making change in the names of sustainability and America. So I thought that would be the book. It’s been selling like popcorns, and I’ve had people sending stories of their own activism to my website.

DTH: What do you hope to achieve with your book?

LE: To inspire people, to let them know that anyone can do it. These are just normal people who are doing exceptional things. I hope readers will get ahold of this book and be inspired to take action and become an agent of change on their own.

DTH: Why is the message of taking action so important?

LE: I think that if you are working on a personal level, you can take action on your own. You can walk or ride a bike rather than take a car, you can take a bus, eat local food. There’s a whole wide range of things you can do on a personal level to reduce our footprints in the planet.

DTH: Who would you recommend to read this book?

LE: Anyone who feels like they might have an activist in them. They can take away the notion that they can effect change on their own. I think that we live in an era where there are unfathomably complex problems so like when you’re contemplating peak oil or climate change, these things can be daunting and paralyzing. It can make an individual uncertain onto what they can or cannot do. So these are 14 stories of what people have already done. Everyone in this book is a pioneer and they have experienced something firsthand.

arts@dailytarheel.com