With a tragically leaky canoe, a broken cell phone, a cooler of beer, and environmental planner Dan Driscoll in tow, Gessner grapples with the stereotype of the environmentalist as an overzealous, puritanical mess. But as Dan recounts his own story of transforming the famously polluted Charles into an urban haven for wildlife and wild people, the vision of a new sort of eco-champion begins to emerge: someone who falls in love with a forgotten space, and then fights like hell for it.

Considering everything from Edward Abbey’s legacy to Jimmy Carter’s sweater, weaving his intellectual quest with real adventure, Gessner points toward a scrappy environmentalism that, despite all odds, just might change the world. “Heartfelt and informed” (Boston Globe), My Green Manifesto is a spirited call to arms by a major figure on the vanguard of a new environmentalism.