Maple City, Mich. ? It was a shocking thing to say, even by the no-holds-barred rhetorical standards of the 1960s.

“I am terribly saddened by the fact that the most humane thing for me to do is to have no children at all,” college senior Stephanie Mills lamented in a commencement address that warned the human race was breeding itself to extinction and wrecking the environment.

The speech made national headlines, as did those of other rebellious 1969 graduates, including a future first lady and U.S. senator named Hillary Rodham.

But unlike many angry radicals who later joined the establishment, Mills remained true to her cause. More than three decades later, the author and activist is widely regarded as one of the environmental movement’s leading intellects. And she’s never had children.

In a newly released book, “Epicurean Simplicity,” Mills again warns that today’s fast-paced, money-chasing, consumerist lifestyle is damaging to nature and humanity. Still, her tone is mostly upbeat as she makes the case for a materially frugal yet spiritually rich existence in harmony with nature. It is, she asserts, a downright fun way to live.

“There’s joy in nature, in contemplation. Having time to truly think, to truly observe the world, is incredibly enriching,” she said in an interview at her home in rural northern Michigan.

In addition to numerous magazine articles, Mills has written or edited five books and lectured widely at environmental conferences and universities. She has directed publications including Earth Times and CoEvolution Quarterly. In 1996, Utne Reader named her one of the world’s leading visionaries.

“She’s in the tradition of reporting about the connections between human life and natural values that goes back to Ralph Waldo Emerson,” said Keith Schneider, former New York Times environmental writer and founder of the Michigan Land Use Institute.

Environmental issues

Mills, 53, writes about many of the environmental issues debated in the media and government: air and water pollution, global warming, overpopulation and overuse of natural resources.

Yet in keeping with the “think globally, act locally” maxim, she does more than rail at corporations or prescribe laws to enact. She candidly discusses her own efforts at sustainable living, and admits to sometimes falling short.

“My way of life, austere though it may appear to the richer folk, is still ruinously exploitive of nature,” Mills confesses in “Epicurean Simplicity.” She drives a car which pumps climate altering carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and buys products made with chemicals that harm wildlife.

Still, the book leaves no doubt that Mills treads softly on the earth and believes others should, too.

It’s by turns a memoir, diary and manifesto, calling to mind Thoreau’s “Walden.” The title pays tribute to Epicurus, a third century Greek philosopher who felt the surest way to happiness was drawing pleasure from the simple and sensory.

If people could “learn to savor the goodness of little, everyday things, we could get more out of less and abandon our ruinous gluttony,” Mills writes.

Philosophoical musings

To illustrate the point, she weaves philosophical musings with tales of ordinary doings in the Michigan countryside: gardening, cross-country skiing, cooking for friends. She describes fixing a snack and settling into a chair for a long evening of watching a tree frog perched outside her window.

“This,” she notes dryly, “is the kind of thing that people without television sets do.”

Nor is there a computer, microwave, washer or dryer in her house, a modest but comfortable 720-square-foot structure nestled amid Scotch pines and hardwoods in Leelanau County. Mills heats with wood, but makes some concessions to modernity: electricity, indoor plumbing, refrigerator, propane-fueled range.

A short walk away is her writing studio, a cramped hut packed with books, papers, mementos. The “desk” is an old door lying atop two filing cabinets. Among the tools of her trade: a manual typewriter so out of date that Mills must order ribbons from a supplier in St. Louis.