No Impact Man

Ostentatious individual action as a form of activism

Way back when I was first contemplating the possibility of the No Impact Man project, my main concern was with finding ways to bring attention to our environmental crises. I wanted everyone to change.

As I thought of different ways to write about the crises, I began to worry that I would only be preaching to the choir. The liberals read the liberal polemics; the conservatives read the conservative ones; everybody congratulates themselves for sharing ideas with the book author.

In other words, I didn't imagine I could find a finger-wagging approach that would change anyone's mind. That's when I started realizing how many planetary resources me and my little family were unconsciously using up. I thought, if I want to help, maybe I could start with myself.

Then, at a certain stage, people questioned my sincerity, because I was writing a book and a blog and someone was making a documentary. I understand the gripes. It costs resources to make all these things.

But the point is that I wanted to make a point of leading by example. Maybe if I was willing to ostentatiously question my lifestyle choices, others would, in turn, question theirs. More importantly, perhaps my work would show in stark relief the cultural systems that make living sustainably so difficult for the individual.

The question becomes whether the resulting change of minds and actions and engagement in the issue is worth the use of resources? I guess the answer is not really for me to say.

But what I will say is that I think the more each of us is willing to put ourselves on the line and be open about the concerns we have, the farther the ripples travel.

By way of evidence, I'm including an email below, which is typical of many I have received. I don't include it because I want to blow my own horn. I include it because I wonder if this approach suggests a way forward for changing more minds and engaging more people.

What are you thoughts about ostentatious individual action and the ripple effect as an activist technique? What are its limitations? What are its strengths?

Here is the email:

Just wanted to say thank you to you and your wife for opening up your lives in No Impact Man.

I got to sit in the front row at the Library for the Sundance premier of your movie and it did have an impact on me.  It has only been a week since I saw your movie, but in that time:

-I haven’t purchased anything in a package (although I do see a few challenges ahead);
-Started carrying around a handkerchief;
-Got a mini-whiteboard instead of using so many Post-It Notes;
-I’ve told 20 people about your movie (and never mentioned the toilet paper, because it can distract people from the real message…);
-Talked on the local radio station about your movie (last Saturday and yesterday);
-Wore your button yesterday to a presentation I gave to the Park City Council and mentioned your movie in the presentation (last night the Park City Council adopted an updated Environmental Strategic Plan); and
-Have, as you suggested, started living more consciously.

And while you didn’t mention it explicitly in the movie, in the Q&A you did talk about how trying out these alternative behaviors provided you the opportunity to live more consciously.  It is quite a profound feeling -- the power of making different choices.

Keep up the good work.

Diane Foster

I wish I had an iPhone!

The deadline is fast approaching, but I'm still hoping for more emails of support for my meeting with Representative Nadler on Friday afternoon. As you know, I will be asking him to help steer the country towards meaningful climate policy. Click here for details and to see how you can help. Now, onwards...

I had an email today from someone calling himself a "hi-tech environmentalist." What he meant by this was that his work and lifestyle choices tug him in opposite directions. "I have one side of my life which pulls towards a consumerist, energy-intensive lifestyle," he wrote, "and my other side pulls me towards slowing down, doing everything from scratch, reduce, reuse, recycle, etc." 

He wanted know if I had "encountered similar issues or people who dealt with the same thing and had any words of wisdom."

Words of wisdom I'm not so sure, but experience in this realm I do have:

First off, welcome to being a human being! I want an iPhone, too, but don't yet have one (please just die, I tell my second-hand Treo, so I can move onto a second-hand iPhone). Oh, hell, who am I kidding. I'll never get an iPhone (read why here and here).

But what helps me about the psychic push-me-pull-you (I want, I don't want, I want, I don't want) is that I get to understand the rest of middle-class America and Europe--seeing as I am, after all, a member thereof--and it gives me insight into the challenges we face if our culture is to confront the challenge of consuming less.

Desire seems to be at root of the human condition--at least of my human condition. At first, you want food and water. Then, you want shelter. Then, you want toys. Then you want better food and better toys and better shelter and then you want better and then better and more and more.

Studying myself during No Impact, one thing that I discovered was my desire does not go away when the focus of the desire is achieved. It just focuses on something else. In other words, it isn't cured by getting what I want.

That means that my wanting is just a condition and that chasing after what I want is kind of foolish since it won't actually make the want go away. This is not a teaching for the hungry and the thirsty. But for someone like me, who has his basic needs met, it has the potential to provide freedom.

If I accept that want is just like an ache that rises and falls of its own accord and that it can't be fixed, I can stop trying to fix it. I can live my life according to the things I really care about instead of according to the changing winds of my capricious desires.

In other words, understanding the nature of desire allows me to pursue a life of meaning and purpose instead of a life of chasing things.

Well, at least some of the time. That's the theory. I mean, who am I kidding? I still want that iPhone. But I'm not getting it. But I'd still like it.

Whatev.

Everybody will now probably think I'm a kook. Well, they've got that right!

PS By the way, so many bloggers did me the kindness of transmitting my call of support for my visit to Congressman Nadler. Here is a random listing by blog post title of a few that I took from Google alerts. Go visit them and tell them thanks.

• No Impact Man Needs Your Help!
• Make a Difference on 350
• Help No Impact Man Save Us All
• Help No Impact Man Have an Impact
• Please
• Guest blogger: No Impact Man
• Sunday Collection: Stardust
• No Impact Man, Global Climate Change Policy Action
• Tao
• Getting The Word Out About 350 — Something Worth Doing
• Do you have time for a favor?
• Doing my (little) part
• Support for No Impact Man, Colin Beavan

Living in gratitude instead of desire

Click the image above for a larger version

This could be totally wrong, but I’m guessing that the decline of religious life in our culture has brought with it a decline in gratitude. Not that I am laying some sort of a religious trip on everyone—I am the first to cop to not maintaining an attitude of thankfulness.

But I do feel as though we (and I include me) have come to worship desire. Here in the United States, I sometimes despair that our state religion is consumption and our main prayer is for more.

I’m not even religious, but I sense from people I’ve known who take the spiritual aspects of their religions to heart an emphasis on being grateful for what God or the Universe or the Oneness has given them rather than on what they don’t have. I admire that. I’d like to have more of that in myself, because I, too, often find that my prayer, if I’m not careful, is for more.

Here is what I think: that being grateful for what I have makes me want less. Wanting less makes me consume less. Consuming less makes me treat the planet more kindly. The equation goes, therefore, gratitude equals kindness.

And also, it turns out, gratitude equals happiness. According to the relatively new field of positive psychology (read an article about it in Time here), one way to cultivate happiness is to keep a

“gratitude journal, a diary in which subjects write down things for which they are thankful. [Researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky] has found that taking the time to conscientiously count their blessings once a week significantly increased subjects' overall satisfaction with life over a period of six weeks, whereas a control group that did not keep journals had no such gain.”

Notice how the blurb at the top of this post (courtesy of Time Magazine via Authentic Happiness, by the way), doesn’t mention anything about getting more stuff to make us happy? Instead, among other things, it gratitude at the top of the list (and I’m not suggesting this for the underprivileged or the poverty stricken). So by my reckoning, cultivating gratitude is another case of happier people, happier planet.

PS If you're a regular reader, you may notice this is a repost. Sorry. Isabella has brought me home another doozy of a cold.

How I don't blow my brains out

I get depressed about the state of the world, no doubt. That some people don't have water and some people don't have food and the Antarctic ice shelf is about to break off (thanks, Dad, for the link). Plus, my kind readers email me just about every piece of bad news the internet can muster (I'm not asking you to stop, by the way, I appreciate it).

But a bunch of years ago I went to a course at the Esalen Institute with some guru or another. The one thing I remember from the course is that we must always remember to keep ourselves from getting overwhelmed by looking for the good in the bad and the bad in the good. The guru used an example of seeing the beautiful rainbows of color reflected in an oil slick.

So when I think of catastrophes, I try to think about all the wonderful people who are trying, against all odds, to help. When I wonder where God is in the horrible mess, I try to think that he/she/it resides in their hearts.

I'm thinking of all this right now, because I just got an email from Alex Steffan, editor of the wonderful book and website WorldChanging. He sent me a post he'd written about the politics of optimism (I wrote a not dissimilar post about how optimism is the most radical political act there is a while back, too).

Alex's article is full of hope and idealism and blind faith in the human spirit all wrapped up in a thin veneer of sophisticated writing and political understanding. But mostly it is a call to all of us to have more vision and more imagination about how extraordinary we could be.

Though I don't know Alex except by email, judging by the volume of work he produces, he works his butt off to help inspire us and change our minds. So tonight, I am combating the despair by thinking of the God in Alex Steffan's heart and looking at him as today's little bit of good in the bad, today's rainbow in the oil slick.

PS That's Alex in the picture. I like his eyes, don't you?

PPS For fun, some other rainbows: Annie Leonard, Michael Reynolds, Alexie Torres-Fleming, Rachel Kessel, Sharon Astyk.

What would Jesus drive?

As I've worked my way through the No Impact project, I've forged connections with "conservatives" and orthodox religious types in whose company a "secular liberal" like me might not normally be welcome. But what has interested me is that, when we drop the labels, we find we share so many values in common.

I've written many times that, at least in my own life, "stuff"--more material positions--is just a consolation prize for closer connection to community and to family. As we let go of consumption as part of the project, we found that what we really wanted was to just, well, hang out.

Similarly, although I do believe in a regulatory approach to climate change, I also believe in my own personal responsibility and that the way I live my life should attempt to reflect a stewardship for the environment. I should try to take from the planet only that which it can sustainably offer me--not just what I want.

Suddenly, I find myself thinking about human values in a way that is not unlike what you hear from the "other side." Except that, in things relating to human health, security and happiness as it relates to the well-being of our planetary habitat, there is no "other side." There is only one big our side--everybody's side.

How can we all live happily and safely together?

It's in that spirit that I wanted to highlight the Evangelical Climate Initiative, "a group of more than 85 evangelical leaders who—as a result of their commitment to Jesus Christ and concern for His Creation—have signed the statement entitled Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action." Here are some extracts from their Call to Action statement:

• "...many of us have required considerable convincing before becoming persuaded that climate change is a real problem and that it ought to matter to us as Christians. But now we have seen and heard enough to offer the following moral argument related to the matter of human-induced climate change. We commend the four simple but urgent claims offered in this document to all who will listen, beginning with our brothers and sisters in the Christian community, and urge all to take the appropriate actions that follow from them."
• "Claim 1: Human-induced climate change is real."
• "Claim 2: The consequences of climate change will be significant, and will hit the poor the hardest."
• "Claim 3: Christian moral convictions demand our response to the climate change problem."
• "Claim 4: The need to act now is urgent. Governments, businesses, churches and individuals all have a role to play in addressing climate change."

PS You can find the Evengelical Environment Network's "What would Jesus drive?" campaign, which calls for more walking, biking and public transportation and less driving, here.
PPS On an altogether different note, MTV is looking for young people between the ages of 16-27 who have adopted an "off the grid" lifestyle to feature in an upcoming show. Contact Danielle[AT]Gigantic[DOT]tv.

My grandfather's cuff links

My grandfather was a big wig, first, in the OSS and then, through the 50s and 60s, in the CIA. In fact, my last book, Operation Jedburgh, told the story of secret World War II operation that my grandfather helped oversee.

Now, I am not uncritical of the actions of the CIA through those years and certainly not lacking in introspection about my grandfather's career. But I am, nevertheless, incredibly proud to have been his grandson (he passed in the early 80s).

Grandfa, as I called him, grew up on a farm in Ohio, raised by his mother and some uncles. His father had left. But he got himself into and through Yale University and went on to become a senior U.S. government official. Toward the end of his life, I asked him to show me his medals. Tears rolled off his chin as he showed me his Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Part of what I have left of him are his cuff links: one pair in gold, one in mother of pearl, one that are shaped like crowns with a red jewel on top. I also have another pair of cuff links that Michelle, my wife, gave me, but I only ever wear them if I'm scared of losing my grandfather's.

It's not that I don't appreciate the cuff links that Michelle gave me, but they just don't carry the same meaning. Plus, I got married wearing my grandfather's cuff links, gave my first book reading wearing them, went to every important friend or relative's wedding or funeral wearing them.

Now, the cuff links connect my grandfather's life with my life. They aren't a replacement for our relationship. They are not, like so much of what we consume, a surrogate for the human bond. Instead, they serve the purpose of maintaining my relationship with my grandfather across the barrier of life and death.

This is not fanciful. I feel it when I put them on.

So in moving towards a sustainable, nondisposable economy, where products are made to last instead of being thrown away and bought again, we have a yet another opportunity. The opportunity to live a life where, by manufacturing durable products and repairing them, we get to surround ourselves with long-lived material elements of our lives that become imbued with meaning and memory.

Think of eating at a kitchen table with your grandchildren at the same table you ate with your grandmother. Think of proposing to your fiancee with the same ring your grandfather proposed to your grandmother. Think of shaving as an old man with the same razor that your dad gave you when you first learned to shave.

Think of getting, as I do, to remember your love for your grandfather and the times he made you blueberry pudding every time you get dressed up.

Creation

Isabella (who turned three today by the way) has done me the favor of bringing another flu bug home from school. So don't expect much.

As I've said before, I don't adhere to any one religion, but I do enjoy the ancient wisdom contained within them all. And someone who calls herself Dura Matter in the comments left behind a snippet that I liked. She attributes to the pastor Rob Bell.

"How we treat the creation reveals how we feel about the creator."

Germane (at least to me)

There is only one thing we will be remembered for when we die--how we lived.

What makes me feel proud of myself? What makes me feel warm? What makes me feel caring? What makes me sleep well at night? What makes me able to look my friends and family squarely in the eye?

How, in short, do I want to be remembered? How shall I live?

I ponder these questions because, well, that's me, but also because I just read the blog of a guy who is going to die soon. In the scheme of things, we are all going to die soon.

Be careful. Before we know it, it will be too late to live according to our values and priorities.

Forgive me if I sound too pious

I have a friend, a Zen teacher, who lost his daughter a decade or so ago. Years passed, and he asked his own teacher, "I have been meditating for many years, but underneath, I still feel an abiding sadness. Am I doing something wrong?"

His teacher told him, "What you feel is Universal Sadness."

When I first heard this story, I didn't get it.

But not too long ago, Michelle, my wife, had a miscarriage. She, of course, was distraught, and I felt terrible for her. What surprised me, though, was my own awful sadness (I had felt very ambivalent about the pregnancy).

The sadness walked around with me for a few days, and I kept thinking, "How do people live in the face of things like this? How can people function, knowing tragedy can strike as quickly as a you can step off the curb without seeing the bus?"

Then, one day, it struck me. Probably a million women had miscarriages on the same day as Michelle. A million husbands quietly grieved while they stayed strong to comfort their wives. The tragedy was not mine alone. We all had it. We're all struggling to get by. Life, for everyone, is precarious.

For just that moment, my heart broke open for the world. The sadness was not just mine. We all have it. We all suffer from it. I understood for those few seconds what my friend the Zen teacher meant by Universal Sadness. It means we are all in this thing together.

And when a moment like that comes, living environmentally, living for a purpose larger than yourself and having the things you want are not in conflict at all. They are not in competition. Because when you have--even for a moment--the experience that your sadness is Universal, what you want is not more things. Instead, you get a glimpse of simply wanting to help.

Painting entitled "Compassion" by Dan Wicks.

Use less or use better?

One of the debates within environmentalism is this question of whether to solve the planetary crisis we will have to use fewer resources or whether we will just have to use them more efficiently and cleanly.

There are those, in other words, who seem to believe that we will get to keep driving around in SUVs and to keep our AC turned on all day, but that the vehicles and air conditioners will just be part of a much more efficient and cleaner energy system. Technology, they believe, will solve all our problems.

Personally, I believe that technology will solve some of our problems. But to achieve the 80% to 95% reduction in carbon emissions we need to achieve, we will ultimately have to make lifestyle changes, too (unless, of course, you believe that our economy can operate as a perpetual motion machine).

I'm not talking about returning to caves, but I am talking about things like higher reliance on public transportation, eating less beef, and maybe even hanging clothes out on a line instead of throwing them in a dryer. And personally, I don't see the debate between the efficiency and the reduction models.

There is so much to reduce that wouldn't feel in the least like deprivation. Who, for example, would miss all the packaging that we have to hump to the garbage the minute we get a new purchase home? Which of us would really miss much if we turned the lights and the air conditioning off in empty houses and buildings?

Even Amory Lovins, one of the gurus of the energy efficiency, accepts that consumption reduction will ultimately have to be part of the equation. The extract below comes from "Mr. Green: Environmentalism's Most Optimistic Guru," an article in the January, 2007 New Yorker by Elizabeth Kolbert (emphasis is mine):

I asked Lovins how his plan to save the world through energy efficiency could accommodate the open-ended nature of human desire. If, as he claims, conservation is profitable, what was to stop the profits from going straight toward more consumption?

"It doesn't automatically prevent that," he said. But, he added, "you might plow the money back into more efficiency rather than more powerboats and helicopter skiing. After all, you don't rewash your clean clothes in the cheaper-to-run washing machine, because your clothes are already clean. At some point, I think you get jaded by continuous trips to Bali.

"Your neighbors might point out that what you're doing is increasingly antisocial," he continued. "On a moral or spiritual level, at some point you may discover you're not all that happy having more stuff or more travel. Trying to meet non-material needs by material means is stupid and futile. Every faith tradition that I know decries materialism.

"Markets are meant to be greedy, not fair. Efficient, not sufficient. They're very good at short-term allocation of scarce resources, but that's all they're good at. They were never meant to tell you how much is enough or how to fulfill the higher purpose of a human being."