No Impact Man

The point of it all

Sometimes people tell me that they are very concerned about the environment but that they don’t feel their efforts can make the slightest difference. I like to tell a mushy story my friend told me about a little girl on the beach.

Thousands of starfish have been washed up by a rip tide. They are dying in the sun. One by one, the little girl picks them up, carries them to the water and drops them in.

A man comes along and says, “What’s the point? There are so many you can’t even make a difference”

The girl says, “Tell that to the one I just put back in the water."

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By the way, I'm giving a talk on the No Impact experiment at Manhattan's Solar One tonight at 7:00 PM. Click here for details.

A word to the critics and a story about a cat

So you guys--and by you guys I mean my critics--I welcome your remarks as long as it's dialog and not invective, but I do think it might be nice if you took the trouble to get your facts straight. Attack my ideas, but saying my ideas are worthless because I have "a housekeeper"--when, in fact, I have nothing of the kind--really just distracts everybody from the topic of conversation which I think should be about how we can help the planet (rather than pointing fingers at me or anyone else).

What I do have is a cleaner who comes in four hours a week. Also, Isabella goes to family day care with four other kids, which by the way she loves (we neither wanted nor could afford a nanny). I pay the cleaner roughly the same hourly wage that I earn and, by my estimates, our lovely childcare provider earns a bit more than me. Michelle and I have this help because we both work full time--who decided I was a stay-at-home-dad?--both for financial reasons and because we love our work.

So attack me for having a baby sitter and a once a week cleaner if you want. But honestly, I think what would be a much bigger help to us all is if you contribute your positive ideas and changes you have made so that we can dialog and move forward and talk and figure out solutions. If you think what I am trying wouldn't work for you, how about, instead of denigrating my efforts, you tell us about your own efforts and what works for you? Maybe that could benefit someone else too.

All of which brings me to the main subject of the post: a Zen koan that I love. As the story goes, long ago in China, a stray cat wandered into Zen Master Nam Cheon’s monastery. Sometimes, the cat would cuddle up in the laps of the monks who lived in the east residence and sometimes in the laps of the monks who lived in the west. The monks from the east and west halls became jealous of each other.

“We love the cat more than you so it should live with us.”

“No, we know how to take care of the cat better. It should stay with us!”

One day, the argument broke out in the middle of the dharma room, where the monks were supposed to be meditating. Finally, Zen Master Nam Cheon stormed into the room. He picked up the cat, held a knife to its throat and said, “You monks. Give me one true word of love for this cat, and I’ll save it. If you cannot, I will kill it.”

Nam Cheon was testing the monks. What was more important to them, truly loving the cat or winning the argument? None of the monks could say or do anything. They were all still trying figure out how to prove the other side was wrong. So Nam Cheon sliced open the cat’s neck and killed it.

The No Impact experiment is about not being like those monks in the dharma room—I’m trying. I don’t want to be the type who never exerts much energy towards anything but winning the argument anymore. I feel like Nam Cheon is holding his knife to the neck of the planet, and I need to work on proving I love it, instead of trying to win the arguments about it.

 

Boys, girls, and whose job is it to take out the compost?

So I got this email today from a woman named Nellie Wieland. I Googled her and she appears to be a professor of philosophy or something like that who has reviewed books by Noam Chomsky. Now, I love Noam Chomsky but only when someone else explains to me what he’s talking about. This is by way of saying that Nellie who emailed me must be way smarter than me. And I really like people who are way smarter than me (as long as they don’t point it out too, too often).

Anyway, Nellie asked whether I had considered the life changes involved in No Impact in terms of traditional gender politics. She mentioned that buying fresh food, not using a fridge, washing clothes by hand, and making meals from scratch is very time consuming. She said that women still do most of the housework but the time they spend doing it has fallen by half since the age of mod cons and household appliances and readily available energy. "Many of the steps we can and should take to lessen our personal impact involve changing the ways we perform what has traditionally been woman’s work,” Nellie wrote.

To quote her a little more:

“Of course in the green future, men and women should share the burden of daily shopping trips, making vinegar from scratch, hand washing, and so on. And, I think it's also the case that we overestimate how time-consuming some lifestyle changes would be. But the environmentally responsible lifestyle changes need to be made now, before our social and gender politics have time to catch up.”

Riffing off the Prof, let me say how things go around here. Michelle, my wife, works in an office and I have a lot more time flexibility so I do the food shopping, the mixing of homemade cleaning products, and the cooking. Michelle does the dishes, makes most of the logistic arrangements for Isabella, and takes care of a lot of other family admin. We pretty much share the childcare. Frankie the dog’s care falls mostly to me but Michelle takes the morning walk. I think we both really value each other’s contributions to the running of the family.

We don’t think about it gender-wise, unless I am so culturally brainwashed that I don't see it. We just split the work up whatever way makes sense and we like it that way. We work hard to figure out how to run our family in a way that makes us all happiest. Michelle is asleep, so I can’t ask her, but I think she would agree that we kind of feel proud of that. She does like to joke, though, that No Impact has turned her husband into a nineteenth century housewife.

One thing I’ve been thinking about a lot is how household chores were downgraded in importance during the early twentieth century by the marketing folks. Washing dishes, cleaning house, doing laundry, cooking meals were all labeled as “drudgery” and appliances were then marketed as a way to get away from that drudgery. As I’ve been faced with a lot of these tasks, I’ve spent a lot of time examining that underlying assumption about household work.

Sometimes my brain tells me that manual labor is a waste of my time and that I should be undertaking so-called higher intellectual pursuits. But what higher calling is there than for me to feed Michelle and Isabella? Because of the eating local—which means not eating in restaurants so much—I’ve been cooking for a lot of people who come over and I have to say it is a new found pleasure to do something so simply essential for my friends and family.

What more important thing can I do with my life than feed them? Should I be reading Proust instead? Is my time better spent there? Or is my time better spent using food to help build our circle and strengthening our relationship bonds?

What’s interesting to me is the cultural idea that the chores are somehow not worthwhile undertaking, but that I am finding satisfaction in them. I think there is an idea in the culture that we should buy and consume and--for crying out loud--make sure we have time to watch enough TV. It's as though being in touch with actually taking care of ourselves and our families is somehow a lesser experience. I'm not finding that.

Around here, I am in charge of the composting, and I harvested compost for the first time this week and top treated my tomato plants and they shot up. That was fun. In the surprising and sometimes frightening media rush that has descended on No Impact Man, some of my safest and calmest times have come when I was kneading the bread. I feel like I’m getting in touch with something important, but probably too hard to describe when you’ve been awake this many hours.

This is in no way meant to be a comment on whom—man or woman—the household chores should or should not fall to in other people’s homes. I'm with Nellie about men and women sharing the work equally, but I guess what I'm adding is that what has to be shared need not necessarily be seen as a "burden." Again, what else important is there for me to do with my life?

These are just musings. I’m not pointing some way forward. I’m not suggesting anything for anyone else. I’m just sharing my experience and pleasure in simple tasks along with enjoying the thoughts of Nellie the professor who kindly took the time to email a very interesting and thought provoking note. I’d love if people want to comment about how eco-chores break down in their household or finding pleasure in undervalued tasks or anything else related to the Prof’s or my  thoughts. Oh, and of course, I'd especially love to hear comments from you, Nellie.

 

A sea of people in NYC

Treehugger predicts that this Saturday, April 14, at 12 noon, New York City will have the biggest environmental event since the first Earth Day in 1970. Get out your blue shirts! Why? Because the New York event, called Sea of People, aims to line up thousands of participants along the predicted climate-change flood lines in Manhattan. The blue-swathed masses will represent the water's edge (map courtesy of Treehugger).

Sea of People is the New York element of the National Day of Climate Action that I wrote about in  yesterday's post. You non-New Yorkers can find out where your local event is here.

Back in the Big Green Apple (I stole that phrase from writer Ben Jervey, one of Sea of People's organizers, who titled his book with it), Saturday's event still needs volunteers to help organize the line up along the threatened water's edge. Want to help? Send an email to [email protected] or just show up at the volunteers' traning session on Thursday at Battery Park from 6-8 PM.

Either way, on Saturday, make your way to Battery Park at the southernmost tip of Manhattan at noon for the event itself. Before the line up along the threatened water's edge, we'll get the treat, according to Sea of People, of hearing, among others:

+Reverend Billy & the Stop Shopping Choir
+Special Guest Bill McKibben (Founder/Organizer of National Step It Up 2007 Campaign)
+The Himalayan Marching Band, DJ Small Change and MC Haysoos from WadeWaters

Oh, um, and one more thing. I'm glad to say that Treehugger gave me the qualified thumbs up for my appearance on the Colbert Report on Monday/Tuesday. "In the end," Treehugger said, "No Impact Man aka Colin Beavan held up quite well." (Of course, they didn't see the shivering wreck I turned into when it was finally all over.)

Meanwhile, if NPR is more to your taste than Colbert, I talked about the No Impact experiment on Talk of the Nation on the same day, and you can listen to it here.

Looking forward to seeing you at Sea of People on Saturday!

This post also appears in my Green Parenting column for Time Out New York Kids, appearing every Wednesday. For resources on eco-friendly stores and restaurants, or simply to plan a weekend outing, visit them at tonykids.com.

Care to join me on Saturday?

Too tired to write a longer post, but in case you're popping in after watching Colbert--or even if you didn't tune in--and you wanted to know what I'll be doing Saturday, April 14, I'm going to my local National Day of Climate Action rally. Want to join in? Find out where your local rally is at StepItUp2007.org

The National Day of Climate Action, in case you're wondering, is the brainchild of Bill McKibben, the environmentalist and author most recently of Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. As I write, Step It Up expects some 1315 rallies across all 50 states.

The idea is to join together to send a message to our government and the world that Americans really do care about the planet and climate change. Oh and Frankie, my dog and No Impact Man wildlife representative, says not to forget to say that Step It Up should also show we care about polar bears too.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Oh no, here come the weirdos with the cloths

Here is a scene that repeated itself a hundred times in the beginning of the No Impact project: we sat down in a restaurant, the server came over all smiles, we said hi, picked the paper napkins from the table, handed them to the confused-looking server, said we brought our own, and pulled our cloths from our pockets with a flourish. “We’re on a don’t make garbage kick,” we always said. Most times, the server thought it was cool. But, um, other times…

By keeping the cloth stuffed in our pockets, we never have to dry our hands with a paper towel in a public restroom. Plus, in those days before the eating local stage kicked in, we could buy a bagel and tell them to wrap it in our cloths instead of paper. Even now, when we buy local cheese at the Union Square farmers’ market, we give them a reusable cheese cloth to package the cheese in.

OK, we’re weird. Even to ourselves! On the other hand, see that picture at the top of the page? That is a picture, courtesy of Greenpeace, of an ancient forest in Canada that was clearcut in order to manufacture disposable paper products.

Some of the felled trees had lived 70 to 180 years before someone decided they wanted to blow their nose on them. Ancient forests are like the planet’s lungs, except they do the opposite of our lungs. The forests breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen. That makes them essential to fighting climate change. Plus, old forests, some of which have been around 10,000 years since the last ice age, provide habitat for all sorts of wildlife like, in Canada, caribou, wolves, eagles and bears.

Of course, there are paper products that are more sustainably produced, and I give a list below. The general idea is that paper products should contain either recycled fiber or fiber from sustainably harvested forests (certified by the Forest Stewardship Council) and should be manufactured cleanly without chlorine

But even sustainably-produced disposable paper products pile the landfills and sewer systems with things that were only used for 30 seconds. That’s why Michelle and I prefer to remain the weird couple with the cloths.

Here’s a list of ancient forest-friendly paper products, courtesy of Greenpeace:

Toilet Paper: CVS Bathroom Tissue 1000, Cascades, Marcal, Natural Value, Earth First, Seventh Generation, Trader Joe's, 365 Everyday Value

Facial Tissue: Marcal Fluff Out, Seventh Generation, Trader Joe's

Paper Towels: Marcal Bella, Natural Value, Seventh Generation, Trader Joe's, 365 Everyday Value

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PS I found out that my appearance on the Colbert Report airs at 11:30 PM on April 9 and a bunch of times including 8:30 PM on April 10. I'll be on Talk of the Nation on April 9. I wish someone would clearcut the butterflies in my stomach!

 

A No Impact Man theme song

“People killing, people dying,
Children hurt and you hear them crying.
Can you practice what you preach
And won’t you turn the other cheek?
Father, Father, Father help us.
Send some guidance from above,
Cause people got me, got me questioning:
Where is the love?
Where is the love?
Where is the love?
Where is the love, the love, the love?”

--From the Black Eyed Peas’ Where is the Love?

You should see Isabella dancing to it!

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Meanwhile, fans of the Comedy Central’s Colbert Report, watch for a No Impact Man appearance on Monday night (April 9). Don’t ask me how that happened because I don’t know. Oh, and also Talk of the Nation on Monday too. Weird, huh?

Help. I need to wash.

OK, it’s not that I mean I need help washing—promise! This post is about two separate subjects: help, as in I need some--in the form of a research assistant/intern--and washing, as in a lot of people have been asking how I wash my body and my home environmentally. First, about washing (but if you’re dying to be my intern you better scroll down fast!).

As you all know, a big part of the No Impact experiment is creating no trash. In particular, I have developed a little OCD when it comes to disposable products. I use a straight edge razor (great for removing pimples…joking!) and you all know about the cloth shopping bags. Another thing I’m finally getting rid of is the plastic bottles that shampoo, moisturizer and cleaning products come in.

I’ve already disposed of the toothpaste tubes thanks to baking soda (see I’m sacrificing my teeth to the environment). Also, my friend Vanessa who blogs at greenasathistle.com suggests Eco-Dent floss, which contains no animal products and comes in a recyclable cardboard container.

(Note to self: hurry up and stop using disposable pens, the last disposable product in our house. Get out all those fountain tips that your aunts and uncles gave you every Christmas.)

Before I tell you the how of my new washing regime, a little more about the why. Commercial shampoos and soaps and cleaning products have about umpteen million chemicals in them that are bad for the environment—bad for the drinking water, bad for aquatic life, just bad (is there a commenter out there who can give us the details of the bad chemicals?). A couple of days ago, the New York Times reported:

“Worries about water-borne chemicals flared last summer when researchers at the United States Geological Survey said they had discovered “intersex fish” in the Potomac River and its tributaries. The fish, smallmouth and largemouth bass, were male but nevertheless carried immature eggs.

Scientists who worked on the project said they did not know what was causing the situation, or even if it was a new phenomenon. But the discovery renewed fears that hormone residues or chemicals that mimic them might be affecting creatures that live in the water.”

On top of the pollution aspect, Michelle, my wife, is also concerned about Isabella coming into contact with the various toxins and carcinogens in the cleaning products. Michelle has this idea that two-year-olds shouldn’t drink things with words on the label like chloro or fluoro or sulphate. Add to these reasons my love of a good chemistry experiment and away we go.

First off, we had been using the eco-products you buy from health food stores (see below), so I saved some empty bottles to put my own goop in and gave the half empty bottles to Peggy, Isabella’s babysitter. Then, I bought a big bottle of highly concentrated castile soap (I use Dr. Bronner's), which is biodegradable and contains only saponified organic vegetable oils, a big box of borax, a big bottle of white vinegar, and, thanks to my pearly whites, I already had the baking soda. Admittedly, the castile soap came in a plastic bottle (made from 100% recycled, that is), but I figure one plastic bottle is better than twenty. I’ll get around to making castile soap from olive oil myself later.

Now for the recipes:

Household cleanser—One quart water, 1 teaspoon borax, 2 tablespoons vinegar, 1 teaspoon castile soap (you can see my supplies will last until I’m about 76 and it’s way cheaper than store bought).

Soap—You can use castile soap but we’re using soap made from local beeswax and bought at the farmers' market.

Shampoo—Seven ounces of filtered water, one ounce castile soap, one teaspoon olive oil. [Since writing this post, I've decided I'm not a great fan of this recipe. I now use baking soda mixed with water. It doesn't suds but it cleans really well. NIM 6/28/07]

Dishwashing detergent—one measure castile soap to one measure water.

Of course, if you can’t be bothered to mix this stuff up, just go to your local health food store and buy the eco-products that are explicitly labeled “nontoxic” (an FDA term) and biodegradable, are plant rather than petroleum based (I avoid animal based products too), and contain no chlorine bleach, benzyne, toluene, xylene, trichlorethane or phosphates. Buy them concentrated and large to avoid extra plastic packaging.

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Drum roll, please…No Impact Man (otherwise known as little old me) is now accepting (otherwise known as begging for) applications for a research assistant/intern position. I’ll put you to work and for all that hard work I’ll pay you, um, nothing. Yeah, sorry, it’s an unpaid gig because I can’t afford to pay right now. [This position is no longer open. NIM 6/28/07]

What you’ll get is experience working with a three-time author, a chance to help him promote his ideas about acting like a good guest on this planet earth, and exposure to a lot of interesting people. Most importantly, you’ll no doubt get to meet Isabella and Frankie (if you want to win them over, Isabella likes muffins—not allowed in the NIM rules but no one will listen—and Frankie likes, well, anything).

What you’ll need to offer is ten hours a week of time, a smart brain, good communication skills, your own computer and a home or other space situation (in New York City) you can work in, a demonstrated interest in environmentalism and/or journalism, and a commitment to stick with it for a few months. Responsibilities will include research, phoning, and correspondence.

Interested? Send me a note and résumé at noimpactman[at]gmail[dot]com

 

Please don't say it's a fight

A couple of days ago, Bruce Nussbaum, BusinessWeek’s innovation and design guru, posted on his blog that “We now have two approaches to sustainability—live light on the land and cut back consumption vs. live like the crazy consumer that you are but use different chemistry that recycles, reuses and reinvents stuff.”

“Hair-shirt sustainability vs. Go-Go growth sustainability,” he wrote. “Colin Beavan—No Impact Man meet Bill McDonough, Cradle to Cradle man.”

Since you're reading this, you presumably know me, No Impact Man, and what I'm about. In case you don't, I am trying, with my wife, child and dog, to live in the middle of New York City while creating as low as possible an environmental impact--largely by reduced consumption.

And in case you aren't familiar with Bill McDonough (that's the cover of his book on the right), he is a design genius who envisions a world where products can be disassembled so that components and materials can be reclaimed and used to provide for the next cycle of manufacture. McDonough’s plan is for a birth, death and reuse of materials in industry that mimics that of nature. He calls it Cradle to Cradle.

But the way I see it, the No Impact and the Cradle to Cradle philosophies are not at odds. There is no fight. They are two facets of the same general strategy--to treat the planet more gently.

Sadly though, most products are not yet designed according to McDonough's Cradle to Cradle model of sustainability. Rather than acting as nutrients that return safely to the manufacturing cycle, items that have outlived their usefulness become toxins that are buried in the earth, dumped in the water or vaporized in the air. In part, this is why, for now, I choose the No Impact method of treating the world more gently--because I’m frustrated that big business is moving so slowly at providing sustainable, Cradle to Cradle products.

Meanwhile, a third thinker, Seth Godin, the marketing wiz, discussing the No Impact project on his blog, writes:

“The richest and best-educated people in our economy are shifting, and pretty quickly. They're just as willing to spend money as they always were, but now it's not focused on fancy organic stuff at the Whole Foods Market or giant bulletproof cars from Germany or private jet travel. Instead, the market is trying as hard as it can to spend time and money without leaving much of a trace.”

“Zero is the new black,” Godin says. What that means is that big business will have to take notice of people like me who are willing to forgo products if buying and using them means harming the planet. My refusing to consume unsustainably as part of No Impact is one tiny market signal that, when added with many others, tells big business that if it wants us to buy, it’s going to have to manufacture safely, the way McDonough suggests.

So me and Bill McDonough don't have anything to fight about. One major reason for a reduced consumption project like No Impact Man is that industry is not adopting ideas like McDonough’s fast enough. With enough No Impact-style consumer protest, business will have to pay attention. It will have to work a lot faster to make its products sustainable. Maybe, then, one day, the whole idea of having to consume less to help the planet will become less urgent.

This post also appears in my Green Parenting column for Time Out New York Kids, appearing every Wednesday. For resources on eco-friendly stores and restaurants, or simply to plan a weekend outing, visit them at tonykids.com.

The beat of a quieter drummer

A couple of months ago, it started to pour with rain while Isabella rode my shoulders in a backpack-like contraption. There were, surprisingly, plenty of available taxis that day on 6th Avenue, but No Impact means no taxis, so I did my best in a wind-torn wrestling match with our umbrella and I started the trudge home.

Isabella started crying. I tried tilting our umbrella so that it covered her more, but she only cried harder. Then a gust of wind blew the umbrella over, rain poured over both of us, and Isabella quieted. I wrestled the umbrella back over us, and she cried again. It took me a couple of blocks and about umpteen times through this cycle before I finally got it. Isabella wasn’t crying because she was getting wet; she was crying because she wanted to feel the rain.

Another day, I planned to take her to the park. She waddled along beside me. We hadn’t moved half a block, when she stopped. She hit a little chain hanging from a fire hydrant with her hand so that the chain swung back and forth. I tried to push her along, and she started to cry. I relented and she went back to the chain, watching it till it stopped swinging and then hitting it again. I wanted to rush so we could get to the park and start having fun. Why did it take me so long to realize Isabella was already having fun?

There are two rhythms playing here in New York City. First, there is the natural rhythm: the one where you get wet when it rains, and it take a long time to get places because you walk. Then there is the faster rhythm of elevators and subways and delivery boys and cell phones and never have a minute to think. It’s the difference between the beat of classical music and techno.

To live in the No Impact experiment, giving up the cars and machines that make life more "efficient," I’ve had to say goodbye to the faster beat. Sometimes I forget, but what my little rain-loving Zen master Isabella reminds me when she slows me down is that I’m not left without music. It’s just that to hear the quieter sounds of the classical, you have to give up straining to hear the techno.