No Impact Man

Stop the climate wrecking at Bali

You probably know that the world's governments have gathered in Bali for a UN conference to begin negotiating a global greenhouse gas emissions treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012. You may also know that the United States, the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases, failed to sign the Kyoto Protocol.

This is the United States' chance to join the community of nations that are trying to cap global emissions and reduce the effect that climate change is and will have on us all.

But the U.S. is not rising to challenge. Instead of being the world leader we ought to be, we are torpedoing, along with Canada and Japan, the rest of the world's ambitious attempts to address climate problems. I, for one, feel ashamed.

According it is put on the website of Avaaz, "a community of global citizens who take action on the major issues facing the world today":

Climate negotiations in Bali are in crisis. Things were looking good till now: near-consensus on a delicate deal, including 2020 targets for rich countries, in return for which China and the developing world would do their part over time. IPCC scientists have said such targets are needed to prevent catastrophe. But Japan, the US and Canada are banding together to wreck the deal, and the rest of the world is starting to waver...

We can’t let three stubborn governments throw away the planet's future. We have until the end of Friday to do everything we can. Please sign our emergency global petition below -- we'll deliver it through stunts at the summit, a full-page ad in the Jakarta Post in Asia, and directly to country delegates to stiffen their nerve against any bad compromise. Add your name to the campaign below now! 

"We call urgently for the US, Canada and Japan to stop blocking serious 2020 targets for emissions reductions, and for the rest of the world to refuse to accept anything less."

To sign the Avaaz worldwide petition (isn't there anything more we can do?), go here. To read more about the logjam, go here and here.

Also, read today's story in the New York Times here.

Picture: Avaaz members and youth climate coalitions send an earlier message to negotiators from the Kuta beach in Bali

The garbage game

Here's a little fun:

"What did you throw in a trash can today? You probably did not give it much thought. But this week New Yorkers threw away 64,000 tons of garbage. That comes out to almost 7 billion pounds of garbage every year.

Whisking off the detritus of our daily lives costs the city more than a billion dollars a year.

Thousands of trucks, belching diesel fumes, carry our banana peels, battered tennis balls and discarded deli containers from one part of the city to another. Trucks, trains and barges haul our waste to landfills and recycling centers in other states — and other continents.

No one wants garbage. No one wants to think about it. No one wants to pay for it. But it isn't going away.

Can you create a garbage plan for New York City? What do you do with your household garbage? How should the city handle it? Can you keep New York from drowning in our own refuse?

Play the Garbage Game. Begin by sorting your own waste. What would you throw unsorted into the garbage can, recycle for curbside pickup -- or keep from going into the trash altogether?"

This is from the website of the Gotham Gazette. To play their fun and informative garbage game, click here.

 

Update from the land of the gray

Readers have been clamoring for updates on how we're living in the No Impact household now that the official year is over. We're in the stage, as I've said, where we're no longer accountable to the rules but only to our consciences.

First of all, let me say that the philosophy I hope to adhere to is that, since we will be creating more negative impact, what I hope to do is also create more positive impact, too. In other words, I still want to adhere to the idea of no negative impact plus positive impact equals no net impact. Of course, that's what I hope for and it's an ideal, the ideal I'd love to be able to say I adhered to when I die: that I did more good than harm on this earth.

But all that is lead up.

People want to know how we're living these days and I'm going to tell you, but I'm going to eek it out--only because I don't have time to do a long post. But for today, let me tell you about electricity. I'll discuss the other areas of our living over the coming days.

The mains electricity is back on, and we're signed up for the wind-power option. (How cool would ti be to find a way in NYC for all of us to use the massive amount of roof space for permanent solar. Perhaps I can help campaign towards that and I could credit it to my positive impact account?).

All our bulbs are CFLs, and I obsessively go around turning them off so that there are only ever one or two bulbs burning at the time. This project has always brought out the OCD in me! Maybe that is a good thing. So much of the negative impact we make on this planet is pure, unmitigated waste.

Also, we're using the laundry machine (on cold) and the vacuum cleaner. Handwashing was okay for a while but it didn't work in the long term. The fridge is on the lowest possible setting (which I actually think may be less impact because I was having to throw spoiled food in the compost). We use the vacuum cleaner once a week.

On the other hand, the TV is not coming back and neither is the air conditioner (and that alone reduces our electricity use to about 20 percent of what it was and brings us, I bet, to only 10 percent of the average American household). Nothing is plugged in that isn't being used (something like 20 percent of household electricity is wasted on computers on standby). And I think that about covers it.

Who wants to join my air conditioner boycott?

No Impact reentry and the lie of stuff

One thing Michelle and I really looked forward to as the No Impact year of environmental living came to an end was going to the movies. I'm not even a hundred percent sure why we cut out movies. Partly because we consumed them like, well, consumers. Partly because I was more interested in forms of entertainment that builds community (we're talking lots of charades, baby). Partly because Judith Levine, author of Not Buying It, had cut out movies. Call it one-up-manship among eco-martyrs.

Anyway, the day No Impact ended, Michelle and I bolted out to see Margo at the Wedding. The fact that we were seeing a movie was such a big deal in the narrative of No Impact that the documentary film makers even filmed us going to the cinema. A year of no movies. We were finally free. This was going to be great, right?

So guess what happened?

We were kind of bored.

The thing is, movies are okay, but honestly, it turned out we weren't missing much. Plus Michelle went to look around Barneys and came out not even wanting to buy anything. Plus, we've both ended up walking out of other movies.

You know what it is? We never missed movies, per se. We never missed stuff. But there was still some kind of pull, and here's what it was: wanting to have what other people around us had, wanting to do what they did, wanting to be where they were. In other words, it was, more or less, social anxiety.

If we get to do the things that other people do and have the things that other people have, that means we're as loveable as everyone else. If we go the places they go, then we're as cool and, therefore, again, loveable. Consumption has become a surrogate for being loved.

Instead of going and spending time with people we buy things or show up places like movies because the culture has sold us a bill of goods that says that this is what will make people love us.

How sad. So many of us are a bit lonely and need more human contact. We think the way to get it is to buy things. But really, if we want to be loved, what we we need is living rooms full of people instead of closets full of stuff. We need community. Isn't that an important point? We could be happy without the stuff and without wrecking the planet. We just need to hang out more.

PS More on reentry to come.

Where me and my No Impact Man blog go from here

One of the things I realized during my year of attempting to have no net environmental impact is that it really shouldn't be so hard. By this I don't mean to say that it was hard and miserable for me. If you've been a regular reader then you know that, for the most part, I found stepping off the "hedonic treadmill" to be liberating (if you haven't been a regular visitor, you can read a little about it here and here).

In fact, one of the things I discovered during the project is something that many other people already knew: that living in a way that would make the planet happier will also make the people happier. Greener cities with more trees, livable streets, cleaner air, less time spent commuting in cars, less time spent working to get more stuff, more time spent with our families and our friends--these are examples things that would help the planet, but perhaps more importantly, they would help the people.

The problem is people may not believe it until they see it and they won't see it unless we make it easier for them to. And that's the part that shouldn't be so hard.

For example, so many people have said to me that they would ride their bikes to work if only it were safer to ride in New York. Other people say that they would work harder at making less garbage if only there were more time and they didn't need to rely on disposable products. So, for the people who would if they could, how can we make it safer to ride bikes and less necessary to rely on convenience items in order to service their stressed filled lives? How, in the meantime, while the culture insists on disposable, can we make disposable, if not sustainable, then less unsustainable? Questions like this abound.

So many of our systems could be tweaked to make living green easier for the culture. If we separated out our food waste from the trash and set up citywide composting systems so the food didn't get sent to landfills we would eliminate the second largest source of manmade methane--a potent greenhouse gas--in the United States. If we invested in light rail systems and safe bike and pedestrian networks, we could reduce our dependence on cars. If we created groups for people who wanted to live green, we would have the support of communities. This is just part of a very long list of adaptations I'd like to continue talking much more about.

So moving forward, for me, is about two things. First, in the coming few months I have to concentrate on writing the book about my no impact experience. But second--and because of writing the book I will have to do this more slowly than I'd like--I plan to retool the No Impact Man blog, so that it isn't only about my experience trying to live an environmentally ethical life, but about the many ways we could work--as individuals, as businesses, as voters and as local and national politicians--to make things happier not just for the planet but for the people.

In other words, I plan to stay No Impact Man, not just because I try to live with a lower impact, but because I want the blog to be a place where we can discuss how to encourage the entire culture to go no impact. This will be a place to talk less about me and more about us.

Sound ambitious? I think so. But don't forget, what I've always said: optimism is the most radical political act there is.

PS If you have ideas for how to move the blog forward in these directions or if you think you'd like to write about something relevant, let me know.

Picking up poo for Christmas and other sustainable gifts

I'm a big fan of Rachel of the original San Francisco Compact (the buy nothing new group), and not only because she is the only person I've ever known who has given, as a Christmas gift, the promise to pick up a certain number of piles of other people's dog poop.

To contextualize, Rachel walks dogs, and I think she gave the gift to a client. In that same year, she asked, as a present from her dad, that he clean all the junk out of the trunk of his car to make it more gas efficient. That Christmas for Rachel was about giving and receiving gifts of sustainability. Really creative. Read more about it here.

Over on Sustainablog, Elizabeth Redmond writes that, after her family made gifts for a couple of years and then pooled funds to buy only one big gift for each member of the family for a couple more, they have decided to give donations to microfinancing charities:

Microfinance creates social lending networks that gives us lenders the opportunity to connect directly with borrowers who normally wouldn’t get the support of a bank.   This allows people in poor countries and rural areas who don’t have access to traditional banks or don’t have the credentials necessary for a bank loan, to start a business. (Check out Elizabeth's favorite places to give here).

As for me, and I've written about this in more detail, I like the idea of giving shared experiences--couples massage, theater tickets, live music tickets, for example. This works for me because it has the benefit of giving the people on my list who don't want my wacko environmentalism shoved down their throats something they want without littering the world with more stuff. And it has the benefit of bringing people together, too.

The human costs of consumption--a cool, new cartoon

Well, it's not really a cartoon, but waste activist Annie Leonard's funny, hard-hitting and informative new animated short The Story of Stuff, about the effects of rampant consumption both on human health and the planet, does make you wonder if we've all gone Loony Tunes.

Today's No Impact Man homework is to watch the film here, or read the annotated script here, and to email them both around. This deserves to go viral.

Meanwhile, if you have a dial up or a boss who doesn't like you watching videos at work, here is Annie's excellent list of "10 Little and Big Things You Can Do" (worth going to since I've abridged the commentary here):

1. "Look for opportunities in your life to significantly reduce energy use: drive less, fly less, turn off lights, buy local seasonal food (food takes energy to grow, package, store and transport), wear a sweater instead of turning up the heat, use a clothesline instead of a dryer, vacation closer to home, buy used or borrow things before buying new, recycle."
2. "There are hundreds of opportunities each day to nurture a Zero Waste culture in your home, school, workplace, church, community. This takes developing new habits which soon become second nature. Use both sides of the paper, carry your own mugs and shopping bags, get printer cartridges refilled instead of replaced, compost food scraps, avoid bottled water and other over packaged products, upgrade computers rather than buying new ones, repair and mend rather than replace….the list is endless!"
3. "Talking about these issues raises awareness, builds community and can inspire others to action."
4. Write letters to the editor and submit articles to local press.
5. "Detox your body, detox your home and detox the economy. Many of today’s consumer products – from children’s pajamas to lipstick – contain toxic chemical additives that simply aren’t necessary. Research online (for example, http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/) before you buy to be sure you’re not inadvertently introducing toxics into your home and body."
6. "Unplug the TV and the internet and plug in community."
7. "Park your car and walk!"
8. "Our current paradigm dictates that more stuff is better, that infinite economic growth is desirable and possible, and that pollution is the price of progress. To really turn things around, we need to nurture a different paradigm based on the values of sustainability, justice, health, and community."
9. "Lobby government to prohibit toxics in consumer products and to enact Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) laws, as is happening in Europe. EPR is a policy which holds producers responsible for the entire lifecycle of their products, so that electronics company who use toxics in their products, have to take them back. That is a great incentive for them to get the toxics out!"
10. Buy green, buy fair, buy local, buy used and, most importantly, buy less!

Why we enviros should be THE target market

People may not want to live the way we enviros live but they do want to buy the things we say it's okay to buy. That is part of the power of the individual action of living environmentally many people underestimate. People want to associate with it.

Enviro is in. We're the cool ones. Companies that start making their products better and kinder now will have the advantage of being the first to our trendy market.

That's big.

Because you know why? Whether the rest of a company's customers care about the environment or not, they want to be seen to care (see this study on why some people buy the Prius, if you don't believe me). And what makes them be seen to care? When they buy the products that the true eco-conscious say they should buy.

So believe me, companies should want to win us enviros over. And guess what? It's only going to get more that way.

PS If you think more people should read this blog, as I do, then please email it around, favorite it on Technorati, Digg it, Stumble it, and add it to Del.icio.us using the links below. Thanks!
 

Toyota proves that winning eco-customer loyalty takes more than one green product

If you ask me, as the price of fossil fuels helps push sustainability into the mainstream, the eco crowd looks a lot like today's early adopters for tomorrow's mass market. That's why, a couple of weeks back, I wrote (here and here) about how companies could win over the eco-conscious (hint: by not making uninhabitable the planet that six billion of us call home).

I said that making a splash with the greenest product in a sector might win you sales but not loyal, long-lasting customers. Because unless your company demonstrates a true commitment to sustainability and makes the eco-worried fall in love, they will simply move on when the next company comes out with an even greener product.

Toyota has done me the favor of proving my point.

Seven years ago, when the car maker came out with its Prius hybrid, the Sierra Club invented an award for excellence in environmental design to give Toyota. Now, according to Newsweek, the head of Sierra's global warming project, Dan Becker, calls the company a "hypocrite" for siding with Detroit car makers in opposing higher fuel efficiency standards for cars. "It's embarrassing to have applauded Toyota for the Prius," says Becker, "and now have them acting so irresponsibly."

Newsweek writes:

The environmental community has turned on Toyota. First, it quietly castigated the car maker for joining the Detroit Three in a lawsuit against California over legislation to reduce global-warming gases from cars by 30 percent within a decade, which would require cars to get up to 43 miles per gallon. Opposition increased when Toyota—in contrast to Honda and Nissan—sided with Detroit to try to block legislation currently before Congress to boost fuel economy for all new vehicles to 35mpg by 2020, up from 25mpg today.

That makes Toyota a traitor in the eyes of the environmental community, and what they have to say about car makers matters more and more as gas prices skyrocket.

Several environmental groups have launched a "How Green Is Toyota?" publicity blitz, which includes a letter-writing campaign they say has clogged the inbox of Toyota's top U.S. exec with more than 100,000 e-mails. In Detroit last month, eco-warriors stormed a Toyota dealership and draped it with a banner showing flag-wrapped coffins beside the slogan "Driving War and Warming." "Is Toyota really committed to being green, or are they just green scamming?" asks Rob Perks of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

And the funny thing is, for all the blacking of its own eye with environmentalists, Toyota looks like it hasn't even got what it wanted. Congressional negotiators have finally reached a deal energy legislation that would force American automakers to improve the fuel efficiency of their cars and light trucks by 40 percent to 35 miles per gallon on average by 2020. Notice I said good, not great, because what most environmentalists say we really need is at least 40 miles per gallon.

Which brings me back to my point about integrity, a true commitment to sustainability, and the loyalty of eco-conscious customers. Six months ago, if I thought of buying a car, I wouldn't have even bothered researching before getting myself a Prius. Now, suddenly, Nissan and Honda look pretty attractive.

Toyota blew it.

After all, who's better? The companies who don't stand in the way of nationwide fuel efficiency standards, or the company who produces one fuel efficient car and then fights for the privilege of producing more SUVs?

Photo of a Rainforest Action Network's Freedom from Oil protest courtesy of The Under Story.