No Impact Man

Treating anxiety and depression could save the planet

Something a regular reader of this blog may have been able to guess about me: I suffer, at times, from anxiety and depression. I'm not talking about the worst kind of anxiety and depression. I'm talking about the kind that takes the edge off the gratitude I should be feeling for a good life.

Not, in other words, "major depressive syndrome." Not I-can't-get-out-of-bed-or-go-to-work depression. Not the I-need-to-swallow-some-medicine-if-I-hope-to-drag-this-body-from-place-to-place depression.

At least, that is, not yet.

What's going on is that I've been working my tail off for a couple of years now. The No Impact project. This blog. The book. The documentary. It's added up to a lot of work. You know, like working nights. Working weekends. Working like a dog. Working like, well, an American.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the average employed American works more hours a year than citizens of any other Western European member country. At 1798 annual hours clocked per American worker in 2007, we worked about three and a half 40-hour work weeks more than the Brits, six more than the Irish and a whopping eleven and a half weeks more than the West Germans.

That makes the Europeans lazy, right? Or, on the other hand, does it just make Americans literally sad?

Let's return, first, to my own experience. What I've found, over the years, is that my predisposition to the blues can be managed if I rest enough, if I take care of myself. I've found that if I take time to meditate, exercise, sleep sufficiently, joke around with friends, then my tendency to over-think and get down about life actually can transform into an asset: with space, digested worry can become some kind of worthwhile introspection.

Lately, though, I haven't taken the time to decompress, and my worry has gnawed at my happiness. This led me to thinking about the connection between my recent, more-stressful-than-usual way of life and my anxiety and, in turn, Americans' long working hours (and associated planetary resource use) and the fact that we have the highest rate of depression in the world.

(Nearly 10 percent of Americans suffer from bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder or chronic minor depression over the course of a year, according to a World Health Organization study reported in Forbes Magazine. Compare that, for example, with the less than one percent of Nigerians reporting these problems.)

I asked a psychiatrist friend if the high rates of depression in the United States (not to mention, by the way, obsessive-compulsive or panic disorders, which together affect another 18 percent of Americans) is related to problems with Americans' individual brains or problems with our way of life. My friend said that individuals--like me, for example--may have a tendency towards anxiety and depression. But this tendency can be exacerbated by the stresses a culture foists on its members.

On a personal level, in other words, if I want to feel better, I better take it a little easier. Or I could just keep barreling through and let my brain start sending me bigger signals in the form of major depression. Hint enough for me to finally resolve to stop working nights and weekends (which is why, by the way, there was no blog post yesterday).

But to the larger point, which is the high rate of unhappiness of my fellow Americans, I can't help worrying that I am in the incredibly luxurious position of being able to decide--as a quality of life decision--to work fewer hours. My guess is that most Americans can't make such a decision.

Our economy and our culture doesn't offer that flexibility. Here in the United States, our policies are not about making sure we can take care of ourselves in any other way than economically. In some ways, I wonder if that puts us in the ludicrous position of having to take a pill--like Prozac--in order to tolerate the way we live.

And the thing is, at least one study, published in the June edition of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, confirms my friend the psychiatrist's suggestion that our way of life and, indeed, our high number of work hours is contributing to our national anxiety and depression. The study concluded that those who work overtime are more prone to these problems than those who work less than 40 hours a week (long work hours, by the way, may also contribute to America's obesity epidemic, according to a study published in the International Journal of Obesity).

What does this tell us? Maybe that we should all, as individuals and as a culture, consider working less if we want to be happier.

Yes, you might say, but how does this relate to saving the planet, as the title of the post suggests?

Well, since we are among the hardest workers in the world, we are among the highest earners in the world, which means we are among the biggest spenders in the world, and, therefore, we are among the largest users of planetary resources.

We tend to think of using fewer resources for the sake of the environment as some sort of horsehair shirt or belt tightening, a sort of deprivation. But what if using fewer resources meant needing less money meant having to work less hard meant less depression and anxiety?

What does that tell us about how we should live our lives? What does that tell us about the possibility that living environmentally might be better for us as well as for the planet?

Of course, this begs the question of what our priorities should be on a personal level. I, for one, am going to try to let go of my attachment to achievement and take time to take care of myself. But it also begs big policy questions, too.

The overarching economic policy has always been to increase economic throughput--and therefore planet-destroying resource throughput--in order to bring greater happiness to the greatest number of people.

Now, in these times of such economic distress, we can't be cavalier about the importance of economic throughput. But at the same time, the question becomes, should it be the be all and end all of Government policy? Perhaps--again, with the exception of those who are in economic distress--our policy should not be about getting more money into everyone's pockets but more time into their lives.

That could be one way to help deal our epidemic of anxiety and depression. It might also help us use fewer resources and save the planet.

Sustainable living on a community level

Streetfilms posted an interesting video today about Los Angeles Eco-Village, where people have come together to enjoy the benefits of sustainable and community living.

"An ecovillage is a human scale neighborhood where people know their neighbors and care about them. People can live close to where they work and play and have access to other essential services without use of automobiles. Together, neighbors try to minimize waste and pollution of all kinds. Residents and friends work together to create a healthy community socially, physically and economically.

Urban ecovillages work with surrounding neighborhoods and the city at large to bring a whole systems perspective to urban planning and community development activities. The L.A. Eco-Village Demonstration is part of an international network of sustainable neighborhood groups which seek to model healthier ways of living based on environmental sustainability and social and economic justice."

Read more about sustainable communities at the Global Ecovillage Network or at Intentional Communities, and of course, watch the video below (thanks to WorldChanging for the tip off!):

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

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Local, ecologically-sound and economically stable

Yesterday, I posted about how investment in a network of local economies rather than one big central economy by the Obama Administration could provide not only a more sustainable paradigm but one that is more socially and economically stable.

Think of the Internet. Instead of all our requests traveling through one gigantic central server, information is routed through millions of computers all over the world. This means that, because service provision is "distributed," if one server goes down the Internet still works.

Compare this with the misery caused when our centralized, unsustainable economy takes a hit. One problem at the center and everyone suffers.

But what if the economy was "distributed" like the Internet? What if it was based on local, human relationships that meant less transportation, community-accountability, transparency of operations and lesser resource use?

If one part of it took a hit, the problems would remain local, and the rest of the "Economy-Net" would continue to function.

This is a paradigm that is based on strong communities rather than strong corporations. Admittedly, it's a vision rather than a plan. But if the vision came to fruition, we would be more economically stable, have more fulfilling relationships, determine our own fates rather than have them determined by corporate head offices and we would help the planet.

It may seem trivial, but an initiative by New York's Just Food to raise chicken-producing eggs right in the center of the City is a small but worthy example. The point is that no matter what happens to the banks, no matter whether the transportation system runs out of petroleum, if this program were scaled, New York would have all the eggs it needed.

Again, I'm using this just as an example of how food provision could be localized, but you get the point. Local is both more sustainable and more economically stable. Read more details of Just Food's urban chicken program below. For more information go to Just Food's website:

The City Chicken Project helps people legally and safely raise chickens for eggs in New York City. By working in partnership with our network of urban gardeners and other organizations, Just Food has launched an initiative to:

• promote best practices and the benefits of raising chickens in the city,
• teach people how to build coops that are structurally sound and healthy for hens,
• publicize relevant city regulations and codes, and
• support gardeners who are interested in setting-up or expanding egg production operations.

Why raise chickens?
These fine feathered friends can contribute to the social, economic, and environmental well- being of your community. They help out in the garden and the neighborhood by:

• improving garden health, suppressing pests and weeds, and building soil fertility,
• giving neighborhood children the opportunity to learn where their food comes from, and
• producing nutritious eggs to be enjoyed by their caretakers and sold at farmers’ markets.

How could Obama permanently strenthen our economic well-being?

Back in July, I posted the above diagram under the title Exchange of Love. The point of the diagram is that economic policy in the modern world is generally about strengthening the bonds between corporations and individuals, rather than the other, potentially more meaningful, relationships.

Under the current paradigm, this is important because it is from corporations that we get our health care, our salaries, our retirement benefits.

The problem is, that when the economic tide goes out, the corporations shrink and--by a variety of mechanisms including layoffs and plunging stock prices--so do the benefits our relationships with them offer. Because the relationship between the corporation and the individual is entirely fiduciary, loyalty and longstanding relationships don't really factor.  A decision at far-away head office suddenly decimates an entire community.

Meanwhile, because we have invested so much in the relationships with  corporations, the other relationships are weakened, which means that they can't provide sustenance when the corporate bond breaks. Why would neighbors help neighbors when they barely even know each other?

So what if, instead of investing government money only in corporations to bolster that bond, President Obama also invested in strengthening local community and familial relationships? Suppose he invested in local farming and local business and general strengthening of bonds between people at the proximate level?

If he did that, when the crises came, and the corporations shrunk, wouldn't that mean that we might have the relationship with family, friends and local business that allowed us to rely on each other? Wouldn't that mean, too, that even if the boom money went away, we would still have the enduring satisfaction and support of a strong community?

And if we had those strong relationships, isn't there a chance that we wouldn't require so many planetary resources in form of "stuff" to have a good quality of life? In other words, if we could play more and rely more with and on each other, wouldn't we need fewer planetary resources and things to feel satisfied with our lives?

Can a renewed presidency alone make a renewed planet?

Andy Revkin over at the New York Times DotEarth puts his fingers on the important climate questions related to the new presidency:

Can President Obama push climate and energy legislation or an approach to a new climate treaty that the atmosphere will someday notice? Can his plans on either front pass muster with the big bloc of lawmakers in Congress who are not from red or blue states but fossil states — those sitting on, or dependent on, coal and oil? Can he overcome what he calls America’s “shock and trance” approach to energy policy — something presidents since Richard M. Nixon have tried, and failed, to do?

Meanwhile, over at The Breakthrough Institute's blog, Adam Zemel writes:

"... the series of clean energy investments included in this version of the [new President's] stimulus [package] reads like a laundry list of piecemeal tax breaks and incentives that simply do not cohere into any kind of unified plan. It seems that there is no coordination between the different intended energy expenditures and no central objective or strategy behind then, other than creating new jobs.

The question that comes to my mind is whether the obstacles are just too great to make the current way of American life sustainable. That is to say, can the over-air-conditioned homes, the two cars in every driveway, and the massive retail consumption actually be made to work in a way that doesn't destroy the habitat that we depend upon for our health happiness and security?

I've just returned from a jaunt to the Sundance Film Festival where the documentary about my No Impact Man project--the year in which my family and I lived as environmentally as possible--received two sustained standing ovations from audiences.

What was it that moved people? After all, what we present in the film is a way of life that, as my wife puts it, looked substantially looked like a prolonged camping trip in the middle of New York City.

Excellent film-making by director Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein aside, the inspiration seemed to come from the fact that the No Impact project, by questioning consumption as life's raison d'etre, took a stab at looking for what's important in life.

The fact of the standing ovations at our screenings, like the fact of the huge turnout at the Presidential inauguration, suggests that our society and culture may not be addressing this question of what's important in life correctly. People are dissatisfied, and not only because they can't find jobs.

Perhaps the way forward is not only to figure out how to power the current way of life. Perhaps we should--in addition to attempting to develop a renewable grid--also put a concerted effort into discovering whether there might, in fact, be a more satisfying, less resource intensive way of life--like we found in the No Impact project--that requires less energy in the first place.

Does this sound naive? I don't think so. Because a search for a better way of life that also saves our habitat can engender more public support than a geeky-sounding thing like a renewable energy grid ever would. And why? Because the search for a better way of life contains within it the one thing that powers every large political initiative: hope.

As the marketing genius Seth Godin recently said on his blog:

The magical thing about selling hope is that it makes everything else work better, every day get better, every project work better, every relationship feel better. If you can actually deliver on the hope you sell, there will be a line out the door.

Happy inauguration day

It's my last day at Sundance, folks, where the No Impact Man documentary has been screening so don't have time to write much but thought you might be able to tolerate one more review, this one from Variety:

Proof that "eco" and "entertainment" aren't mutually exclusive, "No Impact Man" may be a socially progressive, environmentally conscious film, but it goes down far easier than, say, an all-natural, fiber-enriched peanut butter sandwich without a glass of soy milk. It's that rare doc (these days) that could go theatrical, largely because it's a film about a couple, more than a movement. In fact, at the risk of causing domestic discord, this Laura Gabbert-Justin Schein film might have been called "No Impact Woman."

Michelle Conlin is not the movie's principal character - that would be her husband, Colin Beavan, whose goal is to spend one year leaving as small a carbon footprint as inhumanely possible. And he's taking the family with him as he jumps over the crunchy, caffeine-less cliff.

Conlin doesn't really want to go. Providing the humor and the skepticism, she becomes the audience's stand-in as Beavan (who's planning a book on the project) imposes a suddenly Spartan way of life on his daughter and wife -- who really likes her Starbucks lattes and taxi cabs. "Daddy does nature," she tells little Isabella, as their Greenwich Village apartment becomes home to compost eating worms and improvised refrigeration. "Mommy does retail." When the couple carts all their unnecessary stuff to a thrift store, Conlin wants to buy the Marc Jacob handbag in the window.

But it's Conlin who becomes the convert to the cause: While Beavan's book brings his passion into question, Conlin really comes to believe in what they're doing, despite such deprivations as no electricity, no out-of-season produce and, worst of all, no caffeine. As such, "No Impact Man," becomes the best kind of propaganda, as well as a very entertaining movie.

Production values are fine, with Schein's often on-the-fly camerawork a standout.

Uphill walk to a greener world

Just thought you might like to hear what film critic Betsy Sharkey of the LA Times had to say about the No Impact Man documentary screening at Sundance:

Walking out of directors Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein's terrifically entertaining new documentary, "No Impact Man," which followed writer Colin Beavan and his family as they sought to transform their lives into ones that would have no harmful ecological impact on the world, I felt energized -- if we all just did a little, imagine...

Much of the film examines the philosophical divide between taking collective action and individual action with Beavan basically coming down on the side of the butterfly effect -- whatever action, or inaction, we take affects something or someone around us. And so for a year, Beavan, his wife, the journalist Michelle Conlin and their daughter Isabelle, began phasing out most of what the rest of us take for granted -- down to the toilet paper.

All of which could have produced a film that was a preachy examination of self-righteousness. But it didn't; it's a balanced blend of information and humor as idealism and longtime lifestyle patterns collide. In large part, that's thanks to Michelle, who becomes our voice in the production -- from her admitted addiction to everything from shopping to coffee (no beans are grown within the roughly 250 mile radius they set for any of the food products they bought), to her discomfort with the composting bin in the house, complete with earthworms and, in the summer, flies.

And so, as I left the theater, I decided to try to find little ways to lower what I now really know more clearly than ever is my own negative eco impact. That first step? Walk back to my hotel rather than take Park City's shuttle -- or as I now think of it, the Magic Bus -- the name I came up with on a very long, very aerobic, walk uphill. Funny, I hadn't realized I was so far up the hill before....

--Film critic Betsy Sharkey

Walking out of directors Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein's terrifically entertaining new documentary, "No Impact Man," which followed writer Colin Beavan and his family as they sought to transform their lives into ones that would have no harmful ecological impact on the world, I felt energized -- if we all just did a little, imagine...

Much of the film examines the philosophical divide between taking collective action and individual action with Beavan basically coming down on the side of the butterfly effect -- whatever action, or inaction, we take affects something or someone around us. And so for a year, Beavan, his wife, the journalist Michelle Conlin and their daughter Isabelle, began phasing out most of what the rest of us take for granted -- down to the toilet paper.

All of which could have produced a film that was a preachy examination of self-righteousness. But it didn't; it's a balanced blend of information and humor as idealism and longtime lifestyle patterns collide. In large part, that's thanks to Michelle, who becomes our voice in the production -- from her admitted addiction to everything from shopping to coffee (no beans are grown within the roughly 250 mile radius they set for any of the food products they bought), to her discomfort with the composting bin in the house, complete with earthworms and, in the summer, flies.

And so, as I left the theater, I decided to try to find little ways to lower what I now really know more clearly than ever is my own negative eco impact. That first step? Walk back to my hotel rather than take Park City's shuttle -- or as I now think of it, the Magic Bus -- the name I came up with on a very long, very aerobic, walk uphill. Funny, I hadn't realized I was so far up the hill before....

--Film critic Betsy Sharkey

Not carbon offset but carbon penitence

Tomorrow I fly from New York City to Salt Lake City, Utah, leaving in my wake a big long contrail and a lot of carbon dioxide--both of which contribute to global warming. It'll be the second flight I've taken in more than two years.

What's popular, when it comes to flying, is buying carbon offsets. But I find the concept concerning (see my post "You can't buy a clean conscience").

People think that when they buy an offset that they've undone the damage of their flying. That isn't so. To make a somewhat melodramatic analogy, that would be like saying you undo the damage of starving one person by feeding someone else who is hungry.

Once we burn the carbon into the atmosphere, it's there to stay. What's always worried me about carbon offset schemes is that we imagine that we've somehow taken it back out again when we haven't.

None of which is to say that a world with a carbon offsets isn't better than a world without. It's just I might prefer a different name--like carbon penitence. It implies more truthfully what is going on: I was unable to avoid doing some harm, and there is no undoing the harm, but now I'm going to try to do some good in retribution.

All of which brings me to my carbon penitence for my trip to Sundance to see the No Impact Man documentary premiere and to take part in the ensuing panel discussions. As part of the documentary budget, we are giving a certain amount of cash to renewable energy programs in the developing world.

As penitence for our travel to Sundance, in particular, I am proud to say that we are supporting a hydro-electric project in Honduras known as La Esperanza. We are doing this through an excellent organization known as E+Co, which arranges financing for such schemes.

According to the E+Co website:

La Esperanza is a 13.5 megawatt run-of-the-river hydroelectric facility that provides clean energy to over 10,000 households in Honduras. Not only does the facility feed into the national grid, but it also provides electricity to every household in the village of La Esperanza. Since inception, the hydro plant has created over 75 jobs, a small micro-lending program and reforested more than 40,000 trees.

As with many other villages in Honduras, the community of La Esperanza suffered from a complete lack of electrification, a deteriorating environment and a collapse of its economic base. The arrival of the hydroelectric facility reinvigorated this community and serves as a model for river-based villages in Honduras.

Watch a cool video about the project below. And if you're interested in helping with similar projects, consider investing with or giving to E+Co yourself (to do so, follow this link).