No Impact Man

The difference between hell and heaven

My dentist Gary is one of my best friends, and I visited his office today. I joked with him, "Why do you have to make your living by tearing my mouth apart?"

Actually, he's great at his job, but that's another story (email me if you're looking for a great New York dentist).

The point of today's story is that Gary told me that a banker friend of his told him that the economy would stabilize for a couple of years, and then it would take another nose dive.

Another nose dive!

So I'm sitting in the dentist's chair with about ten metal things sticking out of my mouth, and I'm feeling petrified about the future. Then my mind starts obsessing with whether Gary's banker friend is right or wrong. I try to conjure up my own vision of the future but my crystal ball is cloudy.

Not knowing the future was almost even worse than imagining the worst.

My mind started casting around for what I should do. Buy some land so we always have a place to grow food? Save money under the mattress instead of in the bank? (Burglars take note: I decided against the mattress).

Then I thought of a story someone told me of the difference between heaven and hell. In hell, there is a huge feast laid out on the table, but everybody's knives and forks are so long that they can't get the food to their own mouths. Struggle as they may, in the face of all this food, they starve.

In heaven, the story is almost exactly the same. There is a wonderful feast laid out. The knives and forks are so long that you can't get your food to your own mouth. The difference is that, in heaven, the people stop trying to feed themselves and instead use their long knives and forks to feed each other. No problem!

The solution to our environmental crisis is a little like that I think. And sitting in the dentist chair, I thought that getting through an even worse economic crisis might be like that too. I thought, if we all worry about ourselves it will be hell but if we all try to take care of each other it will be heaven.

Worrying about whether a situation will be good or bad is not what's most important. In the feast story, we see how a bad situation can be a good situation and a good situation can be a bad situation. What's important is my relationship to the situation. What is my correct function?

Someone asked the founder of the Zen school where I meditate if he was ever scared of going to hell when he died. He said, "Hell is no problem. I will just help everyone who is there."

Am I saying that I will have the presence of mind to help everyone if there is an even worse economic and environmental crisis? No. I can only hope.

But what I will say is this: when I began to think about the possibility of doing what it takes to make future catastrophes more like the heaven of the food story, sitting in the dentist chair, I became a lot less stressed about how the future will turn out.

Antarctic Wilkins ice shelf breaks away

Read here. Need I say more?

Thirty-one tips for reducing your impact while saving money

I was reading through comments here on the blog last night and I found this great list of tips by reader Millie Barnes, who writes a blog about health and gardening called Optimum Nutrition. Her tips were just too comprehensive to let them languish in the comments. So here they are (I don't even mind including the plug for her products). Thanks Millie!

My Level of Living Green
by Millie Barnies

1) Air dry all laundry--had to put a lock on the dryer cord to convince my daughters I was serious--they have learned to plan ahead! I wash all laundry in cold water, always wash full loads, and use a drying rack inside if it is raining. It’s good for the earth and great for your skin, a free humidifier in the house. Which also makes it feel a few degrees warmer in winter, and cooler in summer. I use soapnuts for laundry. http://www.zamuta.com/

2) Buy all organic.

3) Buy all organic non-toxic beauty care products and make-up. I make my own skin care cleanser and moisturizers. I make my own soap. My beauty products can be purchased at http://ezchef.net/spacuisine/

4) Use baking soda and vinegar for cleaning the bathroom. I use Ms. Meyer Clean Day for dishes, Citri-Clean for counters and general purpose cleaning. I use a loofah for scrubbing dishes (I am growing my own right now so I won’t have to buy them anymore!) My sister is making scrubbies by crocheting them, we will offer these for sale soon!

5) Take cloth bags to store for groceries and all other purchases. Take muslin bags I made to grocery store for produce.

6) Recycle, re-use, make my own and have stopped buying anything I don’t really need.

7) Don’t use paper towels, never have. Used cloth diapers for all 5 kids.

8) Don’t buy stuff in plastic, I try to buy all glass. Store all food in glass. Re-use glass jars. I mostly buy real food (meat, produce) try to not buy anything that needs a label, so no packaging.

9) Have been using recycled toilet paper for years but am considering switching to cloth at home. (don’t freak, we all used that same choice when we used cloth diapers and wash clothes on our baby’s tushes!)

10) Make my own gluten free granola, make my own mayonnaise, salad dressings, spice blends.

11) I use a compost toilet, no toilet paper (think cloth baby wash clothes).

13) Bokashi (a way to deal with indoor kitchen scraps with NO odor and yields compost WAY faster). I have been using the Bokashi method of dealing with kitchen waste for about 3 weeks now…I love it!

14) Use very low flow shower heads. Ace Hardware has a 1.5 GPM with a shut-off valve.

15) Use all CF light bulbs…and use them as little as possible. I have one evening a week that I use no lights..on Shabbat! Dinner by candlelight!

16) Use grey water from shower (I keep a 3 gallon bucket in shower and use it throughout the day to flush the toilet, take what’s left to the flower beds.

17) Use water from rinsing dishes to water flower beds.

18) Use a broom on all my wooden floors instead of using vacuum cleaner.

19) Run as few errands as possible, car pool and combine trips.

20) Use micro-cloths to clean with, even on glass you do not need cleaning products!

21) NEVER buy bottled water. I bought a Kleen Kanteen for each person in the family, we refill and take with us. I’ve had mine over a year.

22) Go paperless or CD-less as much as possible. I provide my clients with emails of my book, but still put cookbook software on CD.

23) Unplug all appliances not being used. Yes, that cell phone charger and TV are using power when you aren’t using them! I use power strips to keep them plugged in, turn them off at night, or when I’m gone all day.

24) Use only a hurricane lamp when we sit outside at night. It gives enough light to read by…but is perfect turned low …for just hanging out. Very romantic, too!

25) Use candlelight at dinner, not just on Shabbat!

26) I have an outdoor solar heated shower that I built.

27) I put in a raised bed garden, square foot garden I have green leaf lettuce in a grow box, cherry and big sweet tomatoes, basil, thyme. I have sweet potatoes growing, beets (mmmm, beet greens), onions, Swiss chard, purple flowering kale, nastutiums, broccoli, cucumbers, peppers, red potatoes, a banana tree. Inside I am growing cucumbers and strawberries hydroponically.

28) I use a non-disposable razor, an old-fashioned stainless steel, very high quality razor that uses double edged blades. It was 24.00 from ClassicShaving.com. The blades are 10 for 5.99, and they are double edged! They give the closest, smoothest shave you can imagine! No disposable blade can compare.

29) Wash dishes with 2 dish pans in the sink, one for hot soapy water, one with warm rinse water. Do glasses first, pause a moment to let the soapy water drip off, then move to rinse water. Stop when rinse water is almost full and rinse quickly. Repeat with silver, plates, then pots and utensils. All with 2 dishpans full of water. Then I pour the soapy water, with all that organic matter, onto my plants in the garden. It helps repel pests and loosens the soil. And good for the biceps when you carry it outdoors.

30)
I water my garden with buckets from the rain barrels that are under the eaves of my garage. 10 feet from my garden. The front flower garden gets watered entirely from the dish water.

30) I work out at home, no expensive gym memberships that I never used anyway. I save all the expense of membership, and gas and time driving. I have a set of weights, two exercise balls, a yoga mat and a chin-up bar.

"The biggest enemy is tap water"

That's a quote, apparently, by Robert S. Morrison, vice chairman of PepsiCo--which owns Aquafina. I heard it when I was watching  a brand new documentary--Tapped--by director Stephanie Soechtig about the perils of the bottled water industry to people and the planet. I also confirmed that Morrison called our most precious asset "the enemy" here.

Anyway, Tapped is not yet out in theaters, but you can watch the excellent trailer below:

Design that doesn't waste

In the meditation school where I sit, we have formal Zen meals during retreats. Each of us sets out four bowls in front of the mats on which we sit. Water is placed in the furthermost, right-hand bowl. Different types of food go in the other bowls.

But what is fascinating from a conservation perspective is how we wash our bowls.

First of all, you should know that everyone is expected to eat all the food they take. Waste is simply not allowed. When you're finished eating, only bits of food and grease and liquid of some variety is left.

Next, tea is poured in the furthermost, left hand bowl. You then pour the tea from that bowl into the near, left bowl and then into the near, right bowl. Before pouring, you swill the tea in each bowl so that the tea carries any food particles along with it to the next bowl.

Finally, you drink the tea and, along with it, the last bits of food. There is no waste.

Once the tea is drunk, the water from the upper, right-hand bowl is then poured successively through the bowls, like the tea, to clean away the tea and any remaining particles. You then drink the water and dry your bowls.

Think about what is happening here from a design standpoint. The effluent of one process--cleaning--actually becomes the raw material for the next--drinking tea. Similarly, the water becomes the effluent of the cleaning process which becomes the nutrition for quenching thirst.

Honestly, the first time I ate this way I had a moment of revulsion. Bits of food in my tea? Yuck. Then I realized that I was eating the food and drinking the tea and that they were going to end up mixed together in my tummy anyway.

Besides, I came to love the simplicity and poetry of the process. The efficiency of resource use, of cost, and of action is pleasing. To have the drinking of tea and the cleaning of bowls be the same action is so elegant.

And I can't help thinking, if effluent can become nutrition in a meal, why can't we design our industrial processes to work that way? It's nothing more complicated than design.

PS Check this out: maybe you'll want to participate in the Interdependence Project's Responsible Consumption Month.

True freedom

What we tend to mean when we talk of freedom is the freedom from want. And we tend to think that freedom from want comes from getting what we desire.

So one path I sometimes stumble along in my life is to try to get all that I want.

But I've found that achieving the focus of my desire does not relieve me of the desire. Instead, the desire simply moves onto the next thing.

Life experience has shown me that there is no such thing as the fulfillment of desire. Desire, by its nature, never seems to be fulfilled. It is a tyrant that cracks its whip and demands the next thing.

The path to freedom does not seem to be getting what I desire. More, true freedom seems to come when I can be happy whether I have what I want or not.

But if that is true freedom, then what is the path?

To participate in the real economy

This is a guest post by my friend Sean Sakamoto who writes the blog I'd Rather Be In Japan. You can read his previous post on No Impact Man here.

"Thrift can take lasting hold of a consumer society, to disastrous effect."
--The New York Times

I keep reading about how saving is the worst thing for the economy. The New York Times article from which the above quote is taken described Japanese savers as “dead weight.” The underlying assumption is that we must consume more and more to keep the economy growing. People produce things, other people consume those things, and as long as the numbers go up and up, everything is great.

A couple of things bother me about this. One is the matter of sustainability. The air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land we farm is already being fouled as a result of economic growth. How long is this supposed to go on before we look for another principle around which to organize our lives?

The other thing that I wonder what it means to produce and to consume? When savers stop spending, do they really stop consuming? If I skip dinner out and movie, and instead talk with a friend, what just happened? Did the virtuous cycle of production and consumption just end? If I sing a song for you, and you listen to it, am I producing and are you consuming? To answer this question, I have to first take a detour into the subject of bamboo.

Seven months ago my wife and I left our lives in New York City and moved to rural Japan, where we live with our six-year-old son. We’re looking for an old farm house to move into, so we can grow our own food and live more simply. It’s a back to the land fantasy, I know, but we got a taste of it when we volunteered on a farm a year ago. It seems like a good life.

Since we landed in Japan, a man named Mr. Hatori offered to teach me how to play a bamboo flute called the shakuhachi. I didn’t have much interest in his proposal, but I agreed because it seemed crazy to turn down free music lessons. In the past seven months that I’ve been learning to play, I’ve discovered that this bamboo flute is considered by some to be the most difficult instrument in the world. I’m not surprised. It has been humbling, frustrating, and rewarding.

It’s taken me months to be able to produce any sound at all, and the sounds I can finally make are often completely out of tune. I learned that the instrument was invented by Buddhist monks, and the focus and dedication required to play even a single note well is a form of meditation.

My teacher is extremely patient. He spends an hour a week with me. Together we go over the same song note by note, over and over. I’m a long, long way from playing the thing correctly, or even coming close, but I really enjoy it, and the daily practice calms my mind. According to Mr. Hatori, it will be years before I can play the song with any facility.

This brings me back to production and consumption. If I learn this flute, and I play it daily, am I producing anything? If I ever get good enough that anyone would want to hear me play, is that person consuming my product? Is the knowledge that Mr. Hatori is passing on a product? If it is, it sure is easy to store.

When I moved to Japan, I had to get rid of a lot of products. Books, CDs, furniture, knick-knacks, souvenirs, bowls, knives, dishes, appliances, I’m talking about a lot of stuff, and that was just what we could fit in our two-bedroom apartment. As we sorted through each of our worldly possessions, the same questions kept popping up: What to keep, what to throw away? Do we need this thing to be happy? The answer was usually no.

Did we have to buy all that stuff to keep other people happy, the people who sold it for enough money to buy stuff to put into their own homes? Were these the artifacts of our participation in the economy, evidence of our good citizenship? Talk about dead weight, those piles of stuff were exhausting to go through.

I know that we need food and we need shelter. I love a good movie, a good book, some music, a nice plate to serve dinner on, a great table to sit at, and a handy gadget that helps me clean up after. But am I less happy without those things? Does my happiness, and the happiness of everyone else, rely on me buying all that stuff, or if I don’t have the money, to buy it on credit?

It takes a decade to learn to make a good flute out of a piece of bamboo. It takes a decade to learn to play that flute. It can take just as long to learn to write a novel, and it could take just as long to read one. One professor I had said we can never read great novels, we can only re-read them. Appreciation requires repetition.  Is the third reading of a book still consumption, or have we become dead weight at that point?

What if, instead of spending so much time getting more stuff, we get the kind of stuff that we can spend more time with? We develop skills we can share, read good books over and over, buy tools that take a lifetime to master. What if we go deeper into life, instead of dabbling with a million different products? What would an economy like that look like?

I’ve taken so many assumptions about life for granted that I forgot that many of them were choices I made at one time or another. I chose to acquire disposable entertainment, to clutter my kitchen with gadgets and plates for every occasion. Now I’m trying to live with less, and have it mean more to me.

I want my garbage to go back to the soil, to grow the food I eat. I want to consume less, and to produce things that people don’t have to keep on shelves or put into boxes when they move. The way the economy is going, we might not have much choice. We might have to make more with less, why not make it a virtue instead of an affliction?

I would like to be of service to the people around me without just buying more stuff or making more knick-knacks, and I’d like this to happen in an economy where people who do so aren’t called “dead weight.” I’d also like to hit the right note on that bamboo flute. Both seem impossible, but the cherry trees are in full bloom, and with the sun shining on those pink blossoms in the morning light, it seems like anything can happen.

What makes me happiest doesn't cost the planet

My little girl Isabella and I just spent the weekend at a gathering at the Providence Zen Center, the head temple of the Kwan Um School of Zen, where I meditate.

There were five or six other kids there and from the moment we arrived Isabella ran around having fun and paying almost no attention to her dad. (She's only four. I thought I wasn't supposed to get the cold shoulder until she was thirteen or so. Sigh!)

The entire group helped take care of the kids. Meanwhile, we ate our meals sitting on the floor with friends, took walks in the woods, and caught up on lots of good conversation.

Then, tonight, on my way home, a certain sadness settled in. I just wasn't looking forward to my little family's living situation back in our isolated apartment. I mean, we have a great life, but this weekend I had an intimation of what it could be like to live in a community, a village.

And I can't help thinking that if people in modern cultures had the satisfactions of access to community--the connectedness, the shared responsibility--then maybe we wouldn't have to spend our lives chasing after stuff--the consolation prizes--and wrecking the planet.

It points, I think, to a more satisfying way, a way that might just be better for the planet and better for us.

PS Great quote I heard: "Though it is reflected in a thousand rivers, the moon itself is only one."

No Impact Man is hiring!

I'll go into more details about this when we officially launch, but I'm excited to say that some colleagues and I are soon planning to launch a non-profit--to be known as the No Impact Project--with the goal of engaging citizens in our cultural response to the crises in our environment and our way of life.

Please feel free to pass this job description along to anyone you feel might be interested:

Position Title: Associate director, No Impact Project
Grade: Full Time (40 hours per week)
Reports to: Project Director
Work Location: New York, NY
Compensation: Commensurate with experience, plus benefits

The No Impact Project is seeking an associate director to help guide the project in its efforts to help encourage citizen engagement in finding solutions to our culture's environmental and way of life crises. Typical No Impact Project actions will include campaigns to improve stewardship of our habitat through both individual and community lifestyle change and collective action.

Major Work Functions:

• Work closely with No Impact Project staff, board members, and allies to develop a strategic vision and plan for No Impact Project including our outreach and organizing programs; communications strategy, organizational development and staffing; and fund-raising and budgeting.
• Develop and implement an effective organizational development program including foundation and individual donor programs.
• Develop and oversee systems to improve and facilitate the daily operations of our New York office.
• Provide strategic direction and leadership in project development and oversee implementation projects relating to advocacy, organizing and community building toward No Impact Project’s goals.
• Track income and expenses on a regular basis; play a lead role in organizational budgeting to ensure financial responsibility and sustainability.
• Work closely with our fiscal sponsor and our Project Director to ensure smooth operations of the Project.
• Oversee a small staff and volunteers in our New York office.

Job Requirements:

• Dedication to the ideals of sustainability, improving quality of life, justice, equity and civic engagement
• Bachelor’s degree required. Advanced degree preferred.
• Ten years experience interning or working with non-profit social change organizations, including 5 in a leadership or management role (preferred)
• Experience developing and implementing development campaigns, including both foundation and individual donor fundraising
• Excellent interpersonal, written and verbal skills
• Highly organized, able to multi-task and attention to details
• Diplomatic and professional approach to problem solving
• Ability to work both independently and as a member of a team
• Highly organized and self-motivated and able to work with minimal direction and supervision
• Computer literate and Internet savvy
• Ability to travel within the U.S.
• Commitment to hard work and a professional, ethical, diverse, and fun workplace.
• Strong experience in online and web-based advocacy, community building and communications

To Apply:

Please send a resume and cover letter to noimpactproject@gmail.com

Open Discusson: Saving money while saving the planet

It's time for a recession special blog post--how can we help our wallets while saving the planet while making ourselves happier and healthier?

During the No Impact project, we saved--and continue to save--a lot of money on everything from transportation to food. The combination of riding our bikes everywhere and only eating fresh local produce meant we spent less (because we ate less take out and paid for no transport), lost weight and felt better.

What measures do you take that both save you money and reduce your impact on the planet?

As for all you readers who get the blog by email, you will actually have to come to the web page itself to participate and to read what other readers are saying.

To do it, click here. You'll see these words on the web page. At the bottom of the post, you'll see the word "comments." Click on that and you will be able to see what everyone is saying and you will also be able to leave comments or questions of your own.

Let's talk. Let's have fun. Let's figure out how to save the world.