No Impact Man

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

Ridiculously conspicuous unconsumption

Thought I'd share with you the poster for the documentary of the No Impact Man project, which premieres at the Sundance Festival on Friday (click on the image to enlarge). In case you're interested, here's how the Sundance site pitches the film:

GLOBAL WARMING! The headlines scream it; the thermometer confirms it; but few of us do much to address it. Author Colin Beavan and his family are pictures of liberal complacency—sophisticated, takeout-addicted New Yorkers who refuse to let moral qualms interfere with good old-fashioned American consumerism. Then Colin turns things upside down. For his next book, he announces he's becoming No Impact Man, testing whether making zero environmental impact adversely affects happiness. The hitch is he needs his wife, Michelle—an espresso-guzzling, Prada-worshipping Business Week writer—and their toddler to join the experiment.A year without electricity, cars, toilet paper, and nonlocal food isn’t going to be a walk in the park. Or is it? As Michelle contends with caffeine and shopping withdrawal, compost worms, and defending her dreams in the face of Colin’s household hegemony, she’s gradually transformed by this life-without-wastefulness. Meanwhile, Colin’s numerous media appearances unleash a viral rash of criticism among bloggers and friends, raising doubts about the project’s integrity. Is it ostentatious or altruistic? Hypocritical or visionary?Whatever the conclusion, no one can deny we’re going to have to alter our habits radically to achieve sustainability. Through the intimate prism of conflict within a contemporary marriage, No Impact Man suggests that individual change can be the first step in a quantum leap toward a systemic, societal shift. And the temporary discomfort just might be worth it.

Where I'll be at the end of January--The We Act Climate Conference

I just wanted to give a shout out, for those of you in New York or willing to travel here, to the We Act (West Harlem Environmental Action) coming conference: "Advancing Climate Justice: Transforming the Economy, Public Health and Our Environment."

"Poorer communities are feeling the effects of climate change more harshly than affluent communities, which typically have the resources to deal with the problems arising as a result of this phenomenon. There is the need to ensure that in the evolving debate on climate change, communities of color and low income are prepared to play an active role in the development and implementation of policies that will affect their residents’ and stakeholders’ quality of life.

"On January 29-30, 2009 WE ACT will convene environmental justice advocates, community leaders and stakeholders from New York City and other parts of the nation around issues of climate change at a groundbreaking 2-day conference. Speakers will present findings on several topics related to climate change and its environmental, public health and economic impacts, discuss the multi-faceted impact of climate change on communities of color and low-income, advance and promote the concept of climate justice and jointly develop policy recommendations designed to secure climate justice in communities of color and low income."

Go to the conference website page here and look at the conference agenda here.

 

No Impact Man interviewed on Democracy Now!

You can watch the interview on video here (it starts at the 49:10 time mark), listen to it as an mp3 here, or read the transcript below:

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, on this Christmas Eve, I’m joined by a man who makes a compelling environmental case for a non-consumptive Christmas. We’re joined by Colin Beavan, also known as the No Impact Man. Together with his wife and his little girl, spent a year attempting to minimize their ecological footprint while continuing to live in the heart of New York City.

Well, Colin Beavan, I’m going to have you tell us your story, what you did, as YES! magazine wrote about your attempts to have, what, a Christmas without presents, “one family’s daring experiment: Christmas without all the stuff.” What did you do?

COLIN BEAVAN: Well, for one year, we tried to live as ecologically as possible in response to our environmental crises. And as part of that one year, we tried to consume as little as possible. And the idea was not to take any new resources out of the ground. So that meant when Christmas came along, we had to figure out what to do, especially in light of the fact that we had a little girl.

AMY GOODMAN: How old?

COLIN BEAVAN: She’s three-and-a-half now.

AMY GOODMAN: So what did you do?

COLIN BEAVAN: Well, you know, it’s funny. In our rule, in terms of not pulling new resources from the ground, what we decided was two things. One was that we would buy as gifts for people experiences, as opposed to things, you know, theater, massage—but my little girl doesn’t like massage—and secondhand things.

And this particular Christmas, we were with family, and what we did was we took a lot of her cousin’s old toys and wrapped them up, because we wanted to make sure she had as many toys to wrap up as they did. But what was really interesting—and research bears this out, in terms of what people really enjoy at Christmas—was that when it came time to open presents, she, you know, undid the wrapping paper for a while, but really what she wanted to do was sit on the piano bench and sing with her uncle. And the research shows that this is true. We tend to think of environmentalism as some sort of deprivation. But the fact of the matter is, is that this emphasis on stuff that we have at Christmas, research out of Kent University shows it doesn’t make us happier. What tends to make us happier at Christmas is time spent with our families. So if we change the emphasis, we can be happier and save the planet at the same time.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you spent a year eating only locally produced food.

COLIN BEAVAN: Mm-hmm.

AMY GOODMAN: No elevators?

COLIN BEAVAN: Mm-hmm.

AMY GOODMAN: No subways, cars, trains, planes, buses, or no packaged products, no plastics, no air-conditioning. But I want to—no elevators?

COLIN BEAVAN: Well, it was an experiment. So the idea in our experiment was to reduce our ecological impact as much as possible, which meant not using fossil fuel-powered electricity. I mean, if our elevators were powered by wind turbines and solar panels, we would have had no problem, but, you know, they’re not.

And the experiment, part of the experiment was to say, what that our culture provides us that has ecological impact do we actually need, because the real definition of “waste,” by my terms, is if we use resources that don’t even make us happy. So, for example, we, in New York, New Yorkers use taxicabs a lot and—or even subways. And we didn’t use them. Instead, what we did was we biked everywhere, and biked and walked and used a foot scooter. And although it was an extreme, in terms of the fact that even when it was raining we biked, and even like this, what we discovered is that the alternative to mechanized transportation was that we got exercise; we got to see our neighbors, because we weren’t whizzing past them; we got to be part of the cityscape; and that actually some of the so-called conveniences that we have don’t necessarily always make our life better.

AMY GOODMAN: In the YES! magazine piece, you’re quoted as saying one-sixth of all American retail sales and, as a consequence, a hefty proportion of our national planetary resource use occurs during the holiday season.

COLIN BEAVAN: Mm-hmm.

AMY GOODMAN: A sixth.

COLIN BEAVAN: Mm-hmm, that’s right, so many of our resources. And here’s the thing. The question, when it comes to the whole, you know, Christmas present thing is, again, it’s not just about the planet; it’s about whether it makes us happy. This whole—you know, everybody—I know that everybody today is waking up stressed with this last-minute rush to go and get what they feel they’re obliged to get. But the research actually shows that the more money we spend at Christmas time and the more money—get this, the more money that is spent on us at Christmas time, the less we actually enjoy Christmas. So it turns out that if we could take all this time that we’re spending at the mall and instead use it to spend hanging out with our friends, hanging out with our families, singing, playing charades, whatever it is we do together, that we might enjoy it actually more.

AMY GOODMAN: So you did this last holiday season.

COLIN BEAVAN: Mm-hmm.

AMY GOODMAN: What about this holiday season?

COLIN BEAVAN: This holiday season is largely the same. You know, once you spend a year, you know, thinking about how your actions affect the planet and combine that with whether those actions are making your life better or not, you know, it’s kind of a mind-changing sort of thing. So, similarly, this Christmas, we’re giving experiences, we’re giving secondhand things, we’re not buying things in packaging, just because—not necessarily because it’s better for the planet, but because it feels better.

AMY GOODMAN: And how does your daughter talk about it?

COLIN BEAVAN: Oh, my daughter, you know, for example, you mention the elevators, you know, going up and down the stairs, she was just—you know, she always would ride our shoulders going up and down the stairs. She loved that kind of thing, riding around. We ride around New York City. She rides on—I have a rickshaw, like a three-wheeled bicycle, and she rides on the back like a chariot. She loves that. You know, little kids—people often ask me how will I teach my little girl about this stuff, but the fact of the matter is she taught us.

AMY GOODMAN: And does she know that she’s doing this differently than her friends?

COLIN BEAVAN: Part of the no impact living is not eating meat, because meat production is one of the top sources of greenhouse gas emissions. So we used to do this chant, “We’re vegetarians. We don’t eat meat. We love cheese,” Isabella used to say. And then, one day she noticed that all her friends were eating meat, and she said, “Dad, I don’t want to be a vegetarian anymore. I want to eat meat.” So, last Thanksgiving, I said, “OK, you know what? You can have turkey.” And she was all excited. “I’m going to have turkey! I’m going to have turkey!” And then, it got to the moment, and she took her fork, she lifted the turkey up to her mouth, and as soon as she got a smell of it, she put it down. And she’s never objected to being a vegetarian since.

AMY GOODMAN: So, this is Christmas Eve. What do you recommend to people right now? I mean, some people have gone out and bought all their gifts, or they’re racing out right now.

COLIN BEAVAN: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: What are places they can go, thoughts they could—or should they just stop in their tracks?

COLIN BEAVAN: No, I think the way to live life is to really look inwardly and to ask ourselves, how do we want to live our lives? So, I would say, at this stage, especially as it’s Christmas Eve, and everything’s been done and planned, tomorrow, when Christmas comes, ask—ask yourself, what part of this day am I enjoying the most? Because I remember when I was a little kid, we would have—you know, we would have the Christmas present opening, and then there would be this kind of deflated feeling, like the presents were done. It didn’t make my day as great as I thought it was going to make it. You know, now what? And if we then move onto singing together, eating together, having family time together, then we can see which actually are we enjoying the most. So I would say, tomorrow, ask yourself during the day, is it the presents that you enjoy the most, the family that you enjoy the most, the friends that you enjoy the most? And then, next year, you can choose which you’re going to prioritize.

AMY GOODMAN: I didn’t even realize, Colin Beavan, that there was a Journal of Happiness. It’s quoted in YES! magazine.

COLIN BEAVAN: Mm-hmm.

AMY GOODMAN: This study by researchers Tim Kasser of Knox College and Kennon Sheldon of University of Missouri-Columbia. “After studying the Christmas experiences of 117 individuals, they found that people who emphasized time spent with families and meaningful religious or spiritual activities had merrier Christmases.”

COLIN BEAVAN: That’s right. And that’s what everybody can find tomorrow if they just evaluate their own experiences.

AMY GOODMAN: Your website?

COLIN BEAVAN: My website is noimpactman.com.
P>AMY GOODMAN: And what are you, overall, trying to do with this, with your blog?

COLIN BEAVAN: Overall, I’m trying to encourage us all to participate in our cultural response to the environmental crises that we have. And it’s not just an environmental crisis anymore. We’re seeing with the economy now, actually we have a crisis in our way of life. So the question is, is this way of life that we’re leading—we know that it’s not doing the planet any good, but is it doing us good, too? And I think that to find the answers to this, we have to work together, and we all have to participate. And that’s what we talk about on my blog.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you very much for being with us, and have a happy holiday. Colin Beavan, aka No Impact Man, he blogs at noimpactman.com. His book about his experiences is out next September. His latest article for YES! magazine, “A Christmas Without Presents?” which could be the greatest present of all to yourself, your family and to the planet.

Balance between individual and collective action?

Finished the book at last, but in the final few weeks, I discovered that I just couldn't keep it together to do my family's food shopping.

We temporarily turned back into take out mavens, causing more plastic tub trash in a couple of weeks than in the last couple of years.

This begs the question, if so many other people are too busy to avoid the mounds of trash, what can we do to help avoid that waste of resources?

Doesn't this mean we have to change the culture to make sustainability like falling off a log?

No Impact Man hits the Sundance Film Festival

One more day of concentrating on my book folks, but wanted to let you know that the documentary about the No Impact Man project will be premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in January.

Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein did a wonderful job directing. I'm very excited. You can read a little more about it in Variety or at the Times' Carpetbagger blog.

While the governments save the economy, who saves the planet?

While the stock market took another nosedive after news that--guess what?--we're in a recession, The New York Times last week published a story about how the slump may limit moves on clean energy.

According to the story:

• "From Italy to China, the threat to jobs, profits and government tax revenues posed by the financial crisis has cast doubt on commitments to cap emissions or phase out polluting factories."
• On the one hand, "government action could stimulate the economy and create new jobs in producing sustainable energy."
• But “European industry is saying we can’t deal with financial crisis and reduce emissions at the same time,” said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. “Heads of government have other things on their minds.”
• "In the short term, economic declines tend to reduce emissions, because industrial production slows down... But such reductions are inevitably temporary, rebounding when the economy picks up."
• "Against this, the current economic slump could have serious long-term environmental consequences, because it may reduce investment in greener production technologies without fundamentally changing the longer-term emissions picture. With so many renewable energy projects and programs in their nascent stages, their success is easily undercut by lack of credit or financing."

My question is this, if it turns out that, in a recession, if government and business can't do the job, can we, the citizens?

Photo courtesy of The New York Times/Reuters.

Christmas with no presents

Here's the beginning of an article of mine that's in this month's Yes! Magazine:

If Christmas is about presents, then in 2007, my little family and I had no Christmas. I mean, we had the caroling and the uncle playing the piano and the cousins running around with my three-year-old, Isabella, and the grandfather coaxing her to sit on his lap and the good food.

We had, in other words, an amazingly good time.

What we didn’t have, though, was the average American’s $800 hole in our bank accounts, gouged out by Christmas-present spending. Nor did we have the credit card debt still unpaid by June. Nor the forcing of smiles for gifts we didn’t really want. Nor the buying of extra luggage to bring home those unwanted gifts. Nor the stressful rush of last-minute crowds at the mall.

Without presents, you see, we didn’t have the sensation that I, at least, normally associated with Christmas—the stress. And without stress or presents, it’s not Christmas, right? But of course it was. It was the best of Christmas, the part that, research shows, makes people happiest. It was all the upside without the downside...

To read the rest, click here, then come back and leave your comments!

We've got something wonderful going on here

In case you haven't seen, these come via Tuco Rides:

Photographer Norbert Rosing planned to take some sunset photos of a group of sled dogs near Churchill, Manitoba, in northern Canada on the Hudson Bay, when from stage left comes a 1200 pound polar bear.

The dogs' owner thinks he's just about to lose his pack. The dogs, though, don't growl, but crouch down and bark and wag their tails as though they want to play.

The polar bear thinks, yeah, I want to play, too!

And it turns out that you don't have to weigh less than a  thousand pounds to be gentle.

So the dogs say "You should come back and play some more."

The polar bear does. He comes back several times during the course of the next week to roughhouse with his little friends.

It's pretty wonderful, this planet we've been given to live on. Need I say more?

 

Whales versus submarines--which do you prefer?

Photo of melon-headed whales stranded off Kauai

Does this tear the hear out of anybody's chest but mine?

[Environmental] groups say that sonar can be as loud as 2,000 jet engines, causing marine mammals to suffer lasting physical trauma, strandings and changes in breeding and migration patterns. They contend that courts are perfectly capable of weighing the competing security and environmental concerns.

Chief Justice Roberts took a different view. Courts, he said, quoting a 1986 decision of the justices, must “give great deference to the professional judgment of military authorities” in making decisions about personnel, training and priorities...

... Whatever the correct answer to how many animals could be harmed, Chief Justice Roberts wrote, those injuries are “outweighed by the public interest and the Navy’s interest in effective, realistic training of its sailors.”

In other words, the Supreme Court of the United States has decided that the US Navy can fire off its sonar with impunity, regardless of the effect it has on the world's dwindling whale population.

Read more here.