Making it work for everyone

OK, confession time: I watched about half of the No Impact Man movie when I first got it from the library. It was due yesterday and remembering how long I waited for it on the request list, I watched the second half before returning it.

The second half was very thought-provoking. I really respect Colin Beavan and his wife, Michelle Conlin, because they were very upfront not only about the challenges of trying to spend a year making as little impact as possible, but also about the strain that it put on their marriage. They also went through the painful time that year of Michelle getting pregnant and losing the baby.

It was helpful to see some of the things that went wrong for them, or that were just plain frustrating, because it gave me encouragement when things don't go as well as I'd like (like my garden so far this year). For example, flies started breeding in their worm bin and then spread throughout the house. (At the end of the movie, as they discussed the new practices they'd keep and the ones they'd get rid of, Michelle said, "Worm bin goes!") They also tried, after shutting off their electricity, to use a "pot in a pot," a system for keeping foods cool developed in Nigeria, and it didn't work very well.

At one point, when Colin is installing a loaned solar panel on the roof of his building, he comments that he now realizes, "It's not about using as little as we can use, but about how to get people what they need in a way that doesn't harm the planet." In other words, how do we make living more environmentally work for everyone?

This came up for me in the context of a conversation on an online forum about eating locally. One woman who is lactose intolerant and can't absorb gluten (a substance in many grains, including wheat, oats and barley), said that eating local for her would mean not getting the nutrients she needs to live. In earlier times when local food systems were all that most people had, people with dietary restrictions like this woman often died young. I don't believe we should sacrifice people in the name of doing something environmentally good, such as more local eating. But, as someone in the same conversation pointed out (as do most locavores), our current non-local food production system isn't sustainable. So once more, we come back to Colin's question: How do we get people what they need in a way that doesn't harm the planet?

Mayer, a lifelong activist who mentors Colin about urban gardening, thinks that individual action isn't the way to go at all. He argues in the film that doing things like changing your lightbulbs fools people into thinking that's enough, and lets politicians and business off the hook for making the big societal changes that need to happen. Colin counters that "walking the walk" is the best way to get people to listen to you as you fight for the larger changes needed. I would add that just because big changes are what's needed shouldn't be a reason not to make the small changes. But Mayer's point is well-taken: I can't grow complacent and think that small changes are enough, or that, "At least I'm doing something!"

Colin later says, "Using less is NOT enough; we need to demand that our systems become sustainable." That takes action. In response to a question asked by a college student about the most important thing one could do for the environment, he answers, "Volunteer for an environmental organization." These groups have been on the frontline for years in trying to make our systems more sustainable, both through their actions and their advocacy.

What do you do when you're overwhelmed?

I'm feeling overwhelmed by a few things environment-related. The first is, of course, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which is appearing more and more each day to be an environmental catastrophe the scope of which the world has never before seen. Even my daughter seems to realize it. She had heard about it from radio news stories in the car and was asking questions, so I showed her some photos of the oil spill on the Internet. Her response was, "Mama, we have to do something. What can we do to help?"

But so far, I have done nothing. It can be so easy to get (choose one: busy, lazy, apathetic) about these things. But I also feel overwhelmed because I realize that my efforts alone aren't enough, that we as a society have to drastically change.

I am also feeling this way because I recently watched the No Impact Man movie, after waiting for it for months at the library. It's incredible just how radical the Beavan family was in their decision to live one year with as little environmental impact as possible. And it's a reminder just how many things I have yet to change.

But from reading the book, I know that Colin Beavan wanted to be so radical because he no longer wanted to sit on the sidelines with causes he cares about, because he wanted to see what was possible in terms of reducing one's impact, and because he wanted to become a credible spokesperson for environmental issues by walking the talk. He found that some things were too onerous to continue after the year was up (such as doing laundry by hand), but other things made his and his family's lives better.

I think I have to remember that. To give a (very) small example of better, I have seasonal allergies and year-round allergies to dust mites, so I have a runny nose pretty much all the time. I used to carry tissue with me constantly, and no matter how carefully I thought I checked my pockets, invariably I'd overlook a tissue in some item of clothing. This meant that whenever I did my laundry, I'd find small pieces of tissue on all the clothes in the load when the wash was done.

I no longer use tissue but handkerchiefs instead, and guess what? Even if I leave one in a pocket, no tissue scraps on the rest of my laundry! OK, small victory, but maybe it's remembering those things that will help me not feel overwhelmed. And maybe also motivate me to do something about the BP oil spill.

Connections

Once more, I don't have enough time to post all I want, but I'll try to do this quickly.

Everything is connected... that's what I've been thinking about.

When Colin Beavan reached the "no more electricity" stage of his No Impact project, he realized that some of the challenges he and his family would face are the same that impoverished people around the world face daily: keeping food from spoiling; keeping cool in hot weather, and warm in cold weather; doing laundry and other chores without labor-saving devices; providing artificial light after the sun goes down so children can do homework; etc. As Beavan writes on p. 170, "When you take the 'use less' philosophy to scale, you have to question its worldwide applicability. Because how on earth can someone who has no access to electricity possibly use less?"

This makes me recall what the Permibus folks said: any "sustainable solution" that doesn't work for poor communities and urban communities isn't sustainable.

I am working with our friends Johnnie and Michelle on a grant application for their organization, Heart and Soil, so that they can do more projects engaging youth in community gardening, provide more support for local gardeners and small farmers, and do more community outreach and education. Their long-term goal is to ensure that everyone in Pierce County has access to health, local, sustainably grown foods. As Johnnie put it, if something were to happen to the highways between Pierce County, where Tacoma is located, and King County, where Seattle is located, the shelves in grocery stores throughout Pierce County would be empty in 48 hours.

Speaking of connections, we've been talking about ours. Johnnie and Michelle moved to Tacoma about the same time we did (they came from California); they are also house-sitting; they, like us, have backgrounds in community service and youth development; and they, like us, really want to make sure that the sustainability movement doesn't leave out low-income communities and communities of color. So there is at least one reason we're here in Washington after all!

And speaking of Tacoma, it's funny how one of my complaints about Washington two weeks ago has changed. We've had a lot of sunny days recently, while the east coast was getting slammed with bad weather.

The importance of community

This is the first of many quotes I will be sharing from No Impact Man:

From p. 130:

I sometimes wonder if our lack of social connection and community is at the root of our environmental problems. I wonder, at least in my case, if that lack has meant that I don't feel responsible or accountable to anything beyond myself. Without real community, where is the visceral sense of connection to something larger, to something to which I owe my care? Maybe one reason I felt like I couldn't make a difference when the project started was because I wasn't firmly connected to anything to which I could make a difference.

I can relate. Part of my malaise at living in Tacoma is due to not feeling like I am a part of the community, the way I did in Boston. And part of that is due to the difficulty of getting around, of being close to neighbors and community programs, something that I was much more easily able to do in walkable and public transportation friendly Boston. Beavan devotes some time to writing about how so many of our towns and cities and neighborhoods are not structured in ways that facilitate community. The immediate result is that in many places, you have to drive just about anywhere, which of course has a negative environmental impact. But a secondary consequence is that due to this lack of community, we try to fill our lives with more stuff, rather than being filled by the difference we are making in the world.

Living in Tacoma

In the early chapters of No Impact Man, Beavan talks about how, despite one of his goals being to try to find greater happiness by living more sustainably, he found himself making other people miserable. His wife, for one, who was struggling to walk 1.5 hours a day to and from work. (Like me, the thought of biking in the city freaked her out). Like his mother and sister, when he told them he couldn't travel to visit for Thanksgiving, given his no-carbon creation rule. Like himself, on occasion, when he started resenting the things he couldn't have because they would create trash or emissions or something. So in the early stages of his experiment, he had to do a lot of soul-searching about the point of the project.

Reflecting on my own happiness, I think I'm just coming to terms with how difficult it has been to move out here, and how much I miss Boston. The weather depresses me. While I don't miss the cold and snow of Boston winters, I loved three out of four seasons there. Here, I only love one of the four seasons: summer. The rest of the year is cold, wet and dreary. Boston had its dreary days, but not weeks on end. I've also learned that rates of multiples sclerosis and cancer are higher here than elsewhere in the U.S., and one suspected cause is Vitamin D deficiency caused by lack of sunliight.

I also really hate living where we're living. As I've mentioned, we are living in the home of relatives who are overseas for three years with the U.S. Army. The house is beautiful and has a gorgeous view of Puget Sound, but I miss being able to walk outside my house and hop on a bus or train to wherever I want to go. Or being able to walk to the store or the park. I hate having to be so car-dependent.

The lack of sidewalks and streetlights, not atypical of suburbia, also drive me crazy. Recently, I was driving my daughter to daycare at about 7:15 in the morning, and it was still pitch-black out. Suddenly I saw a kid walking in front of me. His clothing was dark, he was in the street (no sidewalks) and no streetlights meant nothing illuminated him. I'm sure he was walking to school. Beavan points out in NIM that U.S. auto manufacturers made concerted efforts to fight against public transportation and encourage sprawl in order to increase sales. So what are we left with? Communities where you can't walk anywhere, or if you do, you're at risk like the kid walking to school in the street, in the dark.

My other big challenge is that I don't make friends easily. My husband never met a stranger, and my daughter thankfully has her father's gregariousness, so it's been easier for them. (Although my daughter does frequently ask when we're moving back home, mostly because she misses her cousins).

In the meantime, we are making friends with some other "orphans" (folks like us who are transplants to the Northwest, with no other family around), and having a yard has helped me garden. Having stores around like Value Village and Super Supplements have helped my sustainable journey, since I can buy so much second-hand and can purchase the ingredients for my skin and hair products inexpensively. So there are some good points. But I have a way to go in finding happiness and contentment out here.

Reading "No Impact Man"... and straightening my daughter's hair

Bear with me, they're connected!

When my sister, who lives in New York City, told me a couple months ago that she had attended the book signing of Colin Beavan's No Impact Man, it just didn't occur to me that she might purchase a signed copy for me! I was surprised and thrilled to receive the book as a Christmas present from her.

One of the early lessons of Beavan's "No Impact" experiment that he highlights in the first few chapters is that living sustainably should not be about asceticism. Instead, Beavan asked whether or not our consumerist, throw-away lifestyle is making us happy, and if not, could he and his family find a way, via low impact living, to become happier and more fulfilled?

Armed with these thoughts, I spent the day after Christmas... at the mall. I have mentioned before that my husband is 6'7", and thus can't generally find clothing his size second-hand, so we went as a family to see if he could take advantage of the post-Christmas sales to make some purchases he needed.

While hubby shopped, my daughter and I strolled the mall. I can't even remember the last time we went to a mall--it's been well over a year. My daugther, like many children her age, is into the "gimme" stage, but the item that caught her fancy the most surprised me. We stopped at several of the kiosks in the middle of the mall to check out their products, and at one, a woman selling high-end flat irons straightened out a lock of hair on each of our heads.

My daughter was delighted and wanted me to buy the flat iron. At the post-Christmas 50% off price of $120, it was still well our of my price range. But daughter knew I have a similar item at home, and asked if I would do her hair with it when we got home. I promised I would.

I haven't used my flat iron in the past year since I stopped relaxing my hair, and I've never used it on my daughter's hair. Of course, mine is a rather low-end version, so it took several go-overs to straighten her hair. She loved the final result, however, asking me if her hair would stay like this.

"No," I said. "It will last a couple of days, or until it gets wet, whichever comes first."

"But Hannah's hair stays like this all the time!" she objected. (Hannah is her best buddy from day care).

"Well, Hannah has a very different type of hair than you do," I explained. "But let me tell you a little secret: people LOVE your hair. People pay lots of money to have hair like yours."

Maybe it's not such a secret: she gets complimented on her hair almost every time we got out. Like her mother, she has super thick, super-curly hair in an unusual color: a honey brown with dark brown, auburn and platinum highlights. Add that to her beautiful face and she's very striking. My hair was something I hated as a child, because it was hard to comb (although thanks to my homemade detangler, it's getting easier to comb both our heads), and because it made me different. It took years of hearing hair dressers say to me, "Boy, I wish I could bottle your hair color/texture and sell it," for me to believe my hair was beautiful.

I hope that my daughter will grow up appreciating her hair, and yet I want her to have the flexibility of styling her hair different ways, even straightening it if she chooses, in ways that are non-chemical and non-toxic. In a variation of No Impact Man's musings, I don't want her to be an ascetic about her hair. I want her to feel like she can have fun with her hair, try new things, etc., in ways that are healthy for her and the planet--AND while being proud of herself the way she is, as a young black girl (and someday, woman).

I remember reading a NIM blog post in which Beavan's daughter, who is the same age (4 1/2 years old) as my daughter, asked if she could eat meat like her friends. Beavan and his wife are vegetarians. He said, "Yes"--because he wants her to choose for herself. She tried meat and didn't like it.

So like Beavan, part of my journey has to be about setting an example for my daughter, but letting her choose for herself.

More random musings

I hate being sick. When my daughter was a baby, my doctor had me undergo a pulmonary function test to determine whether or not I had asthma. The test ruled asthma out, so her conclusion was that I just happen to be very susceptible to respiratory infections. And once more, my daughter was sick for only a week, and I, three weeks later, am still coughing!

It's a pain in the keister, because sometimes I cough so much it induces vomiting or stress incontinence. I also was hoping to serve at my town's Thanksgiving dinner, but I waited until this week to call so that I felt more confident I would be well by Thanksgiving, and they already had enough volunteers.* And my great plans to do more walking and use of public transportation rather than driving are shot--neither is a good idea until I am fully healed.

I think I just have to remember a revelation I had during that really bad, three-month long respiratory infection I had when my daughter was a baby. As I wrote earlier, she caught it from me and was sick for a month. When I found myself in the emergency room of Boston Children's Hospital for the third time in as many weeks when her fever spiked above 101, I was feeling rather depressed about it. I picked up a copy of the hospital's magazine to read while we waited. The magazine described the many efforts they were making to treat children with cancer... sickle cell anemia... cystic fibrosis... spinal bifida... etc. Meanwhile, my otherwise healthy daughter had merely a fever and a bad cough. How could I then feel sorry for myself?

Anyway, on to some happier thoughts. This week I was able to share some of my hair care product recipes with a friend who is white but has biracial grandchildren. She is struggling, as I used to, with finding good products to use on her grandkid's hair. I talked about the fact that so many products designed for black hair have petroleum jelly or mineral oil (a byproduct of petroleum) as their base, and in addition to not being good for anyone's hair, is much too heavy for children's hair. I look forward to hearing about how some of my products work for her grandchildren.

Last night I cooked salmon, mashed potatoes and kale for dinner. All local foods, including potatoes that my husband dug up from our farmer friend's farm, and kale he picked from the garden planted by Johnny and Michelle and the local teens. For the first time, I tried a water-saving idea I've read about: the same water I used to cook the potatoes, I reused to steam the kale, and then reused again to cook spaghetti for later in the week.

The best part about last night's dinner is my daughter. She wanted to help make a sauce for the salmon, and since I hadn't decided what I wanted to top it with, I let her have at it. She gathered a bunch of ingredients from the pantry and mixed them together, tasting as she went along. She made the most phenomenal sauce for the salmon! It included water, salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin, lentils, dried parsley, dried rosemary, bay leaves, a little canola oil, and parmesan cheese. Most amazing? My child is four years old. When we told my brother-in-law this story today, he's predicting she'll have her own cooking show in a few years!

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* One of the reflections of No Impact Week I didn't discuss is "giving back." We did do some of that on Saturday of that week. My husband and daughter joined a group of about 60 teens from a local high school, who went with Johnny and Michelle to our friend's farm to help him harvest his crops. Meanwhile, I was cleaning our yard and house (collecting yard waste and hazardous waste) for my town's annual Cleanup and Recycling Day, and also canned goods for the local food bank. At the event, I received a flyer of local volunteer opportunities and that's where I learned they were looking for volunteers for Thanksgiving. Oh, well. When I'm better, I will explore other ways to get more involved in our community.

Final reflections on No Impact Week

I've already talked about setting a goal to generate less trash by making changes to my daughter's snacks. Here are a few more random thoughts, in no particular order:

On consumption: Hubby recently got a short-term subscription to the Tacoma News-Tribune (I know, not very green. He was responding to a sales call). As a result, I now am able to do something I used to do all the time: read through the Sunday circulars and coupons, trying to find good deals. In doing so, I realize just how far I have stepped away from the consumer culture, because the vast majority of things advertised, I have no interest or plan to buy.

We buy all our clothing, toys, appliances and electronics second-hand, except for my 6'7" hubby, who is only able to shop at Casual Male Big & Tall or Men's Wearhouse two to three times a year when they're having big sales. (Note: one of my challenges/ goals is to try to find something he can wear at a thrift shop). So I can immediately dismiss ads for all these things.

With a few exceptions (Alaffia Everyday Shea body lotion, Trader Joe's TeaTree Tingle conditioner, Tom's of Maine deodorant, and KissMyFace sunscreen), I make our skin and hair care products, and use resuable menstrual pads. So drugstores are now places where we only buy perscription drugs, unless someone gets sick and needs something OTC. Thus, the drugstore ads don't apply.

Although I do read the supermarket circulars to see what's on sale, even the Sunday coupons are mostly useless. A few items I clip for: bread, cereal, cooking oil, vitamins and cold medicine. But we have very little use for most of the items in the coupons, such as frozen meals, Hamburger Helper, Pantene Pro-V conditioner, and the like.

It was kind of nice to know I've really come a long way in this area.

Eating local: This is an area where we could grow a lot. Although we have made strides by growing some of our own veggies and connecting with farmers and urban gardens in the area, we make a lot of our food choices based on what we like plus what is cheapest. Until our finances improve, cost still has to take a priority over local. However, I'm sure I can do better by learning more about local food menus and availability.

Transporation: My daughter and I did a lot more walking this week. We walked to and from the park several times (30 minutes each way), and we drove to the town center and parked and walked to each of our errands, which probably amounted to about an hour's worth of walking. We were tired at the end of it--4r and of course, several times I had to carry my daughter on my back. But walking a lot is getting easier, especially taking the steep hills to and from the park. We'll keep at it.

Energy: The house we live in is very cold: it is large, drafty, built into the side of a hill with eaves over most of the windows (which means very little sunlight), except for the two windows overlooking the Puget Sound which are so huge they also have a huge cooling effect. Great during the summer, terrible the rest of the year. Nevertheless, we're determined to not turn on the central heat unless we absolutely have to. We're doing what we did in Boston: huddling in one room with the doors shut and using a space heater. That's good for family closeness, too!

Midweek reflections on the No Impact Experiment

I'm not sure I'm doing all that great at this, but it is making me think. First, I'm thinking about how many eco-choices I make based on convenience. I've addressed this before: no one can do everything they can/should do to live green, and every choice you make has a cost, whether it's of time, money, access, etc. Each of us personally has to decide what we can or can't do, and then just do the best we can.

That said, there's always room for improvement. Here is one specific area I've identified, from the "no trash" day experiment. I buy snacks for my daughter that she can easily obtain from the pantry on her own, such as snack puddings or 100 calorie cookie bags. I like these because my independence-seeking daughter wants to do for herself, and because it ensures a controlled portion size for her, so she doesn't overdo it on snacks. However, I am obviously creating waste, because these snacks are packaged in non-recyclable packages.

So what to do? I can make pudding from a box, but if I want her to be able to get her own, I need to buy some small (4-6 oz) reusable plastic containers with lids to put it in, and have a designated place in the fridge for them, so my daughter can reach them. I read on another blog about a mother who places a basket in her pantry with reusable snack bags filled with small snacks for her kids to grab. That's another idea.

A harder challenge has been eating locally. With all the veggies I picked this weekend, I made soup and also a pasta dish with veggies. The veggies and herbs were local, but the Imagine soup stock I used is manufactured in New York, and the beans in Michigan. I have no clue where the pasta is from, nor the peanut butter/soy sauce/rice vinegar I used to make the sauce. This week, unless I were to eat nothing but salad and veggies, I'm not sure what else I could have done.

I have made soup stocks before, but that only works if I have the time to make the stock and plan to use it right away. Otherwise, I have no place to store the stock for later use. I like the convenience of having a bunch of cartons of Imagine stocks in my pantry, so I can just open one up to make a soup whenever I want. And what local foods could I have substituted for the pasta? Potatos and lentils are grown locally, but as much as I love them, I can get sick of them very quickly. (I made a small batch of lentils last summer when my sister-in-law was here, and she and hubby told me they liked it and asked me to make some more. Then they didn't want any more, so I tried to eat the rest on my own. After three days, I never wanted to see another lentil!)

I haven't had much success at making yeast breads, although I'm pretty good at making quick breads. All this is to say that eating local, if I were to do it right, would take a lot more than just growing my own veggies or picking them at our friend's farm. It would take a real understanding of what's available locally, and how to cook a variety of meals using just that.

The thought is a little overwhelming. Even local recipes aren't 100% local, just the main or most distinctive ingredient (say, salmon or apples), while most of the other ingredients and spices in the recipe could be from anywhere. But I'll keep learning, and taking baby steps, and maybe as long as at least some of the ingredients in my meals are local, that's okay.

No Impact Experiment prep

The No Impact Experiment is partnered with Huffington Post, and they have asked participants to either upload a video or write a short essay about why they have decided to participate. Here is what I wrote:

I started trying to become more environmentally aware when I was pregnant with my daughter, both to protect her from environmental toxins and because I was concerned about the world she would grow up in. I became a fan of the No Impact Man blog because like Colin Beavan, I am married with a daughter the same age, and until recently, I lived in the city. I have made a lot of changes in my life already, inspired by his example. No Impact Week is an opportunity to stretch myself beyond the environmental changes I have already started to make.

Today we visited the lot where our friends Johnny and Michelle planted veggies using permaculture methods, working with youth from the nonprofit I work with as well as a local high school. They've grown tomatoes, lettuces, a variety of other greens such as kale and collards, a variety of herbs, strawberries, and edible flowers. They're going to send us photos soon and I'll upload some of them. They said it's been great watching skeptical teens get excited about growing food, and seeing neighbors who've observed the activity stop by to pick their own.

We gathered a bunch of plants today, which along with the squash we got from our friend the farmer, I will make some soup. This should help us eat locally (one of the No Impact challenges) for several days!

The "No Impact" Experiment

I've been hemming and hawing about signing up for Colin Beavan AKA "No Impact Man"'s No Impact Experiment, and finally did so. After defending the man and his efforts on this blog, how could I not?

The No Impact Experiment is an invitation to anyone out there to attempt to drastically reduce your impact for one week, using some of the ideas generated by Beavan during his one-year no impact experiment. Each day of the week (beginning Sunday, October 18), you are asked to focus on reducing your impact in one area, and continue that reduction each day while adding a new area, as follows:

Sunday: reducing consumption.
Monday: reducing the trash you generate.
Tuesday: transporation. Attempting to get around by your own efforts (e.g., walking or biking) or public transporation.
Wednesday: food. Attempting to eat more sustainably and locally.
Thursday: reducing your energy usage.
Friday: reducing your water consumption.
Saturday: giving back. Finding ways to contribute to your community.

The No Impact project provides a downloadable (PDF) guide with ideas on how to help you each day, and you can sign up for their social networking site to talk with other folks about their efforts. I signed up for the Washington group, and because I was the first person to do so, I also signed up for Massachusetts, since several others are already members of that group.

As I look through this list, there are many things I have already begun doing, and several areas for improvement. Since the bus routes in my town changed, I have been trying to do more walking. I have been taking my daughter to the park in her stroller. It's a half hour walk in each direction, up and down several hills. But it is getting easier to do, so I hope to soon tackle the one-hour walk to the shopping mall, which is where the nearest everything else is for me: stores, gas, pharmacy, etc. and the once-every-15-minutes bus. (There is a once-an-hour bus right by the park, but to catch it, I have to time my walks very carefully). Next week, I'll take on that one hour walk challenge.

Another area to reduce is energy usage. One of the big areas I can work on is doing more things with my daughter, rather than parking her in front of the TV. I already do a lot with her (she helps me cook and clean, and we play together), but if she had her druthers, she would spend all her time at home with Mommy. A friend of mine with two school-aged sons, one quiet and one social, says she noticed this difference between her boys. The quiet one has no problem playing on his own. The social one always wants to be doing something with someone else. It drove her crazy for a while, until she realized that if she didn't try to stay close to her outgoing son, he would look elsewhere for all his social needs, and she'd find herself regretting it when he becomes a teenager and wants nothing to do with Mom and Dad.

I believe the same is true of my very gregarious daughter. But that means I need to be engaged with her in an ongoing manner, not sitting her in front of the TV when I want some quiet.

The hardest part for me (and one I may not do) is eating locally. We are already doing more by growing our own, but our budget isn't such that we can afford to buy locally all the foods we need to buy.

More on The New Yorker and No Impact Man

The New Yorker article I wrote about is getting quite a bit of attention. Grist, a major online environmental magazine, wrote about it two times (and my blog post was linked in paragraph 4 of the second article!). Crunchy Chicken also weighed in, and I'm sure others around the blogosphere have been discussing it.

The consensus seems to be that the article's author, Elizabeth Kolbert, a leading journalist who writes about climate change and the environment, was rather unfair in her assessment of No Impact Man. And now the man himself, Colin Beavan, has added his own voice to this discussion. He makes a few primary points: that individual and collective action are both necessary--and indeed, the two often feed each other. Individuals who try to live more sustainably in their personal lives often become more aware and motivated to get involved in collective action. And collective action will be ineffective if we as individuals do not go along with the changes that it requires. He also notes that with so many forces aligned against environmentalism and sustainability (such as modern consumerism, climate change skeptics, and enormously profitable non-green industries), we can't afford to have people on the same side in-fighting like this.

Thoughts on hypocrisy and "No Impact Man"

The current issue of The New Yorker has an article by Elizabeth Kolbert titled, "Green Like Me," that's a critique of the recent crop of confessional memoirs by people who are striving to live in more environmentally conscious ways. The article makes some good points, but I found the overall tone distasteful and counterproductive.

OK, the good points Kolbert makes:

1) Individual action and changes aren't enough to save the environment. Collective change is what is needed.

2) Sometimes eco-conscious people miss the forest for the trees, or focus on small changes while rationalizing the really big changes they aren't making. Kolbert cites Vanessa Farquharson, author of Sleeping Naked Is Green, as one example: Farquharson resolves to use no more toothpicks and to use natural lubricant instead of K-Y, while purchasing a new house and flying around the country to pursue relationships with various men (the problem there is the air travel).

The primary examples in Kolbert's article, however, are Henry David Thoreau and his somewhat modern counterpart, Colin Beavan of No Impact Man, and here's where I think her arguments really become unfair. For example, she writes:

A more honest title for Beavan’s book would have been “Low Impact Man,” and a truly honest title would have been “Not Quite So High Impact Man.” Even during the year that Beavan spent drinking out of a Mason jar, more than two billion people were, quite inadvertently, living lives of lower impact than his. Most of them were struggling to get by in the slums of Delhi or Rio or scratching out a living in rural Africa or South America. A few were sleeping in cardboard boxes on the street not far from Beavan’s Fifth Avenue apartment.

If she had spent any time reading Beavan's blog or book, she would know that he knows he's not living with no impact; no impact living is impossible for any living thing. The name is just a clever way to call attention to what he's trying to do. His goal is also to try to balance out his and his family's impact, by reducing their negative environmental impact as much as possible, while increasing their positive impact through environmental activism.

Second, it's also nearly impossible for anyone in a western developed nation to live with as little impact as people in the most impoverished parts in the world. That doesn't mean we should do nothing in response, or denigrate the efforts of those attempting to live more sustainably.

Kolbert ends the article with this statement:

What makes Beavan’s experiment noteworthy is that it is just that—a voluntary exercise conducted for a limited time only by a middle-class family. Beavan justifies writing about it on the ground that it will inspire others to examine their wasteful ways. ... [However] the real work of “saving the world” goes way beyond the sorts of action that “No Impact Man” is all about.

What’s required is perhaps a sequel. In one chapter, Beavan could take the elevator to visit other families in his apartment building. He could talk to them about how they all need to work together to install a more efficient heating system. In another, he could ride the subway to Penn Station and then get on a train to Albany. Once there, he could lobby state lawmakers for better mass transit. In a third chapter, Beavan could devote his blog to pushing for a carbon tax. Here’s a possible title for the book: “Impact Man.”

Again, although she's quoting from his book, I wonder how much of it she's read, or if she has visited his blog at all. Throughout the two years I've been following No Impact Man, I have read countless posts about times in which he has:

-- written about environmental issues on a local, national and international level. I especially appreciate that he has addressed issues of poverty while doing so;

-- called his representatives (and encouraged others to do the same) about local and national environmental issues;

-- visited some of his reps in person to address such topics as making the streets safer for cyclists and preventing the air pollution that makes New York City one of the worst places in the country for childhood asthma;

-- swum in a benefit swim meet to raise funds to clean up polluted waters, and he will soon participate in a Climate Ride for Change;

-- spoken to groups of students about how they can work together to address their own personal impacts as well as that of their schools;

-- and organized 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."

In other words, Beavan's story has been anything but simply the limited personal journey of a middle class family. The family stuff is in there, because that's what makes it personal and relatable to most people. But Beavan's goals and actions go far beyond that, so I find The New Yorker's belittling attitude shameful.