I recently read 2 books that have inspired me to take action:

• Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller, Jeff Rubin
• No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal, Colin Beavan

The former is a comprehensive look at our economic dependence on cheap oil. It examines the problems of peak oil, the false sense of security derived from known energy alternatives and the rather bleak outlook that lay ahead if we don’t change our ways. In short, this book was a real downer. But it opened my eyes to the myriad of environmental problems that plague us and encouraged me to learn more.  Because while I look forward to the sense of community that results from village-style living, the thought of never again being able to visit other continents (let alone provinces) is heartbreaking.

Next, I picked up a copy of No Impact Man, the story of one man’s attempt to strike a balance between unnecessary waste and complete deprivation. Collin approaches his experiment in seemingly small steps – from eliminating all household waste to living off the grid – discovering not only the environmental but also the life benefits along the way. He quickly realizes that a waste of resources is truly a waste of life – not just our planet’s, but our own.

Does consumption truly make us happy? Is the latest iPhone really going to fill that unnamed void in our lives? Is it worth taking a step back and evaluating our habits to see what’s truly necessary – both for the sake of our planet and ourselves? Absolutely.

And so I begin my own journey toward a smaller carbon footprint. Each week, I will challenge myself with one new change in behaviour, evaluating not only the environmental impact but also the financial and personal.

I hope you’ll stay with me during this little experiment and perhaps even follow along. The more, the merrier!

Ok, I’ll admit it right away: I totally blew the No Impact Experiment. By Tuesday (I was supposed to start on Sunday) I hadn’t done anything and after finally reading the how-to manual, I was feeling overwhelmed and behind. I didn’t want to give up but needed to rethink how to do this. Thanks to a friend’s idea, I decided that what would work best for me would be to do one part each week, rather than each day. I wanted to give this thing proper attention and time and it’s a lot to do in a week. So, feeling much better I focused on the first topic last week: consumption.

The instructions for the consumption day were to: 1) create a list of the things I need to buy this week, then delete the items I can do without and figure out if I can get anything second-hand, borrow them or make them myself; and 2) try not to shop for new items (other than food). For this particular week this task turned out to be pretty easy; I didn’t feel like there was really anything I needed to buy beyond food. I avoided dangerous places like Target. I pulled out the needle and thread to mend some socks (my husband loves to call it darning for some reason; I guess it makes him feel old fashioned). I definitely enjoyed being a non-consumer for a week.

But that’s the thing–it was only for a week. No Impact Man did this for a year! That would be very, very hard. Just this week I bought several things to prepare for Thanksgiving. And then the TV broke, so we’ll be getting a new one soon. Although I’m not No Impact Man and won’t just “do without” no matter what, I did think about what I could do differently long-term. I could be shopping second-hand more (Craigslist is such a great resource–husband recently found a keyboard with all the bells and whistles for $20. It’s older but works great!), and although I don’t think I’m purchase-crazy, I could put some more thought into what I buy and think about whether I really need what I’m about to buy.

The No Impact Experiment shared this video that I saw awhile back that helps you get into the mode about thinking (probably way too much) about stuff:

This past Friday afternoon, my office got together to watch “No Impact Man”, an amazing documentary about Colin Beavan’s (a New York City resident) efforts to completely eliminate his personal impact (along with his hilariously funny wife, and adorable child) on the environment for one year.

It is a great story about a very real family trying to make a difference..

You are going to love it, so please click here to find a theater nearest you..

Image from the Sioux Falls Green Project

The Sioux Falls Green Project and The MinusCar Project are teaming up to present a screening of No Impact Man. 

What: No Impact Man
Where: Augustana College, Gilbert Science Center Room 100
When: Tuesday, December 8, 2009 @7pm

“What is No Impact Man? It’s a documentary that tells the story of Colin Beavan’s decision to completely eliminate his personal impact on the environment for a full year. It means eating vegetarian, buying only local food, and turning off the refrigerator. It also means no elevators, no television, no cars, busses, or airplanes, no toxic cleaning products, no electricity, no material consumption, and no garbage. No problem – at least for Colin – but he and his family live in Manhattan. So when his espresso-guzzling, retail-worshipping wife Michelle and their two-year-old daughter are dragged into the fray, the No Impact Project has an unforeseen impact of its own.”           

                                               -Sioux Falls Green Project

View the trailer on SFGP’s website.

You can RSVP on the Sioux Falls Green Project’s Facebook page.

I am proud to announce that the film ‘No Impact Man’ will be playing in Cincinnati from December 7-18!  The timing with the climate change treaty in Copenhagen is no accident, we’re trying to draw maximum attention to climate change.

So far the only confirmed venue is the University of Cincinnati campus, thanks to their sustainability program manager, Shawn Tubbs.  But more are on the way, stay tuned!

University of Cincinnati campus, Monday, December 7 @ 7:00pm Swift Hall 500. Wednesday, December 9 @ 7:00pm MainStreet Cinema.

More info on the film:  Colin Beavan decides to completely eliminate his personal impact on the environment for the next year.  It means eating vegetarian, buying only local food, and turning off the refrigerator. It also means no elevators, no television, no cars, busses, or airplanes, no toxic cleaning products, no electricity, no material consumption, and no garbage.  No problem – at least for Colin – but he and his family live in Manhattan. So when his espresso-guzzling, retail-worshipping wife Michelle and their two-year-old daughter are dragged into the fray, the No Impact Project has an unforeseen impact of its own. Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein’s film provides an intriguing inside look into the experiment that became a national fascination and media sensation, while examining the familial strains and strengthened bonds that result from Colin and Michelle’s struggle with their radical lifestyle change.

Colin Beaven é um cara corajoso. Cansado de engordar as estatísticas e fazer parte da população que mais polui o mundo (a saber: os americanos) propôs à sua família viver um ano de “baixo impacto” ao meio ambiente.

Não usou elevador, nem carro, nem táxi nem avião, não viu televisão e só fez refeições em casa, com alimentos comprados na feira local.

Beaven acabou escrevendo um blog que acabou virando um livro e, finalmente um documentário – No Impact Man

Sacrifícios à parte, a mudança radical de habitos fez o americano perder 9 (!) kgs sem ginastica alguma.

Sem falar do relacionamento em família, já que longe da TV tornou-se um pai muito mais participativo.

Acho digno e estou pensando seriamente em fazer igual.

BrightSight Group speaker and author Colin Beavan’s book, NO IMPACT MAN: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal who Attempts to Save the Planet and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process was reviewed in The Boston Globe.

Colin Beavan, holding both my copy of his book and his famed, "travel mug."

For a guy who eschews impact, Colin Beavan sure knows how to make one. Not only is his book No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and our Way of Life in the Process creating a buzz everywhere from The Colbert Report to The Huffington Post, but he’s just completed a nationwide tour to publicize his book.

For those not in the know, Colin Beavan, (a.k.a. No Impact Man) dragged his wife and young daughter along for an experiment to live the entirety of 2007 creating as little environmental impact as possible. Beavan and family were not going the traditional back-to-the-land route, but tried to achieve their no impact goals while living on the high impact island of Manhattan.

The Beavans’ well documented and blogged about year included such highlights as washing their clothing in the bathtub in a manner usually saved for grape stompers, pedal-powered transportation and only eating food grown within 250 miles of Manhattan. Gone was electricity, which meant no television, elevators, lighting or refrigeration.

But it wasn’t all deprivation. The family of three discovered the imbedded joys of an unplugged life without the distractions of modern life. Hot summer nights found them avoiding the swelter of an non-air-conditioned apartment and biking over to the not-so-nearby Hudson River Park. A location that Beavan described as “too long to walk to, yet difficult to get to by public transportation.”

Recently, Beavan’s book tour brought him up the west coast, with a reading at Portland’s own Powell’s City of Books. He generously took time from his schedule to sit down with me and answer a few questions about his life before, during and after the No Impact Man experiment.

We chose to meet in the bookstore’s coffee shop, and I was little concerned that I might not recognize Beavan. But I should not have worried, as his 350.org T-shirt and glass peanut butter jar/travel mug announced his no-impacty-ness more than any headshot could.

Introductions were made and we swiftly got down to business as time was in short supply. I had already read his book, (yes, I had broken The Compact to buy my own copy.) and had a large number of questions to get through in a short amount of time.

Above and beyond any academic questions I may have had, I was curious to know how Beavan was traveling for his book tour. Was he taking the train? Had he driven the 3000 miles by Prius? Or had he perhaps hired a raw food eating eco-dude to pull him across the country in a vehicle concocted entirely from recyclables and the sweat of a single emu? No such luck, as he’d flown west in a commercial airline. However, Beavan did get his publisher to donate $500 in “carbon penance” to Solar Electric Light Fund, (a.k.a. SELF) which is:

“Fighting climate change and global poverty with solar power, so families can lift themselves out of poverty by having clean, safe water to drink; food to eat; vaccinations to prevent disease; light to study and work by; computers at school to help them learn; and power to increase their income.”

Okay. Not as exciting as the eco-dude, but perhaps ever so slightly more helpful to those in need.

When asked if his message was getting across, Beavan answered that “people are paying attention” and that “the time is right for a discussion on quality of life versus environmental catastrophe.” He also explained that, “we are stuck in a system that’s not necessarily working . We need to work together to make the system reflect how we want to live.”

Now that Beavan and his family have completed their social/ecological experiment, what has changed?

For starters, Beavan’s wife Michelle, a self proclaimed TV addict has not brought television back into their apartment, and neither has she returned to her former social shopper ways. Beavan still cycles around Manhattan and explains that biking has made the city, “seem smaller.”

Beavan also continues to only buy second-hand, having recently purchased a six-month-old/half the price Macintosh computer that was still under warranty.

What didn’t stick? Well, washing all laundry by hand, (or by foot as the case had been) was one of the first No-Impact changes to get reversed. This daunting task actually got abandoned before the year was up when Beavan’s daughter Isabella was sick and vomiting. (Because really, who wants to stomp around in that?!)

Beavan is proud to admit that both he and his wife “got healthier.” The no takeout rule required home cooking, (mostly by Colin) from which Michelle enjoyed comparing her husband to a “1950’s housewife.”

Although Beavan did conduct his No Impact year with a book contract in place, he explained that he took one-quarter of the normal advance compared to prior books. Although there is a Columbia Pictures feature film “in development.”

Having finished  both the yearlong project, the book and even the documentary, Beavan is putting his efforts into various No Impact weeks as well as the non-profit No Impact Project whose goal is, “To empower citizens to make choices which better their lives and lower their environmental impact through lifestyle change, community action, and participation in environmental politics.”

The No Impact Man blog is still in place and focuses more on how to become more involved with policy change, rather than the personal journeys made by Colin, Michelle and daughter Isabella.

Alas, the time for my interview was over before I knew it, and together the two us walked up the two flights of stairs for Beavan’s reading, which boasted 70+ attendees despite pretty minimal publicity.

Colin Beavan, a.k.a. No Impact Man, or as I like to think of him, one hell of an eco-dude. Emu sweat optional.

Katy Wolk-Stanley

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”

Lately I’ve been feeling like I’ve been back in coasting along-mode with my eco-conscious behaviors. I have started some new habits in the past several months, but I’ve been feeling like it’s time to revisit and kick it up a notch again. Since I was feeling like things needed a little shaking up I was intrigued to find out about NRDC and No Impact Man’s “No Impact Week” that starts today. They’re cleverly calling it a “carbon cleanse”–an abbreviated version of what No Impact Man did for a year. (He spent a year trying to live with no net environmental impact. Here’s some background on that project. It was a cool idea, and ended up turning into a book, documentary and non-profit project.)

The words “no impact” are intimidating, and also impossible, but I guess the idea is that it’s something to strive for. So, I signed up and I’m ready to go. So far I’ve just filled out an online survey that consisted mostly of questions about my environmental behaviors. Interestingly, there was a section that focused on quality of life issues; it made me get more reflective than I expected to when I had to answer questions about how happy I am with my life. I was wondering why those kinds of questions were included and I imagine it has to do with material possessions not equaling happiness, the satisfaction of simplyfing and ideas along those lines–the kind of stuff that sounds great and makes so much sense but doesn’t always translate easily to daily life.

We’ll see if this week-long experiment will have much effect or spur me on to create some changes that I haven’t gotten around to or just haven’t taken the leap to do. I have a lot of questions running through my mind right now (Will I have time to do these things? Will I be able to afford it? Will I have to do things that will label me an eco-freak? Will I be told to do something I just can’t do that day, or give up something I just don’t want to give up?) but I’m ready to give it a shot. Want to join me? You can sign up here.

Here’s a video that gives a good idea of what the No Impact Week is:

Ok, now I have to go figure out what I’m supposed to today. And tomorrow. Yikes!

I just finished reading “No Impact Man,” by Colin Beavan, and wow am I feeling guilty. “No Impact Man” is the story of how Beavan and his wife and daughter lived for an entire year steadily reducing their impact on the Earth until it was zero. They didn’t just reduce their carbon impact. No, they made sure to reuse everything, use as little electricity as possible, waste no water, give up air travel and (as Beavan points out several times) give up toilet paper as well. The idea sounds crazy at first. I mean, who in their right mind would give up *everything*?

Beavan’s hope is that a lot of people would, if they truly understood the consequences. It’s easy not to think about the consequences because the oil and coal and gas companies are helped along by the government, while the renewable energy companies have to limp along mostly on their own. The true cost of products that are detrimental to the environment is hidden. Beavan has a long list of things we should change about the way our world (and especially our country) operates, and that’s one of them.

But Beavan also points out that although he gave up a lot, he gained a lot too. By turning out the lights when the sun went down, he was forced to step away from the computer and television and spend more time with his wife and child. When he stopped buying takeout because of all the packaging, he learned how to cook with local, in season produce. He got more exercise and lost weight because he walked or biked everywhere and stopped using elevators. The list goes on. He and his family did give up some creature comforts, but as he points out, they never strayed towards asceticism. Instead, they learned to value what was necessary and give thanks for what they had.

What I found especially cool (and which was probably not the intended lesson) was that the book itself was made from sustainable materials. The cover is recycled cardboard and all the energy to make the paper came from biomass. Ultimately, though, what I took away from the book was an idea that I’ve recently come to embrace and that Beavan brings up several times. It’s not enough to preach about the problems in the world. It’s not enough to sit on our butts and bemoan the state of the planet while we go and buy another cup of coffee (handed to us in paper cups) and a sandwich (wrapped in plastic) from the shop we drive to three miles away. If we want to see a difference, we need to make a difference. Nothing will happen if everyone waits around for something to happen. We need to get up, walk down the stairs (no elevator), walk to the store with our reusable mugs/jars and ask for whatever is in season. We need to go to the farmer’s marked instead of the grocery store and turn off the lights when the sun goes down. We need to walk and bike more and drive less. Some of the changes will be difficult and some of the changes will be easy, even fun.

Tonight, I’m going to cook something using vegetables that are in season. I’m going to wake up tomorrow and try to go an entire day without turning on the lights. I’m going to air dry my clothes instead of using one of the school’s dryers. And I’m going to start writing more letters to my Senators and Representative and make sure my voice is heard.

My question for you is the same one that Beavan uses to end his book. What are you going to do to start making a difference? What do you stand to gain by making your lifestyle sustainable? And what about the people around you?

BrightSight Group speaker and author Colin Beavan was recently interviewed by the Christian Science Monitor.
Colin is the author is No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process

Today, films like Fast Food Nation, King Corn, and Food Inc. have shocked their viewers by examining the truth that lies within our food industry and it’s effects on the environment. But at a time when seemingly everyone is asking us to “go green” how does a film really make a lasting impact on its viewers? How can films actually help to educate people make commitments to change?

By making the process interactive, for starters.

In Super Size Me, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock committed himself to eating nothing but McDonald’s for an entire month. For 100 minutes, we marvel at Spurlock’s dedication to his project and his refusal to give up, despite the detrimental effects to his health. It was entertaining and informative, leaving us with the feeling that maybe we won’t be stopping at the local fast food joint on our way home.

No Impact Man is similar to Super Size Me, as it’s subject concocts a crazy idea to demonstrate how our everyday activity is harmful to ourselves and those around us. Protagonist Colin Beavan decides to go a year without using anything that produces waste, in order to lower his own carbon footprint and thus improve the world he lives in. Beavan drags his wife and daughter along on the journey and commits to a new life with no electricity, coffee or cab rides.

In 1997, filmmaker Josh Tickell set out on a cross-country trip in a diesel-powered Winnebago. Instead of routinely filling up his tank at gas stations across many of the states he traveled through, Tickell used fuel created by frying oil from fast food restaurants. His experiment proved that there are alternatives to diesel fuel, and helped to create his documentary Fuel, which won the Best Documentary Audience Award at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

Both Spurlock, Beavan and Tickell effectively promote their messages by depicting the results of their own efforts on the screen. They aren’t just telling something, they are showing it first hand.  But where Super Size Me ends No Impact Man continues, with an interactive program designed to encourage viewers to attempt to make their own changes as well. The message of the film is furthered through the No Impact Week, which challenges people to pledge to produce “no impact” starting on October 18, 2009.  In a partnership with The Huffington Post,  more than 1,000 individuals have signed up and pledged to reduce their carbon emissions for one week. Whatever the results are, the early numbers are promising.

Fuel has continued to inspire and promote change, most recently through education. In response to some of the green solutions found in the film, Tickell and producer Rebecca Harrell have created The Green Curriculum. It is the first board certified curriculum to come as a result of a documentary film and will hopefully be implemented within schools across the U.S.  Using a 35-minute shortened version of the film, the program hopes to educate and inform young people about the dangers plaguing the environment and the ways that we can create positive change everyday.

Do these interactive projects have the ability to help make lasting changes on the environment? How else can a film’s message be achieved?

Join the No Impact Project and see how much waste you can reduce in one week.

For other ways to make changes to our environment, check out Meatless Mondays, and help reduce meat consumption by 15%, or become a part of the upcoming International Climate Day on October 24th, 2009, a global call to action for the importance of climate change.

Originally published on MediaRights.org, 10/20/09

Just arrived: a new documentary from Oscilloscope, The Garden, about the headline-making fight between a group of South Central Los Angeles community gardeners and some back-room-dealing city hall officials who tried to take the gardeners’ land away. The garden was originally given over to the community as a sort of concession following the Rodney King Riots, and over the next ten years grew into a thriving community-run garden — fourteen acres in all — serving a primarily Latino-American population.  The story would have been interesting enough just viewed through prism of the locavore movement gaining popularity through the country right now; but unexpectedly (for me, at least) this is a particularly gripping true-life tale, with a half-dozen unexpected plot twists and a number of nefarious, quietly corrupt political figures who play the role of heartless, self-serving bamboozlers to a T. Honestly, the straight-up evil nature of some of these guys is like something out of a cautionary, near-future science fiction book, and is a sobering reminder of the havoc that corrupt, conniving local figureheads can still wreak, even in the age of information. It all makes for exciting cinema, as tension boils over in the movie’s final act in a scene that eerily echoes the King riots played out at the beginning of the film.

And on a side note: What is the deal with Oscilloscope? Where did they come from? Why are they so awesome? Near as I can tell, Oscilloscope Laboratories was created by the Beastie Boys, but I have no idea what (if any) their involvement in the film side of things may be. Either way, this little production company has spun out a starling number of quality stuff in a very short period of time, many of them small, intrepid documentaries in the vein of The Garden. Among them: Flow, Scott Walker: 30 Century Man, Unmistaken Child, and No Impact Man (which just recently completed its theatrical run at the Cable Car). They also gave a home to Wendy And Lucy, which I’ve written up previously on this blog. And their cache of upcoming films looks just as promising as everything we’ve seen so far. So who are these guys? Where are they getting the cash to put this stuff out? And where and how are they finding these films?

Would it shock you to find out that even if you adopted the No-Impact-Man lifestyle and created zero waste, and you even convinced your local businesses to recycle you’d only, at the most, impact waste by 3% ? What if you discovered that 90% of all water used was coming from agriculture and industry and that taking longer showers really has minimal effects on water consumption? I tell you one thing, I’d shift my focus from turning the water off while I brushed my teeth to stopping the largest offenders. Any strategist would tell us the same thing: when it comes to saving the environment from “ourselves”, a lot of us are wasting our good intentions on a misguided idea that it is truly ourselves (individual “consumers”) who are ultimately responsible for these problems. Ideas and films like No Impact Man shift focus away from the real causes of global environmental crisis and allow industry and government to slide by, unnoticed.

The truth is so much scarier, and it’s easy to see why we have retreated to personal solutions; it’s easier to change a light-bulb than bring a multinational corporation or the military to its knees. So in the end, while we can all pat ourselves on the back from a puritanical perspective, many of us are just running around doing a lot of nothing under the impression we’ve used our time and energy wisely. I was so offended when I first looked into this. I didn’t want to believe that all that effort I made in my personal lifestyle choices were ultimately having very little impact on the problem at large. I didn’t want to admit that my efforts would be better leveraged in other areas.

Lite Green is the most mainstream, most digestible, and most corporate-friendly incarnation of the environmental movement (if you even want to call it that). Bright Green, with celeb advocates like Adrian Grenier, proclaim that, sure, you can drive your H2 through the McDonald’s drive-through, so long as you remember to bring your canvas bag and reusable coffee mug. It’s the movement that allows us to believe the contradiction that we can buy our way out of the hugest crises we face. Bright Green is so bright it’s blinding people to the real problems. In his August 2009 article for Orion Magazine, “Forget Shorter Showers” Author, Derrick Jensen asks:

WOULD ANY SANE PERSON think dumpster diving would have stopped Hitler, or that composting would have ended slavery or brought about the eight-hour workday, or that chopping wood and carrying water would have gotten people out of Tsarist prisons, or that dancing naked around a fire would have helped put in place the Voting Rights Act of 1957 or the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Then why now, with all the world at stake, do so many people retreat into these entirely personal “solutions”?

Part of the problem is that we’ve been victims of a campaign of systematic misdirection. Consumer culture and the capitalist mindset have taught us to substitute acts of personal consumption (or enlightenment) for organized political resistance. An Inconvenient Truth helped raise consciousness about global warming. But did you notice that all of the solutions presented had to do with personal consumption—changing light bulbs, inflating tires, driving half as much—and had nothing to do with shifting power away from corporations, or stopping the growth economy that is destroying the planet? Even if every person in the United States did everything the movie suggested, U.S. carbon emissions would fall by only 22 percent. Scientific consensus is that emissions must be reduced by at least 75 percent worldwide.

The values of conserving, reusing, and protecting what’s left are amazing, but if we are to solve the ecological and social problems we face, they must be brought their their logical conclusions. This is not a call to stop caring or to stop living simply with more compassion – it’s a call to shift focus away from what industry wants us to focus on – buying more stuff that’s labeled “green” and filling our days with behavioral rules. Let’s not confuse personal choices and social change or political revolution. Let’s start with reclaiming our time and energy and shifting our focus to the real problems, getting together, and doing something about it.

I grew up in the north of England. The North was a very industrial place of factories and coal mines, but in the late 70’s and 80’s we saw a great change of industry. It resulted in the miners’ strike as coal pits where closed, and at the same time factories where shut down.
I remember standing at the end of the road where I lived, watching two of the great chimney towers being demolished with explosives. The factory which stood at the top of my road is now housing for the elderly. Industrial factories were part of our landscape, and as a child I didn’t think anything of it. I even thought that the flames that came out of the chimneys were pretty. I didn’t see the big clouds of grey smoke as disturbing. You live with what you know in blind acceptance.
The human being has an amazing capacity to cope with any kind of living condition and make it work for them. We are happy to stay in a microcosm of what we know. We often don’t question how we know what we know. At the root of how we know what we know is often: a commercial; a news broadcast; a conversation; or the way we were brought up to just accept that this is the way it has always been.
It takes a great mind to think outside of these parameters. It takes a leap of consciousness to imagine something else. Perhaps this ‘something else’ doesn’t even exist yet. Everything that exists started in someone’s imagination, often building on someone else’s creation. We know how to build and reshape, but we don’t seem to know how to tone down and do less. The factories and the pits that closed in the north of England caused massive unemployment at that time; much worse than we are experiencing now. As ever the North bounced back, became creative and found different avenues. Manchester flourished; becoming a hub for new music in the 90’s, bringing a great amount of money into the area.
It is my belief, from reading all of the information, that until we take down what we already know, we can’t see the picture of how the world can be reshaped to become sustainable. This is why I admire ‘No impact man’ www.noimpactproject.org or rather I admire his wife, who is more like me. They got rid of all of their normal life dependences without knowing what life was really going to be like without them. I am the ‘take-out queen’, who loves coffee, and escapes into TV (although I don’t have one now). The idea of letting all that go is tough when it is all that you know! But, as I have said, the average human being has an amazing capacity to cope with any kind of living condition and make it work. Anyone who has travelled knows how fast we adapt to new situations.
Having lived in London and now in San Francisco I believe London has a long way to go to get as environmentally conscious as San Francisco. Living here has changed the way I do things. In the UK second hand (Goodwill) shops are really expensive to buy from. I buy everything in San Francisco second hand and have furnished a whole room in my house with nothing new, saving me money in the process. I love how in the mission district almost everything I need turns up in the street at some point with the word ‘free’ on it. In London this is called ‘fly tipping’. It is even illegal to collect something from the dump when you are dropping something off. Raiding skips is also seen to be only something that the horrible scummy people do. Food that isn’t off but has passed its sell-by date is marked with blue dye so no-one can take it from the bins. England has a long way to go before it has three bins for recycling – at the moment we are given plastic bags by the council to put our recycling in! However, I believe in a positive tipping point. Maybe if enough e-mails of complaint are sent, then things will change. Maybe if enough people start to change habits; ‘monkey see, monkey do’. We can make being green sexy and fashionable. When I first came to San Francisco I went to a dinner party and drank wine from old jam jars, and was served on odd plates with odd knifes and folks. It was a shock for me. Success, I have always seen and strived for, is marked by matching dining set and wine glasses. I realised that feeling we need to have an outside image of perfection and newness is something we learnt from outside media, and is a perception we don’t need to make our own.

BrightSight Group speaker and author Colin Beavan was recently interviewed by ABC News.
Colin is the author of No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process

Have you heard of this book? This blog? This guy?  Well, now you have!  Check it out.

The book was a great read but more than that, I really appreciated Colin’s honesty about this project.  It definitely makes you look within and see how you are living your own life.  I was impressed in so many ways and shocked too.  I dog-eared a ton of pages and it had a profound impact on me.  I hope you will read the book or check out the blog. Or even go see the documentary from their yearlong journey.

His wife and child also participated and to read his wife’s perspective on this via a column in Business Week (reposted on his blog) was also brutally honest about her life and the changes this yearlong experiment had on her as well.

I am sure some of you wonder about my latest movies and books. Between Food Inc., Better Off, and now The No Impact Man, you would consider me a very organic, vegetarian, of the earth kind of person. Well, I am trying to be. I don’t often eat meat and never cook it.  I do wish to be more reliant on farmers markets and other similar farm options year over year.  I think it takes each of us to make adjustments and just keep making them.

BrightSight Group speaker and author Colin Beavan’s book, No Impact Man is excerpted in the NY Times

Call them what you will–hippies, quacks, dreamers, weirdos–but I find myself sympathizing with the Beavan family, experiencing a little of what they are as they adjust back to a more normal life after living a year without impact.

Colin Beavan, his wife and two-year-old daughter set out on a bold experiment that is now immortalized in a movie and a book, both called No Impact Man. They attempted to reduce–actually, eliminate entirely–their environmental impact. They turned off their electricity. They gave up toilet paper and diapers. They washed their clothes by hand. They walked or biked. They experienced frustration and freedom. And now their experiment is over, they’re freaking out.

It’s been hard for them to adjust back to riding in airplanes or even using lightbulbs again, to find that middle ground where comfort meets sustainability in a world where it’s increasingly clear drastic measures have to be enacted for us to halt the destruction of the planet. The Beavans know this intimately, and they don’t take it lightly.

I didn’t live a year without electricity or tree products, but in my first week back in the greater New Orleans area seems similar to the Beavan’s adjustment. In Seattle, I went weeks without using a car. I walked to the grocery. There were entire weeks when I bought almost exclusively local produce. I recycled, and I would have composted had the property manager of my apartment building not been a complete…well, nevermind. I turned off lights. I unplugged plugs. I reused plastic bags of every shape and size.

And now that I’m living in a more rural setting in an unincorporated part of Louisiana that does not have mass transit of any sort or bike lanes or even sidewalks, for crying out loud, I cannot reasonably do any of these things. This goes with the territory of living in a rural-ish subdivision, but still. We do have local produce, but to get it you have to go to the farmer’s market on Saturdays and that market is about 10 miles away. You can’t reasonably walk to anything. You can bike, I suppose, but you put your life on the line in a much more acute way than you would in a high density area where bikeways are plentiful and people–usually–know to watch out for cyclists. So I’m having my own freak out moment here.

There is a period of adjustment, sure, but I feel like I’ve seen the light. I wish we didn’t value private green space as much as we did public green space, and that buses ran even in less dense areas here (it’s possible–they do it in the Northwest.) That quality of life is possible everywhere, especially in places where it doesn’t rain all the damn time and where we grow tomatoes the size of your face.

Check out my debut on Colbert Nation (colbertnation.com) featuring Colin Beaven, the No Impact Man:

Watch it here! The more you do, the more I look good to my bosses!

The Story of Stuff

As part of the No Impact Week, our family began Sunday by exploring consumption, the role it plays in our lives, and how we affect the world with our lifestyle. We made lists of what we buy and what we need, and made a pledge to not buy anything for the entire week unless it’s needed. We explored some very cool websites like Freecycle and Swaplist.

Most interesting though was this fantastic little video of about 20 minutes in length titled The Story of Stuff. This video has some of the most interesting information I’ve heard in a while, gives it to you easily and quickly, and makes the learning process very entertaining. If you have a moment, I highly recommend you watch it (and include your family)!