By Guest Blogger on September 11, 2009
No Impact Man, the film, opens today! Check here to find a theater near you. Today, Michelle Conlin shares some of her experiences during the No Impact Year…
My author husband, Colin Beavan, decided in late 2006 that he wanted to stop writing about history and start writing about global warming. He was so excited about his idea—attempting to live for one year in the middle of New York City without making any negative environmental impact—that when he asked me to join him, I immediately went all wifely and lobbed back an effusive yes.
When my best friend from childhood, filmmaker Laura Gabbert, later heard about No Impact, she begged Colin to let her and her partners film us. After they promised Colin to make as low-carbon a movie as possible, he agreed. His sustainably produced book—made from postconsumer recycled paper and chlorine-free cardboard, with energy supplied by biogas—is titled No Impact Man. It hit stores Sept. 1. The documentary of the same name begins opening nationwide on Sept. 11.
Truthfully, when I said yes to this Woody Allen-meets-Walden affair, I didn’t fully think through what it would mean to live with a toddler and a dog in a one-bedroom, ninth-floor Manhattan apartment using no elevators, no electricity, no disposable diapers, no food grown more than 250 miles from home, no TV, no takeout, no beauty products, and no washing machine. Oh yes, and no buying anything; for the next year I would shop my own closet.
Little did I know that a year after the project’s completion the global financial system would implode, or that the era of high-impact living—using one’s house as an ATM, jetting off on a lark—would come to a spectacular and cataclysmic end. And here’s the strange and unpredictable twist: Going No Impact for a year turned out to be sublime preparation for the post-subprime life.
In our 10 years together, Colin has bought himself three things: a second-hand cell phone, a used PC, and a folding bike. He bought me a diamond ring from a flea market. So no spending problems there. I, however, was an inveterate credit dipper. (As a last-chance binge before the project began, I indulged in a $900-plus pair of stiletto, knee-high Chloe boots. Then I had a moment of silence for my Sample Sale self.)
At first, the call of the stores was strong. Life on the hedonic treadmill is a habit—and I had to break it. Soon I started coming up with end-runs that gave me an even bigger high. Not buying anything new didn’t mean I couldn’t partake of Jane’s Exchange, a children’s consignment depot. We took our daughter, Isabella, there for her birthday, and I told her she could pick out anything she wanted. She chose a hardly-worn pair of princess slippers. Cost: $1.
We cut most other expenses, too. The Con Edison bill dropped to zero. Restaurants were out. But we did partake of the freegan lifestyle, eating bakery leftovers. Coffee was also verboten. There is no such thing as locally grown coffee—tragic for a girl who before going off the bean was averaging 20 shots of potent, iced espresso deliciousness every beautiful day. On my last run, I blew through a $25 Starbucks gift card in a single workday. Withdrawal was ugly.
But thanks in part to cutting out all my bad habits, within a month, my debt was gone. We ended up cutting our discretionary expenses by at least 50%—often more. Honestly, when my paycheck started loitering around in my checking account, it actually felt uncomfortable. From my journal: “I CANNOT get my bank balance down for the life of me. I spend Nothing. As in NOTHING.” Without knowing it, we were early adopters of what would become the new frugality. We even started giving away 10% of our money to charity.
The No Impact project also provided an opportunity to do a lifestyle redesign. In a nation of extreme commuters, mine was a micro-jaunt: Greenwich Village to Midtown Manhattan, 20 minutes door to door via subway. But Colin and I foreswore all modes of carbon-based transportation (except for BusinessWeek reporting trips). Not because we are against mass transit. But because the point of the project was to be radical: to go completely off the grid, drop out of the culture, and see what would emerge.
At first I walked the 40 blocks to and from my 750-square-foot nanoplex. But this was taking too much time away from my then 2-year-old. So I started to use a push scooter. The scooter itself became a workplace objet fixe. It was irresistible to my colleagues, who swiped it to vroom up and down the halls à la Romper Room. I had long been too tired—from not working out—to get to the gym to work out. But by exchanging my time on the subway for a self-propelled commute, I dropped 10 pounds; my new locavore diet didn’t hurt either. I had the energy of a supermom in my slacker mom’s body. My insomnia evaporated—the scooter was No Impact Ambien. My palate also began changing. The local food, though heavy on the parsnips, began to taste delicious. Three months in, I started getting through the day without the usual afternoon Dunkin’ Donuts high followed by the crash. The pastry mania and shame hangovers were gone. My pre-diabetic condition vanished.
Work was my fast life. Home was my slow life. No lights, no cell phones, no TV. I know it sounds like deprivation. But the truth is that when I opened the door to the No Impact house at night, I felt like I was walking into a vacation. The days felt like they lasted forever. No Impact was a great ritual destroyer. What I realized was that so many of my rituals were so bad for me (my health), for us (our bank account and all the family time lost to my scurrying off to shop), and for the environment. What I learned from No Impact was that there is a steep cost to supporting all your stuff. To a life devoted to getting and having. In my days of high consumption, I’d been searching for something. It turned out that it was right in my own home.
This article was originally posted at the No Impact Man blog.
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By Chloe Jo on July 16, 2009
Jean Kerr said; “I feel about airplanes the way I feel about diets. It seems to me that they are wonderful things for other people to go on” and yet fly we do… and diets we partake in. Because once you get to your destination (or dream weight) all the agitation, fear, and anticipation become excitement, thrill, and a victorious feeling of pure possibility.
Whether you are the type who maps out your itinerary months in advance, or you like to just hop over to a Foreign country with nothing but a backpack and a stash of condoms, most choose to fly to get to their chosen destination. Do you usually just grab the cheapest flight and book it? With airlines suffering in a questionable economy, and highly competitive rates available left and right, you can now choose not just a cheap fare, but a greener fare! Green America’s new airline comparisons will help you make informed choices when you must spend your money with an airline.
This site is helpful for answering questions like:
1. Which airline was fined $7.1 million in August 2008 for violating drug- and alcohol-testing protocols for its pilots and for flying aircraft that were not properly maintained?
2. Which airline ejected six Muslim clerics from a Minneapolis-to-Phoenix flight, subjecting them to handcuffing, detention, and questioning, after a fellow passenger told a flight attendant he was alarmed to have seen them praying before the flight?
3. Which airline was accused in 2007 by the AFL-CIO of distributing anti-union literature in an attempt to block 7,650 service employees at Newark Liberty International Airport from forming a union?
Of course, very little about the airline industry can be considered green in the first place.
Air travel is the worst way to get from here to there if you’re concerned about your carbon emissions, and the airlines are not stepping up to the plate to mitigate their impact. Each of the airlines rated at Responsible Shopper has been downgraded in the environmental category due to membership in the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which has aggressively lobbied against plans for carbon emissions trading systems and other attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the effects of global climate change.
With recycling, the results are just as bad. According National Resource Defense Council report, our country’s airlines throw away enough aluminum cans from in-flight beverages to build 58 Boeing 747 jets annually. Luckily each of Green America’s Responsible Shopper categories also include a “go green” link, with suggestions on how to take the greenest steps possible when you travel.
For example, Milwaukee-based Michael Bootzin, who manages the main stage at Green Festivals, has simply made the choice not to fly. Bootz has resolved to travel via Amtrak to each of Green America’s 2009 Green Festivals — in Chicago, Denver, and Seattle this past spring, plus San Francisco and Washington, DC coming up in the fall, and he couldn’t be happier about it. He uses the train trips to read, write, think, dream, and play guitar (with other passengers’ permission) in the dining car – a truly admirable travel style.
An Eco Option
“Train travel is usually cheaper and always more hassle-free than flying, plus the seats are roomier and you get the chance to see part of the country you might never otherwise have seen,” Bootz says. “That’s all before you even get to the massive difference in carbon footprint.”
When you choose to fly, consult Green America’s Responsible Shopper site for more on the airlines, and consider a carbon offset to mitigate the effects of flying. They published a guide to carbon offsets which can help you find the best ones.
Now, go ahead and check out where your favorite airline stands;
American Airlines »
British Airways »
Continental Airlines »
Delta »
Southwest Airlines »
United Airlines »
US Airways »
Virgin Atlantic Airways »
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By Brian Fassett on June 5, 2009
The collapse of General Motors this week has me reflecting on the American car culture and it’s influence in my life. Is it dead? What do cars mean to us, and how will that change? The automobile is so ubiquitous that we scarcely consider the affect it’s had beyond mere transportation. Over the past century, cars have changed where and how we live. They gave birth to suburbs and killed cities. Physical mobility fueled social mobility, enabling the growth of a powerful middle class. And this in turn created a potent and accessible image of the American Dream. Cars altered how we relate to one-another as drive-thrus and lonely commutes isolated us. And yet cars have become a profound symbol of freedom, deeply ingrained in our sense of self. One could be forgiven in thinking the Declaration of Independence promised, “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Open Roads.” Whatever the eventual fate of the automakers themselves, the fate of our relationship to cars is absolutely going to change. The new freedom will have to have bounds, which of course is a vexing oxymoron. This goes for General Motors and their short-term greed as much as it goes for people like me who have a long-standing love affair with gas-guzzlers and the great highway.
I first watched the world roll by from inside our fab ’67 Mercury station wagon. It had wood panel sides, the last vestiges of tail fins, and these cool hideaway rumble seats in the way back. This was my zone and as far back as I can remember, I was happy on the move. At ten, I’d sit for hours in my sister’s orange ’72 Volvo clunker, the garage door in front of me a movie screen of imagined landscapes. As my teen years came on, my impatience to drive grew excruciating. At home I made a show of crossing off days on my custom-made “cruise countdown” calendar. Meanwhile I was out bombing back roads in my buddy’s ’75 Monte Carlo. By the time I got my license, I’d been driving two years and had logged all the blacktop in the known universe. I can’t say what song was playing when I lost my virginity, but I can tell you that the Romantics’ “What I Like About You” was blasting the first time I drove alone legally.
My car was a 1970 Buick Sklylark. Originally my Dad’s, it became the teenager mobile as each of us hit 16. My older brother and sister had to compete for it, but I was far enough behind to have it all to myself. When I took it over I pimped it out, 80’s redneck style. I jacked it up and put on fat mag wheels and a rumbling duel exhaust. I built a console with a stereo, cup holders, and covered it in brown shag rug. I screwed a glass beer tap handle onto the gear shifter. Yeah, dude. I was all that, rolling into the gas station every few miles with loose pocket change. For the prom I borrowed my neighbor’s ’63 Caddy. My sister’s graduation present was one week with her cherry red convertible ’69 Firebird. I sucked the nectar from every leaded-gas mile.
Have mullet, will travel. Ready for the prom.
I wasn’t alone. Bruce Springsteen’s lyrics played an important early role in validating my wanderlust. It’s been joked that he can’t sing a song without mentioning cars. But he was speaking my language. “Well the night’s busting open these two lanes will take us anywhere. We got one last chance to make it real to trade in these wings on some wheels…”
Motorhead Mentors: Springsteen, Cassady
And so it wasn’t long before I found myself in motor mecca: Los Angeles. It was the mid-80’s and classic cars were still everywhere, not yet collector’s items. I picked up another Sklylark, a ’64, from a little old lady. Out west I found a whole new world to explore: deserts, redwoods, the Sierras, the twisting coastal highways. Wide open, made for cars. The freeways were peaceful to me in the middle of the night, flowing, never-ending, and I made a hobby of driving them till dawn. It was here, in a college lit class, where I met another guru of the gas pedal: Neil Cassady. His exploits behind the wheel were enshrined in Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road,” (and later as driver of the Merry Prankster’s bus). The fitful adventures of the Beats raised the art of driving to a mystical level for me. I ventured forth as the heir apparent of the hobo-poet church of the open road.
I’ve crisscrossed the country enough times that I’ve lost count, been through most of the lower 48 and Alaska, and slept under the stars in many of them. I’ve had an oddball collection of vehicles, four-wheeled and two. I feel fortunate to have done it in the era before cell phones, before debit cards, and long before GPS. But most of all, I’m glad to have experienced travel in the era before guilt.
As my consciousness of ecology has grown over the past decade, my concept of wastefulness has sharpened. I think twice about how I use things like paper, plastic, and electricity, but I also scrutinize my use of gasoline. A nagging voice has been riding shotgun for a few years now, judging every mile I drive. Hey, are we on an essential errand here or just selfishly joyriding? He reminds me that if I take the scenic route home I’m a planet-hater. For every drop of gas burned for my pleasure, there’s a drop of ice melting under a polar bear’s paw.
Eco-guilt is a subject of great fascination for me. At once it can be a positive force and a compulsive neurosis. I can walk through a mega-store and see a kaleidoscope of carbon-footprint stories swirling down each aisle until I’m dizzy. And now guilt has gone and clouded up the sacred view out my windshield.
But as much as I lament the loss of eco-innocence, of course I have to admit the nagging voice is absolutely right. We can’t act as though we’re isolated and our actions have no ripple consequences. Human disconnect is the exception, not the norm. The garden we’re trying to get back to is one of interdependence, not dominance. A garden where there is no waste.
Maybe there’s no redemption for my gas-guzzling, muscle-car sins. Maybe the point isn’t only better fuel efficiency – what if I get 500 miles per gallon with some futuristic ride but still take the winding road less traveled? Isn’t that still harmful? I don’t know the answer. If American car culture is defined by mindless waste, then indeed I welcome it’s death. But at the same time, if cars are reduced merely to joyless transportation pods for essential errands, then we risk killing the underlying freedom that cars enabled. No one wants to live a life of straight lines. We all need a little zig-zag in our path. We all need back roads.
Like me, the American car companies have been joyriding for decades. It’s hard to grasp just how tone-deaf they’ve been to why Japanese cars are so popular, starting with the ‘70’s oil crisis. They insisted it was a fluke. Meanwhile they foisted gas-guzzlers on us long after we knew their evils, all for short-term profits. They molded the American Dream into the macho SUV dream. They fought every attempt at regulations that would have been in their own long-term self-interest. Even the slightest suggestion of raising fuel standards brought cries of how impossible it would be to retool the plants. These are the same plants that completely retooled after Pearl Harbor, from cars to churning out planes in a matter of months. And now that we taxpayers own 60% of General Motors, let’s pray that long-term thinking may prevail. The trimmed-down companies need much higher fuel-efficiency standards. The factories that don’t make the cut need help retooling to manufacture green energy technology. And of course we need higher gas taxes to not only discourage big cars, but to discourage excess driving. Oh, but wait. That sounds a lot like I have to give up a few of my freedom miles. I suppose I can. Can you?
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