The No Impact Man Effect

This guy Colin Beavan's year-long experiment going über green is fascinating to me, both for how extreme he went with it and, too, that he managed pulling it off in New York City. I don't know why exactly that would matter any more than someplace else, it just seems to me that where all things are so readily gettable it might be particularly hard bucking temptation. At the start of it, he said:

"For one year, my wife, my 2-year-old daughter, my dog and I, while living in the middle of New York City, are attempting to live without making any net impact on the environment. In other words, no trash, no carbon emissions, no toxins in the water, no elevators, no subway, no products in packaging, no plastics, no air conditioning, no TV, no toilets…"

Could just be my own lack of self-discipline is why it impresses me; I couldn't go so far as what they did even from out here in the country. I'm quite certain at some point I'd cave to a trip into town for some non-green thing, like toilet paper maybe. But they managed giving up even that, right there in the Big Apple.

I had wanted to see the No Impact Man documentary he made about the experience (trailer down there ↓) but everywhere I checked for it online today it had been removed, copyright claptrap. I hate it when I'm too late to take advantage of others' violations. FYI, once I blogged about wanting to see a different movie and a few days later it showed up in my mailbox from an anonymous reader. I'm just sayin'.

I really want to read the book at some point, too, maybe the library here has it, but I doubt it. I did pick up reading his blog when I first heard of him sometime last year, probably not so different than the book actually. I like the way he started it off toward the beginning of the experiment, though, with his first post,

"I am just a liberal schlub who got sick of not putting my money where my mouth was. In a way, the whole project is a protest against my highly-principled, lowly-actioned former self. I’m fumbling through, trying to do my best and doing the research as I go along."

Maybe not going so radical or for so long a time as they did, but surely there's something to be learned from his and his brood's ordeal, revelation about this or that what we don't even consider effecting our own carbon footprint. Left without the book and the movie (so far anyway), for me his blog has been a worthwhile read.

Every now and then being more attentive, just occasionally rethinking how we might do a singular thing, could make a better difference; one doesn't necessarily have to be totally nutjob about it. For example, I myself am still buying toilet paper. "Liberal schlub" I might also be, but I'm posolutely not that much of a wackadoodle.