rudderless

Treehugging Tuesday

John treated me to a one-child morning last week and Rosy and I watched the No Impact Man documentary. We first read about Colin Beaven and his project three (3!) years ago when he attempted the No-Impact Year, aka The Year Without Toilet Paper, with his wife and daughter. I think like most people who read the story, we were excited about the statement he was attempting to make, and also a bit skeptical of his motives- was it simply a stunt to gain publicity and a book deal? Watching the film made me convinced that Colin has nothing but good intentions. He’s an optimist, an activist, an idealist. He admits that the extremes he and his family went to (living without electricity for 6 months, not taking the elevator to their 9th floor apartment, despite having a DOG that needed to be walked many times a day) were not meant to be replicated on a large scale. It WAS a publicity stunt; a publicity stunt for change. If we all did a tiny bit of what he did (and continues to do, on some level), we’d perhaps be a happier, cleaner, healthier society. As he says in the film, it’s not about using as little as you possibly can, it’s about using what you need in a sustainable way.

I really enjoyed the film, especially the “macro” bits, where he visits the hazmat dumps in the Bronx that are poisoning local kids, and suggests that beyond NO impact, he’d like to make a positive impact- imagine if we all took less from the environment, but worked to actually improve it! He begins to address the erosion in community- the loss of interconnectedness and this notion that our choices have no effect on our neighbors, not to mention our children and grandchildren. That’s the part I’m interested in. The idea that YOUR trash makes me sick.

Here are some links:
The No-Impact Project with its “carbon cleanse” week. I like his PDF How-Tos and the way the week is set up. He doesn’t ask you to go cold turkey (his family didn’t- they phased in new stages over the course of their No-Impact year), but rather to reflect on one piece of the puzzle each day.

The No-Impact man blog. The bits from 2007, when they were in the throes of the project, are the most compelling.

His bike. I WANT a rickshaw. So enormously cool. I have my Mamabikeorama sticker on my bike. But imagine the possibilities on this thing.

When I get down on the green stuff, biking around thinking we’re such a drop in the bucket (seriously, what I wouldn’t give to see one more family, ONE more family biking around the Keys on a regular basis), I see things like this and realize that there is a movement underway. There is community. I try to remember the small stuff people are doing: the neighbors are recycling more, so many of my friends are using cloth diapers, look at all the organic milk on the supermarket shelf! There are things to celebrate, just as there is still so much more to be done.

Happy Treehugging Tuesday.
ps- John got 47 mpg on his last tank in the TDI. We had a cocktail to celebrate that little bit of sustainable practice.