No Impact Project Week: Participate With Huffington Post October 18th
To Sign Up For HuffPost's No Impact Week, Click Here!
How do I make a difference?
We've all asked ourselves this. When we think about what we can do as individuals, especially related to the state of increasingly urgent environmental concerns, the idea that one person can change anything is difficult to imagine. With political and corporate forces getting in the way of large-scale change, the task is daunting. We think the first step is to get some perspective on the impact we're already having.
Enter No Impact Man. We first heard about Colin Beavan and his No Impact Project around the time many others did -- when the New York Times did a feature on him and his family's efforts to live with no environmental impact in New York City for a year. Our reaction: intriguing, innovative and seemingly a bit kooky.
As we learned more about Colin, and saw No Impact Man, the documentary film and read his book of the same title, about his family's year-long experiment, we were downright inspired. The documentary follows the Beavans' journey as they incrementally lowered their impact through phases, such as making no trash, only eating food grown within 250 miles, using no carbon producing transportation (not even the subway!) and finally, no electricity in their home. By year's end their impact was down to nearly zero.
The drama between Colin and Michelle mirrors the drama that plays out in many of our lives -- as Americans so many of us have that side that loves buying something new, drinking Starbucks and watching guilty pleasures on television. And while we might not be as extreme as No Impact Man, we simultaneously desire to do the right thing environmentally and to make choices that will benefit those around us. This is an opportunity to explore the latter.
The process of breaking consumer habits and rethinking everything from what food you eat to how you get to work can have unexpected benefits -- it was inspiring to watch the Beavan family discover this. Instead of living a life of desperate deprivation, the Beavans found that subtracting the non-essentials made life fuller -- they were happier, healthier, spent more time with each other and friends, slowed down the frenetic pace of city life, spent more time outside, saved lots of money and found it all incredibly enriching. Colin goes into more detail about his family's year in his book, No Impact Man, which gives an inside look at what motivated Colin and how they pulled it off.
We wanted to have that experience ourselves. And we wanted our readers to have it, too.
HuffPost Green and HuffPost's Eyes & Ears Citizen Journalism Initiative are thrilled to announce that we are partnering with the No Impact Project, a non-profit started by Colin Beavan, to bring our readers the first No Impact Week. This week will give people the opportunity to examine and reduce their ecological footprint by taking part in a short and intense period of conscious consumption supported by local and online communities.
For the inaugural No Impact Week, which we will be hosting, the No Impact Project has created a detailed guide -- which we'll post soon -- that describes in detail how to go about reducing your ecological impact one day at a time. No, not everyone has to completely give up their cars and shut off their power; the guide gives many achievable levels of reducing your footprint and you can pick the goals that are right for you.
We'd like to invite you to do this week with us (Sign up here!). Starting on October 18th, we want all types of people of all political persuasions across the world to take part. Throughout the week we'll be having HuffPost bloggers write about their experiences, and we'll invite the community to report by sending in photos, videos and commentary. We will also have a Twitter stream using the hashtag #nipweek and a Facebook group for people to connect to us and each other as they take the No Impact challenge. You can also follow the No Impact Project on Twitter for tips during the No Impact Week.
The No Impact Project will also be providing how-to content, video discussions with Colin and ways for participants to engage and connect with one another on its website.
During the week, HuffPost and No Impact Project will work together to provide a robust platform for for you to engage with other participants by sharing photos and stories of your experience. But we also recommend that you do this week with a local community. Invite your family, your school dorm, your spiritual community or your office to embark on the week together. The Huffington Post offices will be doing it with you. Your local community will be the people who can brainstorm with you on how to reduce the trash you create, they'll be the ones you carpool with, share ideas for places to buy locally grown food, and most importantly, provide a support network for the experience. We hope to create a global community through our technology for sharing your experience, but it always helps to have someone there in person as well -- It will make it even more fun.
Sign up here to join the shared HuffPost and No Impact Project mailing list and to learn more about the project. Tell your friends, family and coworkers and get ready.
Get HuffPost Green/Eyes&Ears On Face/book and Twit/ter!
Follow Matthew Palevsky on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mpalevsky
Follow Colin Beavan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/noimpactman
Follow Katherine Goldstein on Twitter: www.twitter.com/KGeee
Arianna Huffington: HuffPost's "No Impact Week": Small Steps, Big Results
HuffPost's No Impact Week is a project we've launched together with Colin Beavan -- aka "No Impact Man." The goal is to demonstrate ways in which small actions in our daily lives can have a profound impact on our world.
No Impact Man: The No Impact Experiment
No Impact Project » The No Impact Experiment
"No Impact Man": The Movie Everyone Is Talking About (VIDEO)
Jerusha Klemperer: No Impact Man and the Pursuit of Happiness
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http://www.1010uk.org/
Reduce 10% by 2010
I started reducing my impact years ago, as a way of needing to make less money to "earn my keep" as a human being - I honestly believe that I save more of my "keep" than I currently earn....and if our economy is to return to supporting lives instead of profits, that is how it should be for all individuals, families, and households. I'll just show how dramatically I've altered my lifestyle so that the following is just a matter of course. I've almost finished the last of the last can of coffee I purchased to make at home, so I tried out a new way to get my first energy of the day going.Think of it as "The New Commuter Breakfast." I washed and tore up some turnip greens and put them in one of my reused plastic bags (this one originally held pita bread), and did the same with a couple handfuls of walnuts and raisins (in a bag that originally held shredded cheese). I packed up my netbook and papers I'd be needing in my rolling backpack and set off fwalking or the public library where I get the wireless free because I don't get a private connection at home. Can you spot all the carbon and other savings in that. Although from the point of view of the industrial growth economy, I may not be earning my keep, from a planetary life perspective, I really am saving it.
ps:
regarding recycling garbage:
I read somewhere that, in Japan, they sort refuse into approx. 40 categories, all recycled~
Great project!
Every tiny thing helps, even something as easy as turning off the lights upon leaving a room.
Unplug your toothbrush, router, computer, coffee maker, etc.... when you're not immediately using them.
Try not to use the clothes dryer. Dry clothes outside or hanging on a rack or bannister or hangers inside!
While a lovely idea, some of us DRIVE mass transit for a living, how do we go about that little proviso of giving up driving? Or do I get credit for driving others? Oh and our buses don't work in the middle of the night, so I have to drive my personal vehicle to work on the other side of town, so does this negate the bonus points for driving others? And no, biking to work not an option, as our streets/bridges are not equipped for that and neither are the drivers (scary stuff).
Rather than whine, why not just try to do something.....anything....that will help preserve the planet for your kids.
Ideas:
Buy all 100% recycled paper products, and only buy products that have recycleable packaging. Recycle and compost. Call your utility and get an energy audit. Change all your lightbulbs, inside and outside, to CFL's. Replace your toilet with a low-flow model. Eat one or two meatless meals each week. Dry your clothes on a rack rather than use the dryer. Buy local produced food when possible. Install power strips and turn them off at night. Read a book rather than watch TV a couple of nights each week.
OK...there are some ideas. Choose a couple and try them out. And stop whining. That will get you nowhere.
Well, you are making a contribution by making it possible for the rest of NOT to drive. So, thank you! Y
how quaint...
...but if millions of people did what they are doing....it would no longer be "no impact".
Living in Houston has limited our attempts to do our part for the enviroment.When we still had our house in a upscale subdivision for a while there was the recycle pick-up.Later it stopped so we carried our cans,plastic and paper to the large containers at few drops in the area. We lost our house and now even our car. We live in a tiny apartment on a busline,so trying to save all that accumulates really fast.There is no pick-up here for recycling .So I put an ad on the Craigslist if anybody would like to at least pick-up the cans (My husbands only bad habit,Diet cola). YOu would not believe the nasty replies I got. Most people thought I was trying to sell it! Even though I specifically wrote pick-up free cans for recycling save-the-earth reasons only! One guy thought it was pathetic and was going to send me five bucks and told me to dump it in the trash.
I did get one of the residents to load it in his old car and take it to the drop-off.
Hats off to you for your effort. Hope you find a way to prevail.
I visited someone in an affluent area in florida recently. They have curbside recycle pickup and they don't even have to sort it (don't have to separate plastic, paper, metals etc--just all the recycles in one blue bin). I noticed that many folks don't even bother - they just put out the one trash bin (full of lots that could have been recycled.). Sad. But most of the residents in that area are of a different generation, and perhaps don't value it.
I suspect that many who protest and screech about global warming don't bother to do anything themselves--they think it's a government problem.
We have trash and blue bin pickup. Our blue bins are also anything recyclable bins. And the list of accepted recyclables is expanded every year.
Both of my parents will be 80 soon. They have adjusted and now use the blue bin for what can be recycled. I never got them to collect cans and take them to a recycler for money, but they do collect them and put them in the blue bin.
As for the different generation. Nope. It's laziness and indifference. No incentive, either as a reward or a punishment. And yes, they see no value in it and so there is no self motivation.
About the most significant impact an American has on his/her carbon footprint is reproducing, so though we work at home, and are trying to grow as much of our own food as we can, the most significant reduction in our footprint is remaining childless. There are no carbon footprint calculators I have found that reflect this, ironically, the way most are designed, the more you reproduce, the greener you are.
From a LiveScience article linked below:
"Under current conditions in the United States, for instance, each child ultimately adds about 9,441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of an average parent – about 5.7 times the lifetime emissions for which, on average, a person is responsible."
http://www.livescience.com/environment/090803-children-carbon-footprint.html
that surely depends on what kind of lifestyle parents and children are leading.
you might as well say that the earth would be better of if there were no humans. true, but most of us don't want to cease the human race.
Proponents of curbing over population aren't suggesting ending the human race.
We're trying to save the human race.
Interesting; I wasn't aware that some footprint calculators made it seem as if you were you more green if you had more children - how utterly stu.pid. ...This explains (what I thought inexplicable) why some people I had a dialogue with actually believed that their lifestyle with lots of children actually meant they were greener than if they didn't have the children. When pushed, their argument was essentially that more people living in one household is greener than those same people living independently of one another. ...These people clearly weren't using their intellectual capacity... I am, however, glad to know there may have been some external "authority" that gave them that du.mb idea in the first place.
.
I just put up solar panels and bought an electric car. Fossil fuel consumption cut by 2/3 and I'm not sacrificing with any lifestyle changes at all. Ultimately I'm saving money on electricity and gasoline.
I think giving people this message that they have to give up everything modern and live like it's the 18th century is the wrong way to go. We want people to join in, not drive them away from the movement.
I can not wait for GM to build the Volt. Up to 40 miles on only electricity. Hopefully the price point will be low enough.
I've been working on this for years in the style of old-school conservationism. One of the aspects that's always glossed over is just how much money you can save--and that can be a great motivator.
I have a garden and am slowly replacing my landscaping with herbs and berry bushes--lower food bills/healthier food.
I have a rain barrel for watering the plants--lower water bills, better water for the plants AND an emergency source of water (don't drink without filtering and boiling though!)
I walk wherever I go when it's reasonable, and sometimes even when it isn't!--Less money spent on gas, better health, better frame of mind, happier dog!
I purchase in bulk and try to make it mostly local--better for the local economy, and I practically have a supermarket in my basement. If I don't feel like going to the store, I don't have to. Also a great buffer for dramatic, temporary price increases.
My "houseplants" are lettuces and herbs. Useful AND healthy. I often give friends gifts of these--cheap, practical and always appreciated.
It's actually a very fun hobby and practical in so many ways.
Did you know that rain barrels are illegal in Colorado? It's so California, Arizona, and Nevada can have swimming pools and casinos...
Good - I will be celebrating also
One whole week
day one toss some hickory on the smoker with a nice big pork shoulder (16 hrs to smoke)
day two eat it w/15 of my neighbors whilst prepping for the day three meal mesquite smoked whole leg of lamb. (7 hrs to smoke).
This will be a yummy week.
We must cut our volume of fossil fuels. The solution if for the masses to quit using energy. Everybody that is nobody must sacrifice. Yes, you will wear sweaters in the daytime and experience near freezing temeratures at night. Or you will swelter in the day light and sweat in a mosquito filled room at night. Let's go do it.
Let's pause for a moment. What about our robber barrons and other citizens of ill-gotten wealth of 20 million dollar ocean liners and mansions? Will they sacrifice? Will they pay more taxes to support energy pollution remedies? Will they turn their furnaces down and bathe in cold water?
And where are all those job creating programs that furnish breakthroughs in science and technology that afford a reasonalbe standard of living without destroying our air, land and water? My solution: Put to work a couple milion unemployed workers to design clean energy producing systems at a reasonable cost. Then we wouldn't need suffocate and freeze and revert to manual labor to make ends meet. And we might still save the planet and ourselves.
"My solution: Put to work a couple milion unemployed workers to design clean energy producing systems at a reasonable cost."
It's a good idea, but it's not exactly a solution yet. It needs some meat on the bones. For example, for any particular clean energy project, there will be a high-employment phase (construction) and a lower employment phase (normal operation). That needs careful management, or we could end up creating boom-bust cycles, as we've seen before in the energy industry.
In any case, we're getting there. According to the Worldwatch Institute, America had about 200,000 people directly employed in the renewable energy industry in 2006, and 246,000 employed indirectly. ( http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5821 )
JMB
I applaud the Beavans, but I draw the line at no electricity. Electricity is the modern form of fire, our most basic tool, and I refuse to do without it. We don't need to do without it. We can have no-impact, or at least very low impact energy, and we've already begun the transition. Of course, we can certainly help the process by not using more electricity than we need.
That being said, this sounds like an interesting project. I'm a big fan of microgeneration, so I hope to see some ideas along those lines.
JMB
Unfortunately, I can't take a week off from work. And if I walk, I'd have to leave at 3 am and wouldn't get home until 7 pm.
I generate my own electricity with PV panels. Does that help?
We are providing different levels of participation so that not everyone has to go to the extreme like No Impact Man. We're asking people to cut back to the extent that they can, which might mean that you carpool to work instead of driving alone.
I hope you'll join us.
Unfortunately I work at two different locations and I'm so new I don't know anyone that could or would be willing to carpool for the day or two I go to that site.
I am agressively brownbagging with a reuseable bag, tupperware etc. No trash. And no meat.
Did I mention that I own a recycling washer? Yep. I can recycle the water from one load of laundry without losing cleaning ability. (Consumer Reports says so.) And I line dry. But I will not do laundry that week.
"I generate my own electricity with PV panels. Does that help?"
It made me a fan. ;)
I've been playing with some wind turbine ideas. Texas seems to be a perfect place for a wind-solar hybrid system.
JMB
I'd love to get a wind turbine for the evening breezes we get, but it will be a few years down the road. Cost and design issues.
My current car is a Prius, but my next car will be electric. I'll just throw a few more PV panels on the roof.
Cool.
Really. What a great excuse to camp out for a week drinking beer and shooting the breeze.
Don't forget to recycle the cans!
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