The No Impact Challenge: Just Say Yes!

Can you become rich just by changing the way you think? There's an entire sub genre of self help books dedicated to this premise, the best known being The Secret. The problem with The Secret -- well, OK, one problem with The Secret (there are others, but that's a discussion for another day) -- is that it promotes the fatally flawed equation that more stuff equals greater happiness.

What if the opposite is true? What if it turns out that true fulfillment comes from having less stuff, simplifying our lives, trading money spent badly for time spent well? That's the premise of the No Impact Project, the non-profit foundation that grew out of Colin Beavan's No Impact Man blog and book.

Admittedly, I'm closer to this project than most folks, both literally and figuratively; I live around the corner from Colin and share his passion for environmental issues. Like Colin, I believe we'd benefit from living a less fossil-fuelish way of life, whether by adopting alternative modes of transit, growing some of our own food, shopping secondhand, or turning off the TV and turning to each other for entertainment.

I wasn't always a fan. When Colin embarked on his year-long ecological experiment to see how far he, his wife Michelle Conlin, and their little girl Isabella, could go to lighten their 'carbon footprint,' I wrote him off as a shameless self-promoter. The long list of creature comforts the family gave up made the whole endeavor sound like a contrived reality TV drama about drastic deprivation.

But I defected from the anti-Colin camp early on, after encountering several folks who'd been genuinely inspired by the No Impact project. Colin turned out to be a compelling advocate for "engaged citizenship," a twofold approach to ecologically minded living that calls on us to act both individually and collectively to improve our own lives, our communities and the world beyond.

Colin and his family discovered the upside to downsizing; that real wealth accrues from cultivating relationships and resources, from spending time with friends and family, and developing skills that help you achieve self-sufficiency. If we invested in these intangible assets instead of accumulating more things, we'd amass a fortune that couldn't be wiped out by fires, floods, market meltdowns, or any other disaster, man made or natural.

Of course, this would undermine our consumer driven economy, which relies on keeping us in a state of perpetual dissatisfaction in order to sell us all that stuff we don't need. So it's kind of heretical to suggest that we flee the mall and seek refuge at the Church of Life After Shopping.

But, as Michael Moore so aptly documents in Capitalism: A Love Story, a society that permits a wealthy few to prosper at the expense of the rest of us is a morally bankrupt culture that impoverishes us all. And can we really justify burning through nearly 25% of the world's resources when we're just 5% of the population? How can we tell folks in India and China that they can't drive everywhere and eat meat three times a day just like we do?

By hopping off the consumer treadmill and living more mindfully, Colin and his family have sparked a national discussion about our way of life and the things we choose to value. And now, Huffington Post's asking you to join this crucial conversation by participating in the inaugural No Impact Week challenge. Starting today, October 18th, and continuing through the 24th, we're encouraging you to share Colin's experiment with low impact living and become an environmentally engaged citizen.

The No Impact project asks you to rethink a particular area of your life each day, beginning today with consumption. Tomorrow, it's on to trash, then transportation, food, energy, water, and community involvement. The No Impact Project guide is full of great resources, relevant links and helpful tips for each category. Your fellow No Impact participants will offer virtual support and share their own adventures and experiments over the course of the week. Us Huffington Post Green page bloggers will be giving our take on each day's chosen topic, too.

I've signed up for this "carbon cleanse" and it's my sincere hope that you will, too. What better way to flush the toxins of contagious consumerism out of your system? The No Impact Project can empower you, help you connect with your fellow citizens and counter what author Barbara Ehrenreich calls the "empathy deficit" -- the disconnected, self-absorbed mindset sanctioned by The Secret and other advocates of the new-agey narcissism that conflates net worth with self worth.

Ehrenreich appeared last week on the Daily Show to promote her new book, Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. She bemoaned our tendency to offer glib exhortations to "think positive" in lieu of becoming actively engaged in addressing the crises that confront us. Ehrenreich suggested that we "...try to see what's happening in the world and figure out what you can do to change it if it's going wrong."

Well, when it comes to our environment, plenty of things are going wrong. You know it, too. It's enough to make you want to curl up into a defensive, defeated little ball of doom and gloom. The climate change experts are even admitting that their worst case scenarios may have been too rosy. What can one person possibly do, at this point?

A lot, as it happens. Join us for No Impact Week and you'll find out that there are plenty of choices you can make that do matter. And you won't be making them alone; you'll be part of our community of carbon cutters. Let the No Impact Guide be your low impact life coach. Once you reevaluate your needs and wants, you might just discover, as Colin and his family did, that you're a lot richer than you think.

Follow Kerry Trueman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kerrytrueman

Comments

[SonofLiberty1]

Use Good Outdoor Lighting! Remember that the light should go Down and not horizontally in your eyes or vertically into the sky.

Here's what I mean:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/resources/darksky/Good_Neighbor_Outdoor_Lighting.html

[x76]

So in other words, the hippies were right. Always thought so. Thanks for confirming that notion.

[noneIn2008]

The #1 problem is consumerism. Just look at the ads on the right. Want to make a change, don't buy anything you see advertised.

[lastpost]

“Can you become rich just by changing the way you think?”

Doesn’t that depend on what, in an individual’s rendition of reality, constitutes “rich”.

”What if the opposite is true?”

What if it was never intended that one size would fit all?

Of course, if this was a democracy, the majority of the people might demand that we did not produce rubbish that we could not process and dispose of efficiently and effectively. Or import items whose component materials could not be recovered, when that item’s usefulness was at an end. Attending to what is happening at the front end of the machine, might ensure that things run smoother all the way through that apparatus.

[Vickster]

I've been doing my best to follow a low-impact way of life (as opposed to "lifestyle") since 1983. Alas, there are times when I look at the crap modern Americans are now consuming and wonder if it was all for nothing.

[Entitlement]

I commute just under 20 miles a day by bicycle when I'm in my workweek. My weight has dropped. My blood pressure is down. My blood sugar is back to the normal range. My resting pulse rate is just above dead (it can be in the upper 40 bpm range). I save on gas. I make my lunch. I estimate that I save at least $25 per day between gas and meals. It is likely much higher when other things are figured into the equation. I ride by the traffic jams. Ironically, the time differential between driving and riding is only a factor of 15 to 20 minutes. When I'm home, I've ridden off the adrenalin from the day. I feel the wind. I enjoy the day even when there is weather. I'm getting so addicted that when I do use a vehicle, I drive with the window down to feel the breeze on my face.

Unfortunately, it's really dangerous. I got hit by a car last year. It took a few months to heal up. I don't care. I'm back riding again. I use a hybrid bicycle that combines the best of the road bike and mountain bike attributes for city riding. I get to eat what I want, but I also tend to eat better because I crave good food instead of comfort food. Rock On!

[Angie Cordeiro - Huffpost Blogger]

Right On!

"Live Simply so that others may Simply Live"

I'm s0oo with you in regards to riding my bike EVERYWHERE; now I find riding in or driving a car rather unsettling and the observable aggression factor of those drivers "behind the wheel" becomes extremely obvious.

[RMankovitz]

In the food arena, I continued eating "The Original Diet", which sustained our ancestors for 100,000 generations. Here are the reasons.

Pasture fed (not grain fed) animals require no fertilizer (self-fertilizing), no pesticides, and no irrigation. Pastured animals can thrive on land unsuitable for cultivation, increasing overall yield per acre. Existing grain-fed animal, vegetarian, and vegan diets are ecologically unsustainable and require lots of artificial and toxic chemicals.

Cow manure from animals raised on a natural diet (grass) and untreated with antibiotics or hormones is not only non-toxic, but actually has antibiotic properties and is the perfect fertilizer.

Because the "The Original Diet" does not require the use of artificial fertilizers or pesticides (both derived from fossil fuel); or diesel fuel to run agricultural machinery to plow, cultivate and harvest; or artificial irrigation (fossil fuel powered pumps); or GM seeds, it arguably has the lowest ecological footprint of any diet.

This diet is completely independent of farms and all of the agricultural machinery that destroys topsoil and kills millions of ground-living animals. It eliminates the need for any of the products produced by the pesticide, fertilizer, and GM AgriGiants, or the need for feed-lots, egg-breeders, or dairy farms.

This diet does not use anything made by Deere, Caterpillar, Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland, Syngenta, Dean Foods, Heinz, Nestle, Kraft, General Mills, Betty Crocker, Kellogg, Nabisco, Stonyfield, Yoplait, ConAgra, Cargill, etc.

Roy Mankovitz, Director
http://www.MontecitoWellness.com

[classicalgeek]

I have just one quibble with this: you can use the techniques in The Secret to help you declutter your life as well. Have pictures of neat, minimalist, organized spaces, small cars, sewing corners, organic vegetable gardens, etc. It doesn't have to be just about stuff. Those techniques are a tool and can be used for good or ill. A hybrid car can be used to drive to the car lot to buy an SUV, or drive children to a litter cleanup day. :)