apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

It continues to drive me completely batty that this project is called "No Impact MAN" when there were clearly two people, one of whom is female, engaged in this project. Just sayin'.

What would they do if they needed to travel a significant distance now that they've cut out flying? Teleport?

I'm with you, Jezebella.

... and a child too. But I totally admire the effort.

Good point, Jezebella! I just figured it was his idea and she was just a really good sport.

I believe it is called 'No Impact Man' because of marketing purposes. It is quite catchy if you hear it a couple of times in a couple of different places. Let's not let a relatively futile gender dispute get in the way of a great way to open the eyes of millions of people on the 'impact' we all make every year! When people are interested they'll know that Michelle is just as much a part of it as Colin.

"relatively futile gender dispute" - there speaks male privilege.

Why do you need a water filter to be no-impact? I'm honestly curious. How does buying gadgets that will need care, accessories, replacement, etc. fit in with using the minimum which would seem to be, in an American city, the perfectly adequate tap-water, perhaps left out to dechlorinate, or boiled?

It might not be AWESOME but surely its good enough?

@Jezebella et al., normally I'd be with you but I've been reading his blog for years now. Of course Michelle and little Isabella participated a lot, but it's primarily Colin's project. He thought it up and it has been his full-time job (Michelle kept her job at BusinessWeek). He writes the blog daily (3? years now), spent many days volunteering with local environmental groups, and did tons of research. And of course, he wrote the book. And now he's started http://noimpactproject.org

What about "No Impact Fam"?. just sayin.

The "man" part is fairly offensive, even to me and I'm a man. She and the kid had to live in a hot, fly-filled NY apt, too. But, God love 'em. It made them some money and they survived it. But, why only a year? Is it because nobody can really live like this in today's North American society w/o making it a full time job? Great for novelty, but not much practical to learn that we don't already know.

"Stop flying". How would he suggest we visit family? Shall I walk from NYC to northern Michigan? Surely driving all that way can't be any better than flying...

he could not have done it without his wife, so No Impact Fam should have been the title, but since he seems like an "all about me" type of guy...

Quiltmaster: He only did it for a year, but there are people who live like this all the time. Check out Dancing Rabbit, a planned eco-community that lives off the grid.

"Colin convinced his wife to embark with him on a year-long experiment"

To everyone going on about gender inequalities, it sounds like this was his idea. His idea = his title. If it was her idea, it would be her title.

Here's my issue with this that is my same feeling now as it was from back when he started. (Besides the "Man" thing ... Who cares if it was his idea? If his family has to do it too, they should be included in the title.)

If he had simply decided, "hey ... I'm sick of electricity and all this stuff" and gave it all up for good, I'd probably read it. But giving it up for a set time-span (here a year) is just a gimmick. A look-what-I-can-do-for-a-book-deal stunt. Like any of these gimmicks these days (baking everything in a cookbook, then writing about it, etc.) it's too phony for me to take it seriously.

Not saying it was an easy year for his family to do this - so I applaud that - and adapting many of these things into our lives is great. But many people just DO these things in their lives - no packaging, no AC, taking stairs only, traveling only via bike, etc. and don't have to make a big stunt out of it. If he had gotten to the end of the year and decided to go without the stuff for good, that would be noteworthy also.

Which is what bothers me on a bigger level. What has happened to our authenticity of living? It's as if people are constantly making their everyday choices based on what would make a good blog stunt or youtube video. Perhaps it's because I grew up in the middle of amish country and watched that community going about their lives happily with little fuss since forever, but this all just reeks of phoniness to me. I'd rather read about the people mentioned above who live off the grid full-time (without it being their job to do so.)

I will say, though, the one that irks me more than this one, is the guy living a year or whatever with only 100 things (although also with tons of things he doesn't count in those 100 things). Ugh.

The NYT review of the movie pretty much nailed my take on it:

"“No Impact Man,” however, is not really an eco-documentary. There are plenty of those. But there are not many films that so unsparingly (if also, perhaps, inadvertently) expose the confused power dynamics of a certain kind of modern middle-class marriage. Whatever else he is doing, Mr. Beavan is, by laying down a new and draconian set of household laws, dramatically asserting his own authority in the domestic sphere. A thoroughly modern dad, who does most of the cooking and dishwashing and whose wife goes off each day to work in the offices of BusinessWeek, he is a paragon of sensitive patriarchy."

Whatever works for them and different strokes for different folks and all, but Beavan sounds like an insufferable crapweasel.

Ha! Thanks, fiatlex, for the link. I think I'll stay far away from this film. Nice to see A.O. Scott has the same annoyance with these concepts as I do. "Full-fledged publishing genre", indeed.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2009/08/31/090831crat_atlarge_kolbert?currentPage=all

Guess I must be out of touch, because I had never heard of No Impact Man until I read this critical take by Elizabeth Kolbert's in the New Yorker... she pulls no punches.

Crapweasel pretty much sums him up.

Thank you for the mention for Food & Water Watch, we appreciate it! Readers may also be interested in checking our homage to No Impact Man. Our Water Challenge empowers two of our staff members to reduce their own water use and to blog about their experiences: http://bit.ly/9Iq3x

I think it's a real shame that folks are focusing on the name of this project rather than what Colin and his family are achieving. The experiment was to last a year during which time he would (and did) share his difficulties and triumphs on his blog. The idea was (and is) that he would discover which aspects of this life to continue beyond the time period of the experiment. If you read his book and his blog you'll learn that he's continued to practice most of what he tried during the year of his experiment.

He's inspired many people to try to live a lower-impact lifestyle by his example. Being exposed to the many aspects of his lifestyle that he changed have been helpful to me in reducing the resources I use on a daily basis.

One more thought: I think people look too much at the "messenger" instead of the concepts he's trying to relay. Is it simply too threatening to our way of life to consider using less and being conscious of what we do use?

Seriously, folks, if you use less stuff you spend less money; if you drive less/take the elevators less, you get into better shape. Isn't that what most people want?

Sorry to add to the glut of cynicism, but his entire Manhattan existence is financed by his wife's job at BusinessWeek. This enabled him to take on the project without a full-time job. At the very root their lifestyle is not sustainable nor attainable by most people.

Colin and his wife really inspired me to look at my life and come up with the resolve to have LESS of an impact.

I cannot eradicate it completely, but I can make conscious, eco-friendlier choices instead.

Curious, anyone get an answer on how he blogs without electricity? Did he go to his office to blog and use electricity there?

Did that go against his No Impact rules seeing as he did.. technically, use electricity?

It's not crazy to eliminate flying from your life. When I go from Boston to Virginia to see my family, I take the Greyhound. I've done the same to Michigan and Tennessee.

Not using the subway, though, is nuts. When you have an immensely efficient system, you might as well use it.

"One more thought: I think people look too much at the "messenger" instead of the concepts he's trying to relay."

Um, get an upper-middleclass spouse comfortable with me neither working nor caring for our child? It's all so clear and attainable now I don't know why I didn't think of it. Surely this is in reach of the average American.

I don't understand the fridge good/freezer bad thing. Is it because they don't ever have to worry about shopping ahead or bargains or anything? I don't understand the water filter. I don't understand fetishizing buying things in small batches, which is less efficient, requires more packaging, and greater fuel use to transport, as well as more trips up and down all those stairs.

I think he does "less impact" a disservice by presenting it as doable only with wads of cash.

@JosieDaisy: Interestingly enough, Colin and his wife saved a TON of money by living this way. In a recent article she wrote for Business Week she said she paid off her credit card the first month into the experiment because she stopped buying stuff. If you buy non-packaged stuff that's not processed, you save a lot of money over the other stuff. They're buying small quantities because they aren't driving, but riding their bikes. So there is no more packaging involved because there was none to begin with.

I do think you might want to visit his blog to see what he's saying. Yes, he happens to be privileged enough to have the opportunity to take stock of his life and challenge the assumptions we've all grown up with -- and decided consciously to do things differently.

My point was that they saved money in part because their starting point was so high. But to be fair to them, you're right, they did save some money, and that is relevant to some peoples' lifestyles. (Bless them) If they help those people, its fair to say I'm just not the market and maybe my own worldview is too different to appreciate it.

I don't drive either, I generally walk with some public transit in there too - I find it more useful to buy 20-40 lbs. of stuff at a time and not have to be back at the store every two days, but that's me, and to be fair, I use a freezer.

It does make me think though. I suppose it does a service even if it only sets me to thinking of ways a working-class person could approach the same/similar goals.

Sorry if I came across as vitrolic - I'm not shooting the whole ideal down.

I find it interesting the "anger" towards this lovely family and their project. First of all the use of "Man" in the name No Impact Man is based on the idea of a superhero, a catchy title. No more no less, simply that.
And as for this project requiring "wads of cash" - quite wrong! My family lives in this manner for the most part, sans loads of money, in a tiny little apartment. It is our choice, much as it is the choice of the No Impact Family, (which I do believe they refer to themselves as!) They bring to the attention of regular people, examples of how we can all live less impactfully. They never suggest that WE have to do what they did, but they send a message, a meaningful and important one. They are not self righteous. They are gracious and kind people, who got a lot of press for what they are doing. See the movie, read the book - get educated about the people behind the project.
Is it wrong to have an idea that generates interest and creates an income?
Why the slamming? Really, think about that for a moment.

agreed marylouwho.

amazing how much vitriol there is toward the project. i live in Central Los Angeles and found that i could apply much of what Beavan accomplished to my own life. my husband and i have very meager incomes and live very simply as a result.. applying "no-impact" principles is possible (and sensible). i had an opportunity to see him at a talk and he came across as caring, generous and informed -- hardly self-righteous or high-horsed. Just an individual, trying to make a difference.

if any of you had actually read the book, you would know that it was meant to be radical. while using public transportation is preferred to driving a car, the point of his project was to abstain from carbon-emitting forms of transportation. you could go so far to claim that producing the bike on which he rode ALSO produced carbon... but, really. The only thing you're proving is your own ignorance and inability (unwillingness) to change.

To all the naysayers, feminists, et al... fear (and in this case, ignorance) makes strangers out of those who would be friends.