Today is a day for some practical living details on our No Impact lifestyle, answering questions that have come in comments and private emails, and mentioning a couple of news stories that are kind of alarming. Too hot for comfort—The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced on Friday that the 2006/2007 winter has been the […]
Consumerism and Materialism
You can’t buy a clean conscience
Ben Elgin, writing in this week’s BusinessWeek, begins his article “Another Inconvenient Truth“, about carbon offsets, by mocking the Academy Awards for declaring “all their celebrity presenters to be ‘carbon-neutral.’” He goes on to say: “A growing number of organizations, corporations, cities, and individuals are seeking to protect the climate—or at least claim bragging rights […]
Let there be really cool light
What I feel like telling you about today is the great place I get our low-energy compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) and how you can get them there, too. But first, in case you’ve somehow missed the recent coverage (see here and here, for example), I’m going to shed some light on the subject (oh, the fun of the pun). […]
A Mercedes Benz or a best friend? Hmmm….
Yesterday, I felt like a drought ended when I got to spend an afternoon with my best friend Tanner for the first time in a couple of months. I’m going to tell you about that, but first I want to talk about the question that titles this post. The question might seem dumb, and I’ll admit it’s hyperbolic, […]
Plastic bags are the devil
An estimated one percent of thrown-away plastic bags never make it to the landfill. Instead, in New York City, too many of them become street litter which first gets washed into the City’s storm drains and then, when a heavy rain comes and the system overflows, gets dumped through one of the 450 “outfalls” into […]
I’m not dead, so Michelle didn’t kill me
So Michelle and I had the talk about the consumption phase of the project last night, the one I was worrying about yesterday (see If I’m dead tomorrow, you know my wife killed me). But before I get to that I want to add something about the consumption rules that I forgot yesterday. The idea is that we […]
If I’m dead tomorrow, you’ll know my wife killed me
Michelle, my poor wife, has been dragged through this project, sometimes appreciating it, sometimes hating it, usually resisting a new restriction but often discovering its benefits. She loves the local food, loves the scooter to get to work, loves that we spend more time together because of TV, has a constant caffeine withdrawal headache. Tonight, […]
Eating local vs organic
A couple of weeks ago, we had a potluck brunch for a bunch of friends and we set them the challenge of bringing only local food. We thought it would be fun to give people a taste of the No Impact experiment since stage two of No Impact Man is sustainable eating, which means, in […]