One thing I forgot to mention in the introductory posts to this project is how depressed I am about politics in the United States. Winston Churchill said that “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” The question is, though, whether we still […]
Environment
Stopping the junk mail tree killers
It’s two months since I began the no impact man stage concerned with stopping trash, but my recycling bin is still filling up with paper I never bought, never used, and never wanted. The junk mail pours in. Five years ago, I bought my step-mother Beth some flower bulbs. The company has sent me two catalogs a year […]
Day one and the whole thing is a big mistake
My journal entry from Nov 20, 2006, the first day of No Impact, when learning to make no trash was top of the agenda: The first shock is that you can’t buy any individually packed items, walk into Bagel Bob’s and get an everything with tofu to go wrapped in tinfoil, or even get a coffee in a […]
What you need to know
The blog is just launching this balmy February day of 2007—yippee!—but our no impact experiment has been going on for two and half months. So, just a little recap and update to let you know what you need to know to understand what is going on and where we’re at. No Impact Man is my experiment […]
The No Impact Experiment
The way I see it, waiting for the senators and the CEOs to change the way we treat the world is taking too long. Polar bears are already drowning because the polar ice is melting. In fact, research shows it’s worse: they are so hungry, they are actually starting to eat each other. I can’t stand my so-called […]
The Year-Long Plan
You hear of one study saying that the energy used washing ceramic coffee cups is as damaging to the environment as the use of disposable plastic cups that won’t biodegrade for thousands of years. You hear of another that says destroying trees to make paper towels is no worse than using hot water and toxic detergent to wash cloth […]
The No Impact Philosophy
None of the practical questions about no impact living would be relevant if my wife Michelle, my daughter Isabella, our dog Frankie and I intended to approach the challenge by becoming ascetics. Until now, we have been your typical convenience-addicted, New York City take-out slaves. Asceticism is not a realistic way forward, not for my family and not for the […]
The Personal Impact of No Impact
My wife Michelle and I decided, before jumping in at the deep end of this year-long project, to try no impact living as an experiment for a week. No garbage. No greenhouse gasses. No toxins. No water pollution. No air pollution. No electricity. No produce shipped from distant lands. No impact. Or so we naively hoped. We started one […]