I was in conversation with a product designer today. He works hard on sustainability issues. He starts, with a new client, by designing exactly what the client wants exactly the way the client wants it. Once he’s worked with a client for a while, and has gained the client’s trust, he can begin to suggest […]
No Impact Man
Sad pictures of dead bicyclists that I plan to show the Senator
So, New York State Senator Klein and I have rearranged our meeting to discuss bicycling and transportation policy in New York City for this coming Tuesday, October 14. You may remember that the Senator and I had an altercation (read here, here and here) after he nearly veered his black Mercedes into me when I […]
Let’s go viral with this excellent action on bottled water
The Center for a New American Dream emailed me to ask for our help, so before I even start, let me ask you to email this post to everyone you know. Blog about it. Give it love on Digg, Reddit, all the other sites and send it to your grandma. Because we have a chance […]
Boiling down the lessons of the No Impact project
Well, at least according to Alma Gaul, a journalist at the Quad-City Times in Davenport, these are the lessons I learned after the year-long No Impact project: “First, he learned that it is possible to live with a much lower impact and that individuals can make a difference. ‘This has become explosive,’ he said. ‘There’s […]
The economic meltdown
Click image to enlarge I’ve been getting a lot of emails from readers asking me my thoughts on the mortgage crisis and the market meltdown. So here goes. First, this from Sheryl Canter over at Climate 411: Former President Bill Clinton gave an interesting analysis last night on the Late Show with David Letterman of […]
Do cars make us fat?
Click on the above image to enlarge it. Look at the graphs. The red line shows the rates of obesity for various countries. The green line shows the percentage of trips made by walking, cycling and public transit (as opposed to cars). What you can see is that the less the citizens of a country […]
“The Impact of Having No Impact”
I’ll be giving a talk in Davenport, Iowa, on October 11 (details here). For that reason, the River Cities’ Reader ran a story about the No Impact Project. It begins: Colin Beavan’s thought was hardly unusual. Most of us have wondered whether all our accumulated belongings and technology make our lives better. “We’re consuming way […]
Peace in myself makes peace in the world
I’ve had this hammered home to me lately, that if I want to manifest peace in the world, I have to find peace in my mind. They say a peaceful mind makes a peaceful man. A peaceful man makes a peaceful family. A peaceful family makes a peaceful village. A peaceful village makes a peaceful […]