“Bottled water has already turned tap water into a commodity, and corporations are stepping up their efforts to privatize public water systems.” —Letter to the New York Times by Gigi Kellett, campaigns director, ”Think Outside the Bottle,” Corporate Accountability International. “At the same time, to ensure maximum profits, these companies are lobbying to weaken water quality standards, and pushing for trade agreements […]
No Impact Man
What if this is as good as it gets?
There is an idea that there is always something better to do, something better to have, somewhere better to be, someone better to be with. Solving the problem, I have sometimes allowed myself to believe, just requires buying something (and using planetary resources). The problem is that when I get the better thing, it turns out that there is, […]
On not letting eco-dogma start the next war
Some green thinkers believe it is best to be vegetarian, some believe you should eat meat and support humane animal husbandry. Some think you should shop local, some think your dollars should support fair trade in far away countries. Some think we should buy more Prius’s to support the hybrid car industry, some think we shouldn’t buy cars at […]
Too bad about the fireflies
One of my most avid readers is, well, my mom. Since I’ve never quite been the best at staying in touch, she tells me that, because of the blog, she feels closer to me than she has in years (love you, mom). Needless to say, the post she liked the most was the one about entertaining my […]
If rich people don’t buy stuff, how do poor people make a living?
A while back, I got an email from Emily Hauser, an OpEd writer for the Chicago Tribune, who rightly said, essentially: It’s all very well saying plastic bags are the devil, but what about the jobs of all the people who work in plastic bag factories? What do we do about them? Yesterday, here on No Impact Man, we […]
The No Impact sustainable eating plan
There’s been a bit of press backlash against eating locally lately (see here and here). It’s too bad because such spin and counterspin has the effect of everybody being confused about what to do and therefore doing nothing. Michelle, my wife, calls it “stasis through obfuscation.” Others refer to it as FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt), a marketing method that weakens […]
Waste less food, make less greenhouse gas
Since we’ve been discussing the ins and outs of worm composting here on No Impact Man, I thought we might take a look at the important whys and wherefores of diverting food from landfills. According to the EPA: “The decomposition of food and other waste under anaerobic (without oxygen) conditions in landfills produces methane, a greenhouse gas (GHG) […]
Preserving veggies
One way we keep our local food diet—which we do to keep down carbon-producing “food miles,” among other reasons—is by getting our veggies from the West Village CSA. A CSA—community supported agriculture—works by a bunch of people buying “shares” in a farm’s crop. If it’s a good year, you get lots of stuff. If it’s not so good, you […]