Trying to Take “No Impact Man” Seriously
March 27th, 2007I read, The Year Without Toilet Paper, a New York Times piece about the “No Impact Man” media circus, and I sunk down into my chair and held my head in my hands. Are people just cracking up? Is it an inability to look the situation we’re facing in the eyes? Is it an effort to paint people who think about the environment as dimwits and hopelessly out of touch?
“No Impact Man” seems like a sort of limited hangout for limousine liberals who are going with the clean, green meme at the moment. There are designer clothes and vaguely hip, wealthy people who live in a fashionable part of Manhattan. At any moment you think it’s going to turn into an ad for a new iPod, or maybe Paris Hilton will show up in a greasel Hummer. They’re not doing anything even remotely substantive, but they’re going about it in a slick manner. There’s a blog, a book and a movie… And, as mentioned, the ridiculous New York Times has initiated coverage. In short, “No Impact Man” seems like a green version of Jackass.
But is that all?
I’m really trying to see a positive side to this. Let’s face it: Most people won’t consider a reality based approach to sustainability. It’s just too damn hard; dealing with dirt and weeds and shit, etc. My guess is that backbreaking labor is only an abstract idea to the HDTV crowd.
Maybe the gestures demonstrated by “No Impact Man” can serve as a germ that will grow into something more substantive than a blog, a book and a movie. And coverage from the New York Times…
In theory, cities should be able to innovate quite a lot in this area. As obscene consumers of energy and resources, cities have lots of opportunities for improvement. I would think that even incremental changes could produce significant results. In any city, you will have some number of people who get it, even if they represent only a fraction of a percent of the population. These people have many face to face opportunities to win the hearts and minds of the zombie consumer/polluter class, which is virtually everyone, rich and poor alike.
Another aspect of cities that’s interesting is money. Most of the money is in cities, even if it’s concentrated in very few hands. Therefore, if city dwellers decided that they wanted to implement clean technologies, they might be in a better position to do that than rural, back to the land types like Becky and me.
So, I don’t know. On the one hand, “No Impact Man” seems like a silly joke, hardly worth serious consideration, given the dire situation we’re all facing. On the other hand, if it convinces even a small number of people to modify their zombie consumer/polluter ways, what the hell, more power to these people!
Cursing the darkness is of limited use, and while lighting a single candle in a vast, blacked out wasteland isn’t good for much, at least it starts to give you an idea of how vast the blacked out wasteland is. Manhattan is one of the weirdest places on the planet. (Tokyo is probably weirder, although I’ve never been there.) You can exist, in that thing, totally abstracted from the underlying reality of the natural life support systems of the planet. (The thing I noticed most about Manhattan, besides the smell in the subway stations, and chained and padlocked potted plants, was that, anywhere or time of the day, there seemed to be no escape from the unnatural sounds of the city.) I can see how Colin and Michelle might think that they were taking radical action by not getting their food and coffee delivered to their apartment and buying organic vegetables.
If Colin and Michelle are serious, they will start looking at the decades old square foot gardening strategies and composting toilets as nitrogen sources for groundlevel and rooftop gardens. Who knows? In time you might see “Green Buildings” where residents outfit entire buildings with wind and solar systems. The immediate priority should be solar hot water systems, the best bang-for-the-buck in terms of solar energy conversion. Hot water is the single biggest use of energy in domestic environments. Solar hot water systems are relatively cheap, simple and yield very tangible results.
You can talk carbon, rooftop gardens and solar hot water all day, but without a major consciousness upgrade—a philosophical pole shift, or whatever you want to call it—governments will increasingly be pouring old fascism into new, green bottles. People have to want this, and they have to build it themselves.
In cities, though, very few people want this. Why are they in cities to begin with? Lots of people say they like cities because of the “culture.” In reality, it’s about the money, honey. (Not necessarily the Money Honey.) There’s a perception that great opportunities to make money exist in cities. It’s a trap, of course, because the cost of living in those places is extreme to the point of being absurd. The reality of cities is mostly about chasing money in an effort to pay rent and keep the heater turned on in the winter. Is a substantive, bottom up, green epiphany possible under these circumstances? I doubt it, but for people who won’t (or can’t) abandon the sinking ship, bailing water furiously with Dixie cups provides a sense of purpose and, perhaps, a satisfying distraction from the grim political, economic and social aspects of the situation.
I live in a “very liberal” city in the US and I was on the board of my co-op for awhile. We have (had) an opportunity to build a new building from scratch.
I first brought up the idea of solar power for our existing buildings, then a community garden in some unused land, and then go all out with the new building as a real green living demonstration. It’s not like this is infeasible here, we have a large sustainable living building technology center and everything.
There was basically zero interest. The building with the best roof profile for solar is so old and inefficient that its power needs could never be met. The board rolled it around and ended up “compromising” by just telling the huge construction firm to “build it green”. I’d imagine they’ll use some 10% recycled insulation or something.
These were the most highly educated, community minded people around in one of the most highly educated “liberal” cities in the US. Most people reading this blog probably don’t even know that non-profit co-op housing exists in the US.
But if the green building cost 5% more or delayed the project a month they didn’t want it.
So the fact that anyone is taking the issue seriously at all is in fact real news. I sympathize with those that got out of the cities; but I think it will go better for all of us if more effort is made, by example, to improve them as they are.
Kevin-
Not to brighten your doom and gloom, but . . . zombies are zombies. When it was necessary to colonize the U.S., They made radical “freedom-loving” zombies. When it was necessary for Revolution, They made revolutionary zombies. When it was necessary to go west and slay Native Americans, well . . . . Etc. Etc.
If history and social science shows us anything, it’s that humans are infinitely malleable. Thus, if They want the zombies to run around buck naked and wipe their asses with their hands, you’d better believe the might Wurlitzer will be churning out that message. I mean, look at the clothes people like Paris Hilton where. Now compare them to what women of comparable standing wore a few centuries ago. Where is the regalia? Where are the majestic-manufacturing trappings?
Neal-
“Liberal” is just another word for “I received my ‘wisdom’ and ‘knowledge’ from people who don’t have my best interest in mind, duh!”
Most people don’t know how to think for themselves. They run to labels like sheep. In the U.S., being a liberal, a conservative, a Christian, etc. is like being a sports fan. Utterly irrational, hereditary, arbitray, and tribal.
You know what really got them? They were conditioned to want speed and efficiency. Rather than debate and come to the best possible solution, the idiots took the path of least resistance. Instant gratification culture. Liberal or conservative has nothing to do with it. In fact, I would say conservatives are probably better with the environment as a whole because if you look at the “Red STate- Blue State” map, it’s actually a rural area city dichotomy. In other words, people who live in rural areas are conservative, and people who live in cities are liberal. I wonder why. Could it be that people in cities are socially engineered to be liberal so as to tolerate one another, but to dislike the rural people so as to stay in the city? What do you think the purpose of all those Deliverance hill-billy as ravenous werewolf movies were about? As for the rural areas. Those people have to work the land, so they have to form a direct connection to it. They’re taught to be suspicious of outsiders and non-comformity.
Divide and Conquer, Divide and Conquer
It’s all in the Federalist Papers.
Cheerio
@ Neal
>>>There was basically zero interest.
Yep. It’s maddening. Well, then again, before I moved to New Zealand, I lived in a place where you were not allowed to dry your laundry on a clothes line.
>>>I sympathize with those that got out of the cities; but I think it will go better for all of us if more effort is made, by example, to improve them as they are.
I totally agree. Increasingly larger portions of the planet’s population is living in cities. There is going to be no mass exodus from cities, again, thank god/gods/dog for that. Change, for better or worse, will come from cities.
As long as “Green” building costs more than traditional, it will be the luxury of the rich. With Peak oil just around the corner, or already here, that will change.
Kevin, I wouldn’t write Colin and Michelle off just yet. They are doing some serious things: buying local in season food(local for znyc being in a 250 mile radius), composting the scraps, walking or biking everywhere, etc. At the very least, maybe it will wake some people up.
I live in a city. Jackson, Mississippi. I can assure you that if you take the time to check you’ll see relatively few rich people living ANYWHERE in Mississippi. It is true that my urban county has a higher per capita income than the rural ones, but I can assure you I don’t live here because it’s a haven for wealth.
That said, I agree that there is precious little movement on either side of the political spectrum that is making any true impact on improving our impact on the environment. The liberals are still focusing on making/buying more fuel efficient cars (hybrids e.g.), when the debate ought to be on mass transit and the move AWAY from cars. The conservatives (America) seem content to focus on the chimera of hydrogen fuel. Like nuclear fusion, it’s something that’s been heralded as ‘a decade away’ since I was at least ten years old. (I’m REAL close to 50 now)
I imagine we share the same frustration over the abuse of the great unwashed masses. Commercial propaganda, media manipulations, governmental collusion (corn subsidies for ethanol) ENSURE our lonely voices will not be noticed..
There is hope. Even with the great burden of middle-aged cynicism, I find myself doubting things are as bad as are often portrayed. This energy ‘problem’ is one area we need not worry about. We’ll destroy the environment before we run out of easily obtainable hydrocarbons, but I think the environmental impact will get bad enough for humanity (soot, etc.) in time for us to ‘save the planet’ so to speak. We’re never going to run out of available energy so long as the sun shines, the tides ebb and flow, and the wind blows.
As a final philosophical challenge from a sympathetic urbanite to a dedicated new world citizen, I wonder if your lifestyle is actually the most efficient for societies as a whole? It’s posed as a scientific curiosity, not a slam against the choice. There have to be communal efficiencies at some level. Every tool or machine you use (that you didn’t/couldn’t make yourself) wouldn’t be available without the mass production, factory polluting urban landscapes.
The hard work of ‘living off the land’ precludes any worry of too many people deciding to do what you’ve done that it gets ‘overcrowded’ in your neighborhood anytime soon. LOL. I want to get off the grid but not necessarily out of the city. I guess I’m too old or too apathetic to worry about crap like the total breakdown of the corporate food delivery network (aka grocery stores) or the dystopian scenarios I enjoy reading about here at Cryptogon.
Enjoy.
I read about this couples experiment and wanted to scream. It isn’t about doing exteme things for a year and then going about your business, it is about completely remaking your life.
After 19 years, my family is finally at a point where our impact is much lessened. We grow our own food. Our lives are guided by permaculture principles that make sense.
Oh, yes, and I clean my own house, and do my laundry by hanging it on a line outside to dry in the sun.
We have to promoted things that are workable and make sense in order to get people to change their habits. Going over the edge willynilly for publicity is not the way.
Actually, a dense city is one of the most efficient living arrangements. Here’s an article arguing that New York is the greenest city in America:
http://www.walkablestreets.com/manhattan.htm
Of course, they’re still importing food and exporting garbage, but so are suburban and rural people (at least in America), and suburban and rural people burn much more energy driving around and heating their giant houses. Most rural Americans no longer “work the land.” The farms are industrial and mechanized, and the people work at the local prison and buy their food at giant box stores.
The ideal would be a community that was dense enough that nobody ever had to drive, but spread out enough, with enough gardens, that it could produce all its own food.
@ Ran
That’s right. That’s why I’ve been saying that humans will wind up living in domed/fenced cities. That will allow for the most effective management schemes.
People think I’m kidding. I’m not. It’ll be clean and green, kinda like Gattaca on the inside. And, well, you won’t want to be on the outside. That’s where the hunter killer terminator robots will be running “mop up” operations.
That’s my guess as to what it will be like if governments have their way and we don’t get a hard crash anytime soon. A good view of “outside” is this L.A. Times piece about the squalor in California:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-trailerpark26mar26,0,3370103.story?coll=la-home-headlines
But Detroit is starting to look interesting, post collapse. Bottom up. Applied anarchy. Gardens in abandoned lots:
https://cryptogon.com/?p=519
Kevin,
I read the NyT article on this couple prior to reading your post. We are introduced to this couple as some sort of lower life form because of the freaking smell. Uh, in my mind, when you are “greeted by wafting smell of compost,” in an NYC apartment, you are probably encountering the “real deal.” If the peoples can’t afford to live in the suburbs because of the ever encroaching energy-economic crash they’ll be moving closer to the cities (NOT ME). This might be the opening salvo story in the shortly to come section of the NYT “how we survive in cities.” Too bad this first article in the series sucked.
Thanks Ran. It seemed counterintuitive that it would be more efficient for everybody to produce his own everything. It may be NECESSARY in a post apocalyptic survivalist scenario but has nothing to do with efficiency. I’m curious as to the scientific optimum and how to achieve a better balance. Do you suppose there is ANY way that a city the size of NYC could ever find a way to produce enough food for it’s residents? I can actually envision such a scenario if the cost of electricity was nil.
Enjoy.
NYC would have difficulty producing enough food for 1/20th of its population even with all the park space and roof space used for horticulture, parking lots covered with earth and planted, and part of the sidewalks ripped up and replanted.
Such was the conclusion of a federally subsidized study group in the 1980’s.
Sustainable income for sustanable living
=============================================
Here is a question that would be very interesting to get the answere to:
I read about the “no impact” project, and am wondering how one generates enough “sustainable income” to be able pay the rent in Manhattan.
Refusing to spend “money” to patronize “unsustainable products” is something more or less well defined. [How one defines “sustainable US dollars” is beyond me, unless of course one claims that the medium of exchange is silver coins on Union Square.]
However, how does one make the distinction of rejecting income from “unsustainable sources?”
Say, one bought sustainable milk and paid with a book that they wrote, while living sustainably. Arguably, that milk would be bought “sustainably.”
However, if one bought “sustainable milk” with US dollars, how does one make sure the dollars were not subsidized by unsustainable practices?
For example, lets say you one the dollars by selling books to people who buy unsustainable beef (which is probably over 99.99% of the beef sold in Manhattan), or cheese, or green salad?. Beef (and bread, and almost all food in the “conventional” supermarket, for that matter) is produced by being heavily subsidized through burning of fossil fuels. The people that bought the subsidized beef paid a tiny fraction of the true beef cost. Were they forced to eat sustainably, they would have had much less US dollars left in their pockets, hence would have been much less likely to spend on books. For that matter, they would have had much less free time to read books. How does one exclude such income in a sustainable living experiment?
Sell books in Rwanda? Heck, even Rwanda mines coltan, quite unsustainably at that !!!