Book Report: No Impact Man

Steady J's mom clipped an article from Time Magazine and mailed it to me some weeks ago. The article, titled "Cash Crunch: Why Extreme Thriftiness Stunts Are The Rage" discussed the recent emergence of projects publicized by blogs (resulting in book deals) concerning among other things, not riding in a car, not purchasing any new clothing other than underwear for one year, and spending $1 on food per person per day for one month. I found the article pretty amusing, especially when it explained how it is no longer fashionable to "flaunt bling", however, it is fashionable to flaunt a "monk-like existence". Well, I can't say that I'm flaunting anything with my blog other than the fact that I hate the U.S. energy policy, my pants are too small and I really like jars.

The idea that "deprivation experiments" are something new is fascinating. My guess is more that it is a trend to deliver report of the experiment via blog, and not the fact that people are trying to live differently than the norm. Back in the late 70s when my dad was a student at University of Alaska, Fairbanks, he and his roommates and friends (in the dorm) decided that grocery stores were overrated and they were only going to eat what they could catch. I should mention that they were all up there to study wildlife and biology and other such outdoorsy related subjects which meant that they had an idea of what was available for eating. I should also mention that most of them grew up in the paved valleys of southern California. Anyway, after a week of living off of voles and other small rodents caught by snares, they decided that grocery stores were actually ok. What's hilarious to me is that my dad didn't think his experiment was all that strange. I think my dad figured that college was the time when everyone was trying something new. And when he would tell that story, he would always end with a substory about the guy living down the hall who had covered his entire room and bed with moss. Moss guy was the real oddball!  Today, if a group of college students tried eating rodents or covering their rooms with moss, you bet they would have a blog about it, and they would end up on The Today Show and inevitably there would be a reality tv show about them after a few months. I guess what I'm saying is that these experiments are nothing new, it's just the way they are hyped that is new.

By some odd coincidence, the Time article made reference to, No Impact Man, a man named Colin Beaven who spent a year of his life NYC trying to have as little environmental impact as possible. He kept a blog about he and his wife and infant daughter's experience and wrote a book about it that came out last year. There was also a documentary made about the project. My friend Mary (of the lightning jar fame) had mention No Impact Man to me a few days before, and with two seemingly random references to the same work in a matter of days, I figured it was time to read his book!

Unlike my reading of Not Buying It, I could really relate to Colin Beavan, despite the fact that he lives in Manhattan and is married with a small child. He wrote about his reasons for wanting to live with the least amount of environmental impact as possible and made a logical plan to do so. He was honest to the fact that his lifestyle as a writer allowed him certain flexibility that would probably not be possible for many other people. He was also quite truthful in admitting the areas that he and his wife could not find to work around, such as how to find olive oil or coffee made within 100 miles of Manhattan. I found it highly amusing that Beavan wrote of reading Not Buying It, and had the same comments and criticisms I had. Despite the overwhelming title of No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet And the Discoveries He Makes About Himself And Our Way Of Life In The Process, which initially turned Steady J off, even he could relate when Beavan spoke of using an old peanut butter jar as his coffee mug; a look which Steady J has pioneered on the west coast.

Beavan made lots of great points and links in his book that I could explain here, but I won't because I'm hoping that a lot of you will go out and read his book, or check out his blog, or even watch the documentary (which I have not seen). I'm just going to close by highlighting a few of the main points from his book that made me stop and think.

       Number 1: Beavan theorizes that mechanical devices and technology have taken the rest periods our of our lives. Before cell phones, Ipads and travel coffee mugs, people were forced to sit for periods of time without distraction and constant connection, allowing them to rest their brains and bodies. There would be lapses between stressful times because you were not always tethered to work or other people. If you wanted a cup of coffee and you were out on the town, you sat quietly in a coffee shop and were able to rest your mind, and you were not interrupted by a phone call, text or email message. Beavan mentions research that reflects that people today are no happier than people several generations ago, in fact, they are less happy, and he wonders if we can really consider ourselves to be an advanced society if technological advances are not increasing our overall enjoyment of life.

      Number 2:  Products are designed to become obsolete (ie, break or be deemed out of style) in order to keep people buying. This makes me mad and I think it should be illegal since it causes so many unnecessary things to be created that end up in landfills after a few years. This started in the 1920s when things began to be commonly made by assembly line, as opposed to hand made, and really took off in the 1950s.

     Number 3: TV is a bigger time suck than people realize! Over the course of his project, Beavan teaches himself to cook with ingredients he buys from the farmers market, learns to make yogurt, sauerkraut and bake bread. All his friends want to know where he finds time to do it. The answer is that the first day of the project his family gave away their big flat screen television. The average amount of tv that Americans watch is 4.5 hours per day. Without a television, he and his wife have 9 hours a day back in their lives to devote to cooking healthy food for their small family. It doesn't take 9 hours a day to cook food, so their excess time is spent playing with their daughter, or talking, or riding bikes or playing board games with their friends who stop by for some home cooked food! They become slender and healthy from their increased intake of great food, and decreased time spend sitting around watching tv. I may never have a tv again!