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Published on Sunday, November 29, 2009 by YES! Magazine
No Impact on the Environment Experiment
No Impact Man, Colin Beavan, has put together a guide for you to try out his experiment: leave no impact on the environment for an entire year.
To make it easy he suggest you try it for a week. Starting with a no-trash Sunday, moving on to a no-trash and green-transport Monday, and working up to an impact free Saturday, the guide gives step-by-step instructions and tips.
And to add even more fun to something Colin Beavan swears has brought him more happiness, there is an online community so you can connect with others and share your experience
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10 Comments so far
Show AllI did the No Impact experiment for 1 week. Not easy. Much harder than sniping at others who are trying to do what they can.
Yes, overpopulation is a problem, but the solution lies in many ways, not just in shooting down what others are doing.
Step 1, Sunday: We are here. Nothing other than suicide we can do about that.
Step 2, Sunday: We can start doing what we can do. If that means vowing not to breed, then great!
Step 3, Sunday: Stop slamming others for addressing problems in their own ways.
Step 4, Sunday: Admit that every time you do slam others for addressing problems in their own ways, you do so because you are paralyzed and frustrated that you aren't doing something.
Ah yes, the single solitary solution.
Unless you're a vegetarian, then consuming no meat is the solution. Unless you're an environmentalist, then producing less carbon dioxide is the solution. Unless you're a Green, then voting Green is the solution. Unless you're a health care worker, then immunizing everyone is the solution. Unless you're a pacifist, then peace is the solution. Unless you're a socialist, then the death of Capitalism is the solution.
So many people with the wrong solutions. If only they could see the one right solution.
Guess what? If the level of CO2 in the air were to level off completely today, CO2 levels in the atmosphere would still increase. If we level off population today, CO2 would still increase. We need ALL solutions, and no government can get us there. It takes ALL of us.
Advocating national responsibility is wonderful. Waiting for it is suicide.
See, what gets me about all this is that too many people still tend to focus on the administrative side of the cure, instead of the personal.
I don't have to tell you that the star issues - Obama, Afghanistan, Nader (ad nauseum), the government, the pols, everything and everyone other than ourselves - all the star issues are what people respond to. All the issues that require little more than gum-flapping and finger-pointing get the readers and responses.
It's disturbing to see what happens whenever an individual - not a star - takes matters into his/her own hands and attempts to do something. Will Colin Beavan save the world? Well, actually, yes, he will. He will save his small part of the world. He will take that much stress off the world, and in doing so, show others like you and me that individual action and responsibility matter greatly.
The main reason I don't post much here is because of the circular firing squad mentality that pervades. It's a shame because it wastes so much energy that is badly needed if we are to get anywhere near dealing with the calamities that face us. Yes, population is a big deal, but so is CO2 and waste and pollution and disease.
Anyway, if you have any faith in Nature, you must know that Nature will take care of the situation. Should humans procreate responsibly? Absolutely, but what good will that do if in the mean time we keep consuming and wasting like pigs?
We need to do it all, and we need to stop denigrating those who do the small things that we don't do. All we do when we do this is to tear down, and that's the one thing that is not needed.
it is sad that so many people buy into this: we are overpopulated shit ....well looks like in their minds lots of people need to die to make room for the right amount of people ....as long as a handfull mess everything up for the rest as long as that we will have hungry people to much trash and things produced we dont need ....as long as the awareness is lacking the morality and heart and it is you rather than WE things will be the same ....
Accepting the fact that there are more of us than Earth's biosphere can support doesn't mean thinking more people need to die, though each of us will eventually. We just have to stop creating more of us.
WE in the over-industrialized world are the handful which messes everything up for the rest. Compare our "no impact" with any of the two billion members of our human family in the over-exploited world who are trying to eke out an existence.
While it's commendable to reduce our ecological footprints, it's not possible for any of us, including poor people, to achieve a net zero impact on Earth's natural ecosystems. However, we can reduce, reuse, recycle, and not add another of us to the billions. Thank you for not breeding.
"While it's commendable to reduce our ecological footprints..."
But see, it's not only commendable for us to reduce our ecological (carbon) footprints, it's essential. It's also just the right thing to do - fairness, justice, and all.
No one is suggesting that we reduce our footprint to zero. We all know that just by living we have a carbon footprint. What Colin Beavan and many others are suggesting is that we learn to live with less - less consumption, less waste, less carbon output.
And yes, population is a huge problem, but a problem that no individual can (or should be able to) solve. What we can do as individuals is to do what we can where we are. It sounds trite until you stop and consider the alternative.
You're right, Ted, no individual can solve our population density problem, just as no one alone can solve global warming, the Great Pacific Garbage patch, and so on. And I agree, all "we can do as individuals is to do what we can where we are." That's why our breeding choice is so important. We can eschew meat, quit driving, and do the "zero impact" experiment, but all of those combined don't add up to the benefits of not creating another of us -- particularly in the USA.