434-noimpact


 * View the documentary ‘No Impact Man’, and answer the following questions during the movie. **


 * 1. List the ways in which “No Impact Man” changes his family’s lifestyle. **

1. No trash, no toxins / toxic chemicals and cleaning products 2. No carbon emissions (driving & flying) 3. No cars, elevators, subways, buses 4. Not shopping for anything new, but instead buying used 5. Compositing, 250 miles radius for food/produce, buying local and seasonal 6. Fabric diapers 7. Living off the grid, only exception is social occasions at other people’s place 8. Trash phase, food phase, purchasing phase 9. No television


 * 2. Describe which of the family’s actions made the most significant impact in achieving Bevan’s goals. **

Bevan’s main goal throughout this entire project is to develop, research and adopt a lifestyle that results in no net environmental impact. However, they soon realize that by simply participating in society, they are already creating a negative environmental impact. So they opt to volunteer their time and efforts to create positive environmental impacts to balance everything out to zero, their initial goal. So by cleaning up the bay, they are trying to reverse the damage that has been done.


 * 3. Beavan traces much of our wasteful culture back to consumerism and the “hedonic treadmill,” the notion that there is always something better out there than what was just purchased. Can you identify purchases or habits in your own life that fit this psychological profile? What consumer products truly improve your life? What are the true necessities? What could you do without altogether? To learn more about the relationship between consuming responsibly and enhancing overall quality of life, visit the Center for a New American Dream ([|http://newdream.org]) and take a look at Buy Nothing Day (www.buynothingday.org) and the Alternative Gift Registry ([|www.alternativegiftregistry.org]). **

If the hedonic treadmill is the notion that there is always something better out there than what was just purchased, it is much like Moore’s Law about technology. That is a personal habit for all the technological products I buy that are soon obsolete in a few months time. Even though I am well aware of this happening, the thought of having something new still entrances me enough to buy into it. It’s because we currently live in a consumer society and advertising has blurred the lines between what we need and what we want, making it harder to distinguish between the two. Many people value material goods and amount happiness to how much stuff they have.

After truly thinking it through, there aren’t many consumer products that are truly necessary in my life. There are products that improve my life like refrigerators, microwaves, stoves and plumbing. As far as my life, computers are also an important aspect of my life and I can’t picture days (let alone my life) without it. It would be my material hobbies of collecting and shopping that I could live without altogether, along with the abundant amount of clothes hanging in my closet. It is because we live in a consumerist society that these needs are fabricated and exaggerated, focusing on material needs rather than non-material values.


 * 4. Beavan runs into many situations in //No Impact Man// regarding the profusion of **
 * packaging waste: paper or plastic at the grocery store, paper plates at the pizza joint, delivery in Styrofoam clamshells. How much packaging waste do you accumulate? How does your community manage landfills and recycling programs? Should it be up to individuals, businesses, or governments to reduce waste? One way to help is to take the Pledge to Break the Bottled Water Habit, organized by the Center for a New American Dream ([|http://water.newdream.org]). **

As a student living on a student budget and lifestyle, I find that I accumulate a lot of packaging waste. This is especially the case every time I eat out because modern packaging is also a form of marketing. Everything disposable is marketable in our consumer society. For example, take Subway into consideration. By purchasing a sub, it is wrapped in two pieces of paper (one with branding) and placed in a branded bag with two branded napkins. So I can understand why (from an advertising perspective) there is so much garbage coming from one single purchase.

The community has introduced a green bin for all waste that can be composted along with blue bin recycling and typical garbage. Everything can be sorted out and evidently help reduce what ends up in the landfills. Waste management should be a combination of individuals, businesses and government responsibility to regulate and reduce waste. Individuals should be responsible for sorting waste, while businesses should reduce the amount of packaging for their goods. Governments should provide the services for individuals for recycling while regulating corporations about packaging.


 * 5. Beavan’s experiment took green living to an extreme. If you were to choose just **
 * a few of his actions to implement in your own life, what would they be? Which **
 * conveniences or behaviors should society change in order to reduce our collective **
 * environmental impact? **

Beavan’s reduction of packaging waste is something that could be implemented in my own life. Buying in bulk can be beneficial because you have the option of buying what you need and storing the rest. We already see reusable metal water bottles in the marketplace now, an option against plastic water bottles. Personally, I like bringing a reusable coffee cup and taking it to large chain coffee shops and saving myself of getting a paper cup and sleeve. On many occasions, I save 10 cents for doing that because it is also seen as saving them money.

Beavan took the issue of transportation to the extreme, but opting for lower emission transportation methods is something that that society can implement to reduce our environmental impact. Society is already in need of a solution for the depleting oil resources because we have past the supply peak. Since cost of gas has been increasing, society is probably more likely to invest in more environmentally friendly solutions.


 * 6. Happiness forms a theme in //No Impact Man//. Would you be happier if you **
 * slowed down, dispensed with the instant conveniences, and did more things the old fashioned way? What are your options for slowing down? What holds you back? **

Personally, I don’t think I would be happier living a slower, old-fashioned lifestyle. I grew up with new technology and modern conveniences and I can’t revert back to times without it. I can compare that experience to taking camping or cottage trips where the lifestyle is much slower and more relaxed, but I realized I enjoy a busier lifestyle. I got to the point where I was bored because my entertainment was based on instant excitement and technology. There are just some things (like my morning coffee from Tim Hortons) that make up my definition of happiness. I like being connected to the world rather than just a smaller community.


 * 7. Colin Beavan’s experiment is similar to Henry David Thoreau’s sojourn to **
 * Walden Pond in the mid-nineteenth century. Is it human nature to want a simpler **
 * life (Thoreau craved it before the Industrial Revolution), or is it natural to want to be a consumer? What difference did it make when Thoreau decided to remove himself from society, while Beavan consciously remained an active part of his community? How would the No Impact experiment look in a rural location? What were the challenges and benefits of performing the experiment in New York City, or Toronto? **

I believe it’s more natural in the twenty-first century to be a consumer because we function as a consumer society. Our current economy strives on the basis of consuming goods and we have been taught from a young age to be consumers.

Thoreau removed himself from society doesn’t solve what Beavan tries to achieve by suggesting ways to live life with no impact. Beavan is adapting his lifestyle in the city to make it work for his family, instead of simply leaving for the wilderness. His hopes are to set an example for no impact living to others in the city, because it is not realistic for people to simply leave. Living in the city means being part of community and society, something that differs from Thoreau.

It would be really different to set this experiment in a rural location because many of the food will already be coming from nearby farmlands. However, it would be really hard to travel between areas because rural areas are usually dispersed and farther apart. Having the experiment in larger cities like New York and Toronto benefits in the travel, but makes it a lot harder to shop locally because food comes from around the world instead of in the area.


 * 8. For most people, giving up a car would be a complicated life change. Impact Man aspires to give up all fossil-fuel transportation. What would be your biggest adjustments if you sold your car, gave up taxis, buses, trains, and planes, and commuted entirely by bike or on foot? What would spur you to do this? What would the drawbacks be? The Alliance for Biking and Walking (www. peoplepoweredmovement.org) has great tips for making this change, including how **
 * to create communities that are practical and safe for bicyclists and pedestrians. Is it possible to do this in the Mississauga/Oakville area? **

Giving up all fossil-fuel transportation and relying on bicycles and walking would be a large lifestyle adjustment because I have always been situated in the suburbs. Suburbs rely on transportation because areas are often farther apart in distance. What would normally take fifteen minutes to get to school or shops by car or bus would equal out to hours walking. It would not be an effective use of my time. Convenience is of high personal importance, so by giving up all forms of fossil fuel transportation is highly unlikely.

However, if I did opt towards people powered transportation, location would be the most important factor. By moving to the city, shops and school are often designed in a way where people can walk or bike between places. High-density cities have stores lined on all the streets and strategically placed so everything is within walking/biking distance.

Although Mississauga and Oakville are improving their streets to facilitate bicyclists by adding additional bike lanes, it would be hard to drop other forms of transportation altogether. Shops, schools, services and facilities are dispersed because these cities were constructed using a suburban design, which originally relied on cars for functionality.