No Impact Man: Eco-stunt or eco-sincerity?

This week's New Yorker takes a bit of a scathing look at Vanessa's book, Sleeping Naked Is Green: How an Eco-Cynic Unplugged Her Fridge, Sold Her Car, and Found Love in 366 Days, and Colin Beavan's upcoming book, 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.

There's been a bit of a kerfuffle about the Intarweb in response to the article, but I have to admit, on the whole, it's not too horrible. For the most part, the author, Elizabeth Kolbert, describes Colin's experiment or, as she calls it, "stunt", without much criticism. Well, at least not much more than her criticism of Thoreau's "stunt". And frankly, I'm sure the controversy certainly won't hurt sales. If anything, the coverage will help the promotion of both book and film coming out next month. Her bone of contention really has to do with the whole underlying idea of the "no" in "No Impact Man" and the contention that it is, as the NY Times called the experiment, an "ethically murky exercise in self-promotion".

These may seem like fighting words, but bear with me here. From the outset, I can see how the criticism seems reasonable. And, I'll be the first to admit that I was suspicious of the intent of both projects since they each had a time limit. In other words, both Colin and Vanessa's year long experiments can easily be seen as being an attention getting stunt. Here are two individuals who previously had no interest in sustainability that decide to take up a grand project that would end at after a year. For what gain, one might ask? Well, considering both are journalists, it's easy to draw the conclusion that it's merely a gimmick for their writing. That self-promotion thing again.

It's also very easy to niggle at a lot of the changes they are making. In Colin's case, Kolbert takes issue with his lack of activism. And in Vanessa's case, she argues that so many of her changes are countered by carbon intensive ones (flying around the world, etc) that it doesn't make much sense. Here's the most negative section of the review:

There’s something a tad disingenuous here. Beavan is, after all, a man whose environmental activism began over lunch with his agent. And it doesn’t take a Ph.D. in electrical engineering to see through his claims to experimental rigor. Indeed, in its own candlelit way, his project is almost as incoherent as Farquharson’s. When No Impact Man shuts off the power at his apartment, you might think that his blog would have to go dark (and along with it his compulsive checking of his ratings on Technorati). But every day Beavan bikes to the Writers Room, on Broadway at Waverly Place, and plugs in his laptop. Meanwhile, Michelle scooters off to work at the offices of BusinessWeek, and Isabella spends the day at the (presumably electrified) apartment of a sitter.

So committed is Beavan to his claim of zero impact that he can’t—or won’t—see the deforestation for the trees. He worries a great deal about the environmental consequences of Michelle’s tampon use and the shrink-wrap around a block of cheese. But when it comes to his building’s heating system, which is apparently so wasteful that people are opening windows in the middle of winter, he just throws up his hands.

A more honest title for Beavan’s book would have been “Low Impact Man,” and a truly honest title would have been “Not Quite So High Impact Man.” Even during the year that Beavan spent drinking out of a Mason jar, more than two billion people were, quite inadvertently, living lives of lower impact than his. Most of them were struggling to get by in the slums of Delhi or Rio or scratching out a living in rural Africa or South America. A few were sleeping in cardboard boxes on the street not far from Beavan’s Fifth Avenue apartment.

Now, before you get your britches in a knot, the one thing I think the author of the article completely overlooked was, as they say in fiction writing, the character arc that occurs in both year long tales. You would have to be pretty blind to not see the dramatic affect these experiments had on both their lives fairly soon into their projects. Both Colin and Vanessa are made very aware that the changes they are making are difficult ones and are each prompted to do more than just go through the motions.

Furthermore, the author of the New Yorker article totally overlooks the outcome after the experiments end. Did they go back to their hedonistic ways of yore? No. They may have backslid on a few things, but for the most part, the way they live their lives is profoundly different. In Colin's case, he has become a huge advocate in the environmental movement and does a tremendous amount of activism. How Ms. Kolbert didn't grasp this is beyond me, but I suspect it's mostly due to her lack of research.

Having read both Colin and Vanessa's blog during the year of their experiments and since then, I can honestly say that the criticisms heaped on them may have made sense a few months into their projects. But, to draw the conclusions the author made 2.5 years after the start of these experiments without seeing the personal changes in the way they view the world and their place in it, the inspiration they've given to their readers and the true impact they've made is not only short-sighted, but bad reporting.

How do you feel about these eco-experiments? Do they rub you the wrong way or do you think they are a vital and educational example for others to follow?

Image courtesy of the New Yorker