Walden Pond on Fifth Avenue

2007.Mar.26. Monday - by lvhrd

credits: Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times

Walden on Fifth

The Conlin-Beavans home glows green

Reducing our intake is one of the key elements we must sustain if we are serious about creating a green future. This weekend The NY Times ran an article called, “The Year Without Toilet Paper,” on one family’s year-long experiment in reducing their intake and thus their waste. The Conlin-Beavan clan of three is four months into living without toilet paper, carbon-fueled transportation, or shopping for any food grown outside a 250-mile radius of Manhattan. They produce no trash except compost; the elevator operator has not seen them in four months.

The Conlin-Beavan’s are calling the project the No Impact year. It’s a new twist on the old wilderness mantra: “Leave only footprints, take only photographs.” The No Impact year isn’t about protecting an abstract prisitine space, but rather what urban dwellers can do to in their home and office life to improve the longevity of our planet.

Almost halfway throuh the experiment, Mr. Beavan has secured a book deal and Ms. Conlin’s best friend, filmmaker Laura Gabbert, is trailing the family for a documentary.

• link
• digg
• del.icio.us
• • | categories:
  • BIFOLD GRN,
  • Writing,
  • Environmental Science,
  • Events

• No Impact Man on NPR
• No impact man to host Bi-Fold III: GRN
• Bi-Fold GRN tonight.

3 Responses to “Walden Pond on Fifth Avenue”

1. John Says:
   Mar.27.2007 : 10:34 am

   It’s more than a bit of a farce to live on fifth ave and talk about living a year without toilet paper. This family lives on some of the most valuable real estate in the world. Better than trying to have “No Impact,” we should strive to have IMPACT. My suggestion to the Conlin-Beavans: sell your place and move to Harlem. Take your massive gains and invest it in beautifying the city you live in and those less fortunate than yourselves. That would be real Impact. Bet you’d still get a book deal too.

2. maf Says:
   Mar.27.2007 : 10:50 am

   john: if the only way to positively affect the environment is to move to the outer edges of cities and into the countryside, we might possibly help the environment, but not without killing the economy. This family seems to have found a way to incorporate environmental consciousness into a realistic modern life. It doesn’t matter if they live on 5th avenue or in BedStuy: there are now 3 more people creating a “green future” (well, 2.5: the baby is the .5).

3. settlement heart Says:
   Mar.27.2007 : 12:11 pm

   I never get tired of hearing the fallacy, “you must be poor to affect social change.” I prefer to quote Jay-Z,”I can’t help the poor if I’m one of them/I got rich and gave back/to me that’s the win-win.”