There’s an article in the NY Times today about a Manhattan family living an experiment to have “no impact” on the environment. Well, no impact whatsoever would be nearly impossible, but they are focusing on eating locally, organically, producing no waste (thus the tittle of the article), using no fossil fuels, and not buying anything new. The article was quite interesting, and the family’s blog further details their year-long adventure.
There seems to be this sort of individualistic-environmentalism craze going on - where suddenly a wealthy liberal sees “An Inconvenient Truth” and decides to drastically change his/her lifestyle. And, of course, publish a book and documentary as well.
I suppose this sort of thing could be seen as opening peoples’ eyes to the disproportionate harm the American lifestyle puts on the environment. If more people are aware of the environmental harm caused by agra-business, fossil fuels, and the amount of trash we produce, I suppose a real movement and change might follow.
But I would rather see real lifestyle and policy changes from our political leaders and policymakers. How about Bush actually signing the Kyoto protocol? How about federal and state funds to actually make it as cost effective to recycle as it is to top off a landfill? How about some real teeth to stop manufacturers from packaging with so much plastic in the first place? I fear that without these real changes, our progress will stall at a surface-awareness that can easily be ignored. And some entertaining memoirs and documentaries.
To be fair, perhaps I’m being too cynical. After all, if this reality-show-like “look at how environmentalist I can be” phenomenon can really educate people and inspire them to action, then perhaps real change can happen. But I wouldn’t bet my toilet paper on it.
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