Living La Vida Lo-Impact

If you're reading this, chances are you already live green enough to recycle and reuse on a regular basis. The sticking point for our consumer-culture has always been the third "R", the mandate to reduce. Here's the deal: Those of us who subscribe to the "less is more" philosophy of home and interior design may like the clean, modernist lines of the Barcelona chair, but we draw the line at sitting on the floor. The idea is less, not none, right?

If you're stumped as to how to live a life that's rich in experience in a nest that's cozily, luxuriously and conscientiously feathered, then you'll want to add No Impact Man's blog to your feed reader (thanks to Kit Stolz for the link). The author is a family man with a wife and 2 year-old daughter living in  New York City, who suddenly decided he had had enough--too much, even, vowing to live for one year as impact-free and carbon-free as possible. NIM is no nutter, though, but more of an experiential journalist ala George Plimpton. He acknolwedges that what he's undertaken is impracitcal and extreme, writing, "one of the points of this experiment is to determine what is realistic and what isn't when it comes to sacrifices people might be willing to make."

If you can't imagine what it's like to live in a Manhattan high rise on Fifth Avenue without electricity, don't worry, because you can read all about it here. The writing is sublime, by the way, so it's no surprise that a book deal is already in the works.

If you are still keen on the subject, the current issue of Good Magazine profiles The Compact, a community of friends in San Francisco who undertook a buy-nothing-new-for-a-year experiment that has sparked an entire underground movement wiith 9000-some followers around the world. We are thinking it might be illuminating to try something like this even for a week, as a consciousness-raising exercise.