This most-emailed Times article on some hapless writer's attempt to plunge his family into peat bog serfdom comes just days after the Czech president compared environmentalism to Communism. With the dearth of toilet paper in the Beavan household, it's harder to sniff at the absurdity of the analogy.
Welcome to Walden Pond, Fifth Avenue style. Isabella’s parents, Colin Beavan, 43, a writer of historical nonfiction, and Michelle Conlin, 39, a senior writer at Business Week, are four months into a yearlong lifestyle experiment they call No Impact. Its rules are evolving, as Mr. Beavan will tell you, but to date include eating only food (organically) grown within a 250-mile radius of Manhattan; (mostly) no shopping for anything except said food; producing no trash (except compost, see above); using no paper; and, most intriguingly, using no carbon-fueled transportation.
The couple has a kid wearing "organic diapers." Comes the question: Is diaper rash cured with humus or tofu spread instead of Johnson & Johnson's baby powder?
A few bloggers make excellent points about the futility of saving the planet by using stairs instead of the elevator. Burning more calories means you consume more food. Even if it's organically grown and shipped from within a 150 mile radius of Manhattan, this still means an overall expenditure of more energy getting hippie zucchini from Point Fishkill to Point Union Square. Riding the elevator keeps the blood sugar at a livable level. Joey, Elisa, other anemic meat-eluders…. Little help here?
He is simply not the same Paul Walker, you may recall from his previous films.