Whew!  This man has a lot to say, and a blog, book, and movie to say it with.  And apparently a rather, uh, attentive audience.  Most of the comments are variations on “You are not a nut!  Go, No Impact Man, Go!”  As far as the others, well….“Someone wants to spray Michelle and I with an Uzi and get Isabella adopted by Angelina Jolie,” Beavan remarks of his critics.  “Someone else wants to wipe their butt with the pages of my coming book.” 

Living greenly in New York City is a dubious affair.  I’d wager that the tightness of everyone’s space means New Yorkers waste less energy than they would living in large suburban homes—only two bulbs to leave on inadvertently rather than twelve—but when one considers the pile of take-out containers the average citizen racks up over the course of the year…

Colin’s experiment is inspirational, if kind of a pipe dream (in its entirety) for most of us.  If I tried to scooter to work from my rather délaissé corner of an outer borough, it would take three hours (on public transport, my commute is still over an hour).  We can’t all live in doorman buildings on lower Fifth Avenue.  That said, giving Colin a hard time is rather unfair.  How many of you are willing to give up toilet paper? 

I’ll be following the adventures of No Impact Man over the coming months by reading his wildly entertaining blog.  Few of us will feel so inspired as to follow his example to the letter, but even small changes make a difference.  What I like both best and least about this experiment is that, unlike laudable but less rigorous greening ventures, it doesn’t make living green sound easy, like all that’s needed is switching to Tom’s of Maine toothpaste and vegetables from Whole Foods.  This guy is really making himself miserable—or if not his own crazy self, then his patient (saintly) wife.  Hey, no one said it was simple.

Nathalie Jordi's appetites keep her bouncing between between County Cork, New York, London and the French Alps.  When not slinging curd or interviewing farmers, she writes for Travel&Leisure, Conde Nast Traveler, Gastronomica, and her blog at www.autobiogeography.com.  Her dreams of a life spent baking, drinking margaritas, and sitting in the sun are gathering steam during her current stint as a waitress in New York City.