Book Deal Needed

I do my bit to save energy. I don't waste. I feel I need to take care of frazzled mother Earth. So what is my problem? Why can I not get a book deal, or at least a magazine article, for chronicling my day-to-day living, which is well under the US norm for consumption?

Why can't I be like Colin  "Book-deal" Beavan or, now, Wendee "Magazine article" Holtcamp and profess some idiotic but short-term goal to "reduce my impact on this (no doubt suffering) Earth" or "live a 19th. century life?"

But my style of living under the carbon radar ain't enough. You have to go green-extreme. You have to (like Beavan) do without toilet paper (what could be better for a NY Times headline than "The Year Without Toilet Paper?") or be a "Consumer Celibate" like Holtcamp:

The original Compacters, who formed their group in early 2006, did not intend to start a movement. It was just 10 San Francisco friends trying to reduce their consumption by not buying new stuff for a year. The group's manifesto was simple: to counteract the negative global environmental and socioeconomic impacts of U.S. consumer culture. Named after the Pilgrims' revolutionary Mayflower Compact, the small idea led to a Yahoo Web site that has attracted more than 8,000 adherents and spawned some 50 groups in spots as far-flung as Hong Kong and Iceland.

So this dedicated Wendee takes an oath to not buy anything new for one measly month. Worse than Beavan, who decided to stick to his regimen for a full year. Well, if that's all it takes to be able to spout off...

She has the requisite bout of uncertainty and consults an economic guru to assuage her fears about "the soundness of her premise." She worries about "hurting the economy" as a result of her decision to not buy stuff. She actually quotes university economists who reassure her on the possible damage she may be doing. If that does not prove that this woman doesn't even have the courage of her convictions, what will?

Do you feel the madmen are running the asylum?

Watch this space next week for my log of 7 days without luxuriating in a jacuzzi, watering the lawn daily, watching an 80" LCD TV or setting my air-conditioners to 64°. (It would be irrelevant to mention I don't have most of these things.) New Yorker, here I come.

Comments

[Wendee Holtcamp]

Wow you don't necessarily need to attack the person to disagree with the ideas. I do not think I'm not any sort of a hero to go for a month without buying, nor did I ever claim to be nor think of a month as any great huge sacrifice. The article was more to raise awareness of issues, and to analyze the impact OF the Compact on the economy and the environment (hence to interview the economists and review the model from the Brower and Leon book) rather than assume at face value The Compact was necessarily a "good" option for either. It's not a black and white answer. I did not plan to do the Compact at all, just write about it, but my editor thought I should try it for a month. Hence that is why I did it for a month. I'm a pretty green person overall already but the exercise definitely made me think about the big picture. It's not so easy to just go off the grid completely in a modern world for everyone. But we can try to reduce our impact bit by bit, and even that also sets an example for the people in our lives who may be less environmentally conscious than we are. But look at all this discussion - it's great! However one of my personal goals is that my writing will bring about more peacefulness and kindness in people not animosity. Peace is The Way...

[chandru]

You say that you wanted to "raise awareness of issues" by your article.

The point is that proselytizing "green" is hard in this country with its much-entitled citizenry who don't want to make any sacrifices. And writing about what seems like a stunt merely makes it harder. Making a major lifestyle change for just one month (or, arguably, for one year,) is a stunt.

Beavan, with his one-year regimen, got lots of publicity but I doubt changed anyone's mind. His actions can easily be dismissed as those of an (albeit temporary) extremist.