Ever wanted to make an impact on the world?
You already do.
No Impact Week is a chance to reflect on the impacts of our actions outside of ourselves. Participating means undergoing a week of heightened consciousness towards the environmental impacts of our actions. By becoming conscious of the different ways we affect the environment each day, and learning how to address that on an individual level, we can work towards making a healthier planet and incidentally becoming healthier people. To join the No Impact Challenge for this exciting week, register here: http://bit.ly/ColumbiaNIWregistration!
The No Impact Project is an international, environmental, nonprofit project, founded in the spring of 2009. It was inspired by the No Impact Man book, film, and blog, conceived and lived by Colin Beavan. Beavan and his family’s underwent a year-long experiment living a zero-waste lifestyle in New York City. Central to Beavan’s thesis is the notion that deep-seated individual behavior change leads to both cultural change and political engagement. Living low-impact provides a clear entry point into the environmental movement, a movement which aims to optimize the integrity of the systems that connect us all.
We are excited to present a diverse program for Columbia’s No Impact Week, featuring engaging speakers, films, workshops, parties, and more. The week is a unique collaboration of many Columbia students and faculty from different groups, schools, and departments.
We hope you enjoy our program!
To find a list of events happening on campus this week: click here
Events for No Impact Week have been brought to you by: The CU Green Umbrella, Columbia EcoReps, Earth Institute Student Advisory Board, Food Sustainability Project, CU Community Garden, DeltaGDP, CU Security, CU Roadrunners, Go Green at Teacher’s College, Pi Delta Psi Inc., Kappa Alpha Theta, Sigma Nu, Social Justice at Columbia, Barnard Hillel, and Postcrypt Arts Underground
Unfortunately most humans are in our daily lives without thinking about others, and we have not realized the importance of that together build a better world.
Tell me more about what I can do to help improve our environment.
One way–keep compost and bring it to your local farmers market. If you start with something like coffee grounds you can begin a practice of keeping it. If you are are afraid to have it out because of city vermin, put it in your freezer or use a tight fitting lid bucket.
Buy bio-degradable cleaning products or make your own.
turn the lights out as you leave a room
Carry around your own coffee mug and water bottle. If you could get rid of those paper cups and plastic water bottles from your life, there would be great impact on the environment.
Really to reduce our impact, its the simple things that could make a difference if only because it changes our mindset–do I really need those extra napkins? I can hold on to this can until I get to a place where I can recycle it. I believe in the power of small steps. It’s much hard to think about huge ones. But if every person in NYC took a little step, imagine the collective impact.
It’s kind of sad that we human get everything we need from the earth but we (at least many of us) have never thought about doing something for her.
Thank you for this post/article. I am intimately involved in the area of green steam cleaning and mold removal and obviously our interests run parallel. Please email me if you’d like to discuss this. Thanks again.