ABC Again Touts Toilet Paper-shunning Environmentalist; Downplays Liberalism
On Thursday's Good Morning America, for the third time in two
years, Sam Champion interviewed an extreme environmentalist who shunned
toilet paper for a year as part of a project to be carbon neutral. Colin Beavan,
also known as "No Impact Man," appeared on the show to promote a new documentary
and book on his experience. This time, however, Champion downplayed the bizarre
elements of Beavan's life.
The host made no mention of the fact that, in addition to not using amenities
such as elevators, cars and electricity, Beavan also stopped partaking in the
practice of using toilet paper. (This aspect was noted on ABCNews.com.) Champion
did refer to the project as a "year-long experiment in living extreme
green." But, the ABC weatherman skipped any discussion of the
left-wing nature of Beavan's life. The full title of the environmentalist's book
is "No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to
Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life
in the Process." [Emphasis added] (The book title did appear briefly as an
on-screen graphic.)
If Beavan isn't trying to hid his liberalism, why is Champion? After the ABC
personality vaguely invited the environmental activist to give him "three tips,"
he didn't say on what, Beavan suggested, "And take a day of rest. Don't buy
anything. Don't turn anything on and rest." Is this socialism or
environmentalism? Or both?
Beavan also requested, "...For your own health, eat less beef. Beef happens
to cause- Beef production causes more global warming than anything else." During
the segment, he wore a shirt touting a website that fights climate change.
On the May 10, 2007, co-host Diane Sawyer attempted to delicately
explain Beavan's process of going to the bathroom without toilet paper:
DIANE SAWYER: Now, I know everybody wants to know what you do instead of toilet paper. I'm not going to tell them. I'm going to let them go online and search this out for themselves. Let me just say it's the Bedouin solution. If you don't know what that is, you're on your own out there.
On February 5, 2009, Champion profiled another extreme
environmentalist, one who decided to live in his own filth for a year.
A transcript of the September 3 segment, which aired at 8:50am EDT, follows:
SAM CHAMPION: Take a moment to imagine raising your family, maybe it's a toddler, in a very big city, without any electricity, without a car, without television, which is impossible. And without buying anything new, but food, for a year. Well, Colin Beavan did it. And he lived to write about it in a book called No Impact Man. There's going to be a documentary coming out. There's going to be a film coming out. No Impact Man the documentary is out September 11th. He joins us now to talk about his year-long experiment in living extreme green, we say. Colin, first of all, so nice to see you.
ABC GRAPHIC: No Impact Man: Life After a Year Off the Grid
COLIN BEAVAN: It's nice to see you, sir.
CHAMPION: And thank you for, you know, showing us what you were going to do before you did it. And now, it seems like it's been, you know, - I know it's been a tough time for you. What was the idea behind the project?
BEAVAN: Well, in 2006, the news was coming out about global warming. And I was becoming aware of it for the first time. And I didn't feel as though the government was doing anything about it. I didn't feel as though big business was doing anything about it. And I thought, maybe in some small way, we as individuals are going to have to do something about it. And I thought, if I personally try to do something, and I wrote a book and publicized it, maybe we would attract more attention to this crucial issue.
CHAMPION: It was- I remember the first time we sat and talked about what your plan was. And you had a family. I mean, your wife, Michelle, is involved in this. Your little daughter, Isabella, who was then two, now four and a half. As, as- For them, what was the toughest thing they had to adjust to?
BEAVAN: For Isabella, it wasn't tough at all. I mean, like, we were going up and down the stairs because we weren't using the elevator.
CHAMPION: Nine floors, by the way.
BEAVAN: Yeah, that's right. And she'd be riding our shoulders. Or for example, like, everybody thinks it's going to be tough. But, for example, in the summer, on the hot days, instead of turning on the air conditioning on and huddling in the apartment by ourselves, what we would do is we would go to the local fountain and hang out with our neighbors and be social. And Isabella would run in the fountain. The fact of the matter is, if we consume a lot less, if we consume a lot less, we may discover there's another, happier life that's available to us.
CHAMPION: And we know the documentary is coming out. We've got the book right here. The book the green printed, by the way. Tell me- I know, you, you probably forced that issue. So, what did you have to do to get that done?
BEAVAN: Well, actually, Farrar, Straus and Giroux was very onboard from the beginning. So, I didn't have to force them. But, they had to do different research into- maybe you would use bamboo or something. All this different research to find out what the best way was. And it turned out to use 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper was the best way to produce this book. And the nice thing is every time a publisher publishes a book this way, it's one step closer to the whole industry publishing like that.
CHAMPION: Moving in that direction. Before we got to go and we've got just a few seconds. Give us just three tips for everybody else. Because you've come now into this at a cycle where America really wants to cut back and do things less expensively. And this can work for that, as well. So, give me three tips.
BEAVAN: Okay, so first of all, I should tell you we have lots of tips at Noimpactproject.org.
CHAMPION: Right.
BEAVAN: But the three tips are, first of all, for your own health, eat less beef. Beef happens to cause- Beef production causes more global warming than anything else.
CHAMPION: Hang on. Give me two more quick and then we gotta go. Because we are already-
BEAVAN: No bottled water.
CHAMPION: Right.
BEAVAN: And take a day of rest. Don't buy anything. Don't turn anything on and rest.
CHAMPION: Away from purchasing.
-Scott Whitlock is a news analyst for the Media Research Center.
