No Impact Man: The Movie Everyone Is Talking About (VIDEO)
You may have heard something about No Impact Man or you may have heard about the guy who was going to live in New York City without making any environmental impact for a whole year (crazy, right?). Or maybe you read the New York Times article that catapulted Colin Beavan -- aka No Impact Man -- to international recognition. Or you happened to read Elizabeth Kolbert's scathing New Yorker profile on Beavan's efforts, dubbing it an eco-stunt. (You can read the response to Kolbert's article Beavan posted on HuffPost Green here.)
Regardless of what you've heard, you should see this incredibly compelling documentary, which opens in New York and Los Angeles on September 11th and in select cities in the following weeks.
I'm a fan because I think it has the ability to bring a lot of attention, through humor and human drama, to questions about the way we live, how we consume and what we can do to become responsible environmental citizens.
Here's the premise from the "No Impact Man" film website:
Colin Beavan decides to completely eliminate his personal impact on the environment for the next year.
It means eating vegetarian, buying only local food, and turning off the refrigerator. It also means no elevators, no television, no cars, buses, or airplanes, no toxic cleaning products, no electricity, no material consumption, and no garbage.No problem - at least for Colin - but he and his family live in Manhattan. So when his espresso-guzzling, retail-worshipping wife Michelle and their two-year-old daughter are dragged into the fray, the No Impact Project has an unforeseen impact of its own.
Watch the trailer:
Several reviewers found Mrs. No Impact Man -- aka Michelle Conlin -- to be the most compelling character in the film.
Jonathan Hiskes on Grist.org writes:
Conlin is more sympathetic because she misses coffee and tires of eating local root vegetables. She thinks, understandably, that a year is a long time to go without buying new clothes. While No Impact Husband devotes much of his day to cooking, cleaning, and making the experiment work, she keeps her day job. The filmmakers play up Conlin's "espresso-guzzling, retail-worshipping" characterization, but it's still clear this is difficult for her.
Here's an excerpt from Conlin's BusinessWeek article (where she's a reporter) about The No Impact Experiment:
Little did I know that a year after the project's completion the global financial system would implode, or that the era of high-impact living--using one's house as an ATM, jetting off on a lark--would come to a spectacular and cataclysmic end. And here's the strange and unpredictable twist: Going No Impact for a year turned out to be sublime preparation for the post-subprime life.
In addition to the film, Beavan has written a book about the experiment which goes into a lot more detail about the project, information about the environment and resources on how to get involved.
Beavan has also started the No Impact Project non-profit to empower people to live their own no-impact lifestyle and has created a 7-day action plan to show how to do it.
WATCH:
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Colin Beavan: A Stunt Or Not A Stunt? That Is NOT The Question
Elizabeth Kolbert's using four pages to attack her fellow environmental writers is four pages less that she could have used to convince the public of the dangers of continuing to burn fossil fuel and that we could have a better way of life without it.
This week will give people the opportunity to examine and reduce their ecological footprint by taking part in a short and intense period of conscious consumption supported by local and online communities.
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The clothes dryer is one of the biggest energy hogs. The clothesline or drying rack is the most eco-friendly option. However not everyone is willing to do this. Another option is the spin dryer, such as at http://www.laundry-alternative.com/drying.htm which is nearly 100 times as energy efficient as a tumble dryer and easy to use. There is also a new technology at http://www.dryermiser.com which appears to be promising.
how did you power your camera and write your blog and did you work and what did you wear? come on this is just a calculated attempt at publicity and money making. it worked.
Exxon/Mobil has been named by Forbes as "Green Company of the Year" It's true!
http://www.suburbanempire.com or http://www.motherjones.com
Now being green is as easy as gassing up the Hummer at an Exxon station!
This is great...though NYC is pretty green just bc of the density and lifestyle (no suburban sprawl and daily use of cars).
Well my bf calls my current lifestyle "late nineteenth century", but I can do more...would love to grow my own food.
He should be called 1800's man. That is how everyone lived in New York in the 1800's. Then the industrial revolution came along, electricity was brought in and everyone was more productive. Rather than waste all day washing clothes by hand, scrubbing vegetables and cleaning a chicken, walking everywhere but never getting far, people suddenly had time to think, invent, innovate, see ore of their world, enjoy life. Enjoy life much like the upper class had done for centuries because they had servants to do all of their work. How many diapers did this guy wash in water he hauled upstairs, boiled in pots and scrubbed by hand?
I recycle and love to walk. I also take public transportation and drive as little as possible. But they will have to drag away my cold dead body before they get my washing machine, refrigerator or computer.
There is an old saying, "Moderation in all things."
This story is very interesting, but......it is as much a story about what happens when we go to extremes, as a story about our looming environmental problems. The answer to our problems isn't to become radicals, it is to find reasonable solutions that we can live with before we are forced into radical responses.
Just eat less meat.
From Ezra Klein's WaPo article from July:
Two researchers at the University of Chicago estimated that switching to a vegan diet would have a bigger impact than trading in your gas guzzler for a Prius. A study out of Carnegie Mellon University found that the average American would do less for the planet by switching to a totally local diet than by going vegetarian one day a week.
In other words, the vegan driving an SUV makes a smaller impact on the environment than a meat eater riding a bicycle.
I live in a vast ranching community of the West. You would not believe the resources it takes to grow beef, just to mention one meat and one small area of the larger picture. Growing meat is a very inefficient and wasteful way to satisfy hunger. And I would be tarred and feathered at the very least if I spoke this aloud in my area.
I would if soy did not cause cancer.
Wait. There are zillions alternatives in a vegetarian diet besides soy. Meat causes cancer.
Extreme measures do not have to be taken to reduce your impact. My family and I relocated to Japan from the USA. We now:
1. Ride bicycles ONLY
2. Have no dishwasher
3. Have no clothes dryer
4. Recycle religiously.
5. Heat and cool only one room at a time.
We are not alone here, either. Wake up America! Your wastefulness is unparalleled!
Disagree with 2: Good dishwashers use less water than you would washing by hand.
4 depends, shipping paper to china via polluting trucks and ships where they'll bleach it is not a good solution.
Never been to Japan, but a trip to Europe quickly illustrates a lot of differences. They use fewer cars than we do, because they didn't allow corporations to dismantle their light-rail systems, the way we did here. They do a lot more walking than we do, for sure. Turning off the heating in rooms that are not being used is the norm, not the exception. Seeing clothes hanging up to dry is also the norm, even among those obviously wealthy enough to afford to do otherwise.
There are also far fewer obese people in Europe, which must have some sort of impact.
The carbon footprint per-person in North America is far higher than it needs to be to sustain us comfortably. Living more intelligently would save us a lot of money and make us healthier.
They have fewer cars because fuel costs so much, aprking is a premium and cars are expensive there. They have light rail systems because the state owns it and wants it. Turning off the heat in a room that is empty is actually ineffcient for whole house systems, it strains the motor and costs you more money because it uses more energy. They hang clothes up to dry because the label says to do so and they like the smell. England has as many obese as the US does.
If you have a whole house heating and cooling system turning off the vents to the other rooms wastes energy and causes the motor to work harder so they breka down more. Just ask any HVAC technician. Keep all the vents open for maxiumum efficiency. Dishwashers use less water than handwashing. It recycles it. Line drying is great if you hav eno allergies and dont mind polllution on your clothes. I dont recylce glass as it costs too much to transport such heavy material.
It's certainly a noble cause and we can all do things to reduce waste. However, all the activity that individual people do only accounts for something like 10-20% of our environmental impact. Until manufacturing and industry gets its house in order, we could all live like this guy, on virtually nothing, and it still wouldn't make much difference.
A very good point, but I think that indirectly consumers are responsible for more of an impact than you have stated.
About 97% of electricity is lost in transmission, so a reduction by the end user makes a huge impact at the production site. Since most of our electricity is still generated by burning coal, reducing electrical use will reduce generation 30 fold.
Much of our petroleum use in this country is as fuel in personal transportation. While I don't have the figures in front of me, I am pretty sure it is higher than 20%.
By recycling, we reduce the need for mining and smelting of ores, and about 50% of our manufacturing and industry operate in response to consumer demand. So, reducing our consumption of non-essentials will have an impact on those sectors of the economy.
10-20 % is not a lot?
10-20 is a lot if you think of it
We lived in the forest for over a year, in cabins and driftwood shacks, drank water hauled up from a well, burned firewood for heat, owned no ICE vehicles, foraged for nettles and miner's lettuce and kelp, and made our own bread.
They called us left wing hippies. Orcas Island, WA, 1973
Where's my book deal?
I'd give you one if I had one to offer.
bad timing. you where to early.
Submit a manuscript.
He's still breathing and taking a dump every day right?
Still impacting.
Unless he used a "Honey pot" and hauled his waste downstairs every morning to dump in the street.
how did he do computer stuff?
"It's a one year experiment, and it's extreme: no soda cans, no water in plastic"
Oh yeah, sooo extreme...
I didn't know I was an extremist all along doing that plus composting, not having a TV and taking hot showers with a DIY sub $100 solar heater.
Sounds like a book selling stunt to me.
nice, this is also a cool advice from obama
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfMwXA2eVeM
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