No Impact Man: a review

i just finished watching the documentary, "no impact man". it's the story of one man, a writer in nyc, that takes his family on an exploratory year of trying to live without impact on the environment. the short version of my review would be," it was good". i am me however, so i have a little more to say about it.

i would start with the title, clearly thought up by man with his black and white brain, as "no" impact is not an actual possibility. that aside, i like the premise of exploring ways that ordinary people (and they are) can reduce their environmental impact on the world. the thought that individual action is meaningful in some way in the face of humongous world issues is something i believe very strongly in.

some of the things that drew me to watch this film are that his wife agreed to go along on this journey (with their young daughter) despite being a self professed "high fructose corn syrup and reality television addict" who works for a major national magazine. also, i like the fact that the man behind the philosophy does not have a long scientific history with environmental impact issues. he is a guy who had an idea and ran with it. because of this humanity his experiment was an evolutionary one, and a deeply flawed one; which in my view makes it more accessible to the masses, and thus more powerful. his contention is that by making these changes, and attempts at changes, he would inspire others to look for ways they could do the same in their lives, they in turn would inspire the people in their world to make some different choices, and so on and so on.

one of my favorite lines from the film was when he said (i'm paraphrasing), "i think idealism is one of the most powerful political acts". he was met with a lot of skepticism via his blog (which tracked his families journey), and it caused him to wonder a lot about why people were so afraid or opposed to believe in someone trying to make positive changes. i have to agree, i mean we are all pretty much on the same page these days that the environment is seriously f-ed up, and doing things to have less of an impact is a good thing (hello, massively simplified statement). it took us a long time to get to the place where there was mainstream acknowledgement of environmental issues, now is the time to open ourselves up to the ideas of others so that we can start to look at turning this pony around and having a positive impact (as opposed to "no" impact) on the world around us. we can learn from each other to find what works, and what doesn't, to reduce our negative individual impacts. another piece of good news is that what works for me, doesn't have to be the same for you. for me riding my bike everywhere and not having a car isn't something that would work well at this stage of my life, but maybe it would work very well for someone who lived in a different place or had a different lifestyle. well, that's great. i can contribute by not eating meat, recycling, composting, and eating locally. if we all did just a few things that we feel inspired to do it truly would have a big impact.

so while i don't think it's realistic for everyone to go whole hog (pun intended) trying not to have any impact on the environment, i do think exploring the vast array of ways in which we do make impacts is a good conversation to have because let's face it, simply recycling isn't going to cut it anymore. at it's core i think that was what "no impact man" was trying to convey. i also think that if you get past the black and white falsehood in the title, which i think makes it sound like a documentary that is only going to make it's audience feel inadequate and defensive, that it's message is a good one, and surprisingly it is very accessible to the masses. overall, i recommend. let me know what you think if you've seen it!