Viewer,
Imagine if you will a man who was willing to forgo most common comforts for the sake of improving the planet. How would he do it? Go on a pilgrimage maybe, search for answers on the top of a mountain?
No, he does it by cutting off his electricity in lower Manhattan.
That's the story of No Impact Man. A documentary filmed in 2009 and available on Netflix.
Colin Beavan was a writer of non-fiction and Internet blogger when the idea hit him to decrease his environmental impact to zero.
Not lower it, like a credit score. Not like cholesterol, no, he wants to make no impact on a struggling eco-system. Pun intended.
To his credit he does it incrementally, first changing the way he eats, and buys food. It is a gradual growth he undertakes to change his life.
Problem is, he's married to a pop-culture/coffee junkie and has a young baby while living in one of the most populated and cosmopolitan centers on Earth.
The story of Beavan and his family is an engaging one, with small lessons about how to be better for our environment sprinkled throughout.
While it is important for the question "how much consumption is too much consumption?" to be raised. It also, without trying, makes you wonder who else could do this but someone with enough money to shop at a farmer's market, or go to upstate New York and go directly to a farm to get real milk.
And should someone undertake that kind of transformation when they have a baby on board?
It's definitely a conversation starter, the kind of movie that starts good debates and some self exploration. It's also the kind of movie that makes you feel bad for the bottle of water you're drinking.
-Paul
P.S. This movie is a Popcorn Combo. Give it a look.
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