'No Impact Man' has big impact on viewers

by Morgan Ledermann, posted Dec. 15, 2009

It is not easy being “No Impact Man,” giving up elevators, coffee, and electricity for an entire year for the sake of a documentary.

New Yorker Colin Beavan launched a yearlong project beginning in November 2006.  Beavan, with his wife and 2-year-old daughter, set out to live in the middle of New York City with as little environmental impact as possible.

He begins with eliminating toilet paper and public transportation, to gradually phase out technology and his impact on the environment.  Eventually, he shuts off the electricity to the couple’s ninth-floor apartment.

Beverley Kreul, sophomore agricultural journalism major said her agricultural understanding made her skeptical. 

“Lets just be realistic,” Kreul said. “Treating cattle for disease, burning fuel to transport food, heating our homes, cutting down trees to produce paper and lumber for homes and tools is part of life.”

But in the film, Beavan said that he finds all waste and consumerism to be detrimental to human’s quality of life and harmful to the planet.

Throughout Beavan’s committed year of low impact he keeps a blog, later writes a book, and then the documentary, “No Impact Man.”

“Beavan was able to mix humor in with the story and still make the viewer consider their own lifestyle and how they could make it a bit greener,” said Gregg Webb, a sophomore finance and philosophy major at MU.

With a 2-year-old daughter who cannot complain yet and Beavan’s determination, his wife, Michelle, assumes the role as complainer and sarcastic relief to Beavan’s calm commitment to their lifestyle change. She initially goes through withdrawals from her coffee drinks and shopping trips.

“Her reluctance to give up many aspects of her consumerist life provided me with someone who I could relate to,” Webb said.

Later, she struggles with visiting a dairy farm. One of the exceptions the family made was a train ride to upstate New York to see the dairy where their milk was produced. The wife is hesitant at first to the country life and the sights and smells that go along with it. 

Soon, the family loosens up and starts laughing at the cows and enjoying the countryside beauty.  They even have the opportunity to tour the farm with the family and learn about the milking operation.  There she admits that sometimes the only thing that keeps her in line is “the wrath of Colin.”

As the film goes on Beavan begins to embrace the lifestyle set by her husband.  When she looks for the positive aspects, small pleasures like ice at work are considered luxuries.

This film continues to show expectations become luxuries with the change of their lifestyle.

Instead of television or electronic devices, the couple took their daughter to Central Park to enjoy walking and splashing in fountains.

“It changed their relationship with each other and their daughter,” said Kaitlyn Richie, junior English major.  “Taking away distractions such as TV, Internet,etc made them focus on one another so much more and spend such great quality time with their daughter!”

“No Impact Man” ends not with a major environmental breakthrough, but with Beavan and Michelle as they reactivate their apartment's electricity.

They both realized they could greatly reduce their impact but going without certain aspects of technology was not practical.
           
“It was the best part to see how much their priorities changed,” Richie said.

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