No
Impact Man – A Realistic Utopia
by Eric, Jacob and Todd
No Impact Man – Living without Necessities
No Impact Man is an American made 93 minute documentary film directed by Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein that was premiered in 2009. The movie follows Colin Beavan the “No Impact Man” and his family in New York City on his one year experiment to have no impact on the environment. Colin and his family follow a 40 step procedure that involves steps such as eating locally (within a radius of 250 miles), no carbon base transportation, no packaged goods, no toilet paper, no television, and the plan eventually reaches the extreme, using no electricity. Along the way he does what he can to learn about the environment and give back to it as well. He grows his own vegetables, he joins local environmental groups to help, and he takes his family vacation on a farm. We watch Colin and his family in their everyday lives along with some interviews of the family and some of the people they meet on the journey.
Colin’s project experiences some difficulty very quickly, his wife, Michelle is a consumption machine, who loves her Starbucks, takeout, and Louis Vuitton. He also has to take care of his young daughter and his dog all while sticking to his plan. Michelle feels the pain quickly: she craves caffeine, is sick of organic homemade food, and really questions whether or not she can go on with the experiment. Even Colin questions himself when the electricity goes out, he can’t see anyone giving up their electricity, although everything turned out fine and he lasted the whole six months without electricity.
Soon after the start of the experiment, Colin and his family start getting criticized by not only his community but the entire world. Environmentalists said he was giving them a bad name by being crazy, he received hateful comments on his blog and was criticized on television like the Colbert Report. People believed he was doing it for the fame only, using this experiment as an excuse to write his next book. However this type of criticism is common on a spiritual quest such as Colin’s, but our hero shed society and its pride, fear, and misunderstanding. He ignored the pessimists, he knew he was doing a great thing and continued on his journey.
The concepts discussed in this week’s class were utopia and myths. A lot of people view the concept of consuming less impossible. People can’t imagine giving up the things they love most. We constantly buy into the latest gadgets and trends because society deems it necessary. Colin says in the movie that “people don’t like being told what they’re doing is bad”, when this situation arises, most of the people accused go into denial. There’s not one person to blame, because we’re all to blame. Colin’s ideologies are seen as utopian, they only seem possible in a perfect world. But Colin’s ideas are attainable, it is possible to consume less while still maintaining a happy lifestyle, this movie proves it. Colin wants his experiment and ideologies to lead to change. He wants his actions to make the world a better place for everyone. His actions go way beyond just the environment, because without the environment there is nothing. We need the environment to survive as a species.
His myth is a repository of allegorical instructions to shape the opinions of our community, to change our ways, not only to save the environment, but to save ourselves as well. Myths show us that there is in fact a way for us humans to grow as a population. By looking at Greimas’ Actantial Model, we see that Colin (the subject) realizes how consumerism harms the planet more than it does us good (the sender) and therefor seeks to find a sustainable way of living with only necessities of life; his own personal utopia (the object). Interestingly enough, the receiver (who benefits from the quest) is the entire population of the planet – everyone who watches this documentary is given much knowledge. We can clearly see that the point of the experiment Colin underwent was to change and form the population as a whole. He achieves this by giving us alternative ways of living – where we can still be happy but not consume as much. Colin’s quest shows us little things we can do to do our part – such as growing your own vegetables, composting, using bicycles, etc. so that we can grow for the better as a population.
The way that No Impact Man is filmed makes it very relatable. In a sense, it can be somewhat viewed as “Cinema-en-Directe” because it shows us a reality as it unfolds. Although sometimes we see the Beavan family talking to the camera (such as at the beginning of the film when the experiment is being introduced), most of the documentary shows the family undergoing the changes, talking with friends, buying from the local market and much more.
A video titled “The High Price of Materialism” explains how we live in a society where it seems as though the only way to be happy is to make work, make money, and spend that hard earned money on products that we don’t necessarily need
To sum up his experiment, Colin shares his insight with us. He explains how as a result of his experiment, he loses 15 pounds without joining a gym. His wife, who was pre-diabetic, was completely cured. They also felt like better parents as their family gathered around the kitchen table instead of the television. Once the experiment was over Colin concluded that he didn’t need to give up every single thing that was bad for the environment, but he could still have a happy life without wasting so much. His family decided to even keep some of the habits they developed in the experiment, like the cycling and walking, the no television, the local eating. They changed their lives through this experience, and for the better. They seemed really happy in the end, and Colin started to impact other people’s lives too, which was his goal after all. His overall point to the movie, he can’t change much on his own, but he can inspire others to help and when everyone as a community acts together, anything is possible. It was an inspirational movie and a big eye opener.
Surviving Progress: What Makes Us Human?
The second film that our group watched for this section was Surviving Progress. This film is an eighty-six minute documentary film which was directed by Mathieu Roy which takes place in Canada. The film made its first appearance at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11th, 2011, and was later released on April 6th, 2012 in New York City.
A video of Mathieu Roy – the director of Surviving Progress – explaining his personal point of view on his own film and giving us a sneak peak of what we will see in the film
The film itself is very intriguing, as it follows common core elements; humanities progress since the beginning of our existence and what makes us human. The film starts off with a very tough question being asked to many of the people who are interviewed throughout the movie; what is progress? Many of the people interviewed do not have a clue on how to answer this, because it is such a vast question with no real right answer. Colin Beavan – who was also part of our first film this week – demonstrates that ever since the industrial revolution within the past 200 years, mankind believes that progress is more of the same thing. We are constantly trying to upgrade our machinery, our medicine, our technology and keep doing more of the same. Ronald Wright – author of A Short History of Progress – further builds on this idea, stating how more of the same may seem good, but in the end leads to what he calls a progress trap. A progress trap is a term used throughout out the film which is when a solution is made to solve a problem in short term, without thinking of the consequences in the long run. They always end up as a disaster because they are not sustainable ways of living. Ronald Wright uses the example of cavemen hunting mammoth. When cavemen began making tools and were able to take down two mammoths at a time, they were making real progress. However, when they learned they could lead a whole herd of two hundred mammoth over a cliff, they encountered a progress trap by making the hunter-gatherer way of live non-sustainable. Today, we still have this survival instinct from our ancestors, and our brains have changed very little in the past fifty-thousand years. Ronald Wright even gives the example of mammoth hunters compared to the optimism of stock traders and the yearning for the “big kill”.
Gary Marcus – a cognitive psychologist – explains this as running 21stcentury software on hardware that hasn’t been upgraded in the past fifty-thousand years. This is followed up by Daniel Povinelli – a behavioural scientist – who studies chimpanzees. Through his experiments of having the chimps and a human child solve a problem by standing up two blocks up, he finds what the difference between humans and apes is. When the block is not counterweighted and falls, the chimp keeps trying the same thing whereas the child thinks and flips it over. What makes us human is the simple idea of asking “Why?” , and this has lead us to discovering gravity, the mysteries of space and much more.
It is made aware to us in the film that there is a great problem of overpopulation, having 200 million new people every three years. This drastically impacts the earth’s ecological imprint – the amount of consumption, garbage produced, fuel burnt, etc. by a person every year. If China were to consume as much as the US, the planet would not be able to sustain itself. We learn that natural capital is the production of air, water, minerals etcetera by the earth, and since 1980 we have been consuming more than the earth can provide. Margaret Atwood – author of Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth – makes a good point by saying how the earth is a finite sum, and we need to realize this in order to save our planet. With no planet there is no economy in the first place. Sometimes in history debts were completely wiped out when they got too big as Michael Hudson – economic historian points out. It was easy when the debts were to be paid to the state, but now seeing as the debts as scattered to large corporations it is difficult to wipe the slate clean. The corporations are like the Romans back in their time, who invaded other kingdoms who wanted to clean the slates because the Romans did not believe in this. As both Simon Johnson and Michael Hudson point out, there were and still is a real oligarchy – where large corporations gain money, buy government power which leads to more money thus creating vast money and power in theory. These corporations take the amount massive debts on poor countries like Congo who end up selling their resources in order to try and pay it off.
Alon Tal, a Conservational Biologist from Stanford explains that overpopulation is the main problem causing hunger, extinction and overconsumption of our ressources
The documentary wraps up with us hearing from David Suzuki, Stephen Hawking and Jim Thomas who all push the point that we only have one planet, and the only way that we can keep our species alive for the time being is to realize our resources are finite and we can no longer keep living this way. In the distant future, it will be possible to inhabit other worlds, but for the time being we must keep our planet alive. The “experiment” of this era of consumerism as Ronald Wright calls it has come to a failure – a progress trap – and we must start anew with a different approach to the problems.
Mathieu Roy has created a film that uses credible people and shocking images and ideas to try and shape us as a population. Through the power of myth, Mathieu brings us a grand understanding of the world as we know it today and what we need to do in order to keep it flourishing. Some examples of this are the mining scenes, the scenes where we see growth of cityscapes, the clear-cutting of forests, oil spills and much more. Mathieu uses interviewees that are very so attuned with nature and that give us a perspective that we maybe didn’t see, or that we chose to ignore before. As the population of the world, Mathieu also uses myth to demonstrate how we as humans have fell into a progress trap, and that the only way to get out of it is to work together in changing our social structure. As we see from the slides in this week’s lecture, the totality of man is not of himself but of all the people surrounding him. As humans, we make the collectivity of humankind and are lead to begin change. Change is always the same no matter what the case is; we may not like it at first but if change is necessary we will adapt with it and adjust to it. When we become comfortable and familiar with a new society, we will then be happy in this new society, as we will have preserved not only our planet, but our humanity as a collective group.
The structure for the film is what is generally expected from a documentary film. There are people who are being interviewed from different parts of the world with differing opinions on the subject at hand. In the film, we typically see someone sharing their knowledge with us, sometimes while we see the person talking, and sometimes whilst they talk over video which is relevant to what they have to say. The film uses people who are for the most part widely recognized by the general person. The film includes David Suzuki who is an ecologist/activist, Stephen Hawking who is a theoretical physicist/cosmologist, and even Colin Beavan who is the No Impact Man from our first film. The documentary is aesthetically pleasing by the video and audio it gives us. We see vast galaxies as Stephen Hawking speaks of the cosmos, oceans full of life and complex strands of DNA when Jim Thomas (author of The New BioMasters) talks about the ability to alter genes and DNA. Furthermore, the film is usually accompanied by subtle but soothing background music.
Learning to Change: Our Thoughts
No Impact Man and Surviving Progress take us on a journey, where the ending point is change. Colin Beavan and his family take this experiment in their hands not only for their personal satisfaction and fame. Colin’s myth of environmental utopia is what his family believes should guide our community. This teaches us that anything is possible; Colin and his family took on a seemingly impossible task and made it happen, had fun doing it, and proved that you don’t have to live your life tied to a tree to make a difference. When we set our minds to something, we can really achieve it. The movie also inspires us to change our consumptive habits in our society, it’s easy to change, but hard to find the motivation to do so, these movies are the motivation to change. Colin believes that the environment itself should be the obsessions and requirements that our population needs to look out for. The way we live today is not sustainable. We are overpopulated, way too wasteful and materialistic and see no end in sight to this madness. Colin sees beyond everyone and lives like we used to. Without buying every new product that comes out, without buying your food ready to eat, but preparing it yourself. He gets closer with his family and enjoys life the way it is, with no frills. As we saw in Surviving Progress, if we continue living the way we do, we are bound to fail as a species.
Throughout Surviving Progress, it is apparent that our world is less than utopian at the moment. It may be true that each person has their own vision of what utopia is, and they may share those visions with others who have concerns about the same things. However, it must be mentioned that there are some things that as a people we can view as less-than-utopian. As Michael Hudson and Simon Johnson point out, there is a real oligarchy in place – having the 10% rich population highly surpass the 90% middle-class and poor people in terms of power. The only way that as a society we can reach utopian ways of living is by having the governments of the world make sure that they are governing in the interest of the people – not of the corporations. The corporations are what stop us in theory of reaching utopia because they hinder all progress that developing countries try to make. For example, Kambale Musavuli – Friends of the Congo – lets us know that the large corporations have been amassing massive amounts of debt on the people of Congo. The corporations had the people sign documents before the people of Congo knew what they really meant. To the corporations, profit is all that is important and they decide to virtually take the complete salary of someone living in Congo. This is morally disturbing – how could we let other humans become ironically so inhumane. I think that we can make a real connection here with the corporations and the chimps that our group mentioned before. I feel as though they are one in the same; the corporations don’t ask “why?”, “why?” am I hindering others, “why?” is the only thing I care about money and power. They never ask why, just like chimps, and they carry on doing the same thing over and over and over again. It is our duty as a people to get rid of these corporations – as John Locke said we have the right to revolt in a corrupt society. And to be quite honest, as Ronald Wright says, this “social experiment” has failed and if we do not show this to our governments, things will keep getting worse. It requires a whole people banding together to accomplish true utopia – putting aside our differences and focusing on common issues. If utopia is not just a place, but a people as well, then we must work with one another. As Stephen Hawking stated; we must work together in preserving our planet for the next 200 years. Then and only then will we be capable of inhabiting other planets.
These movies together have taught us that humans need to change to survive on this planet, but also that it is not as difficult to change as we make it seem. Colin suggests even making a few changes around your house will make a difference. Becoming a vegetarian has a huge impact on the environment, volunteering in environmental organizations not only helps you change the environment, but connect with your community. This myth can make it possible for men and women of our society to come to full human maturity through the conditions of contemporary life, Colin’s story proves that. You can make a change without changing yourself and the way you live drastically. No Impact Man and Surviving Progress have opened up our ignorant eyes and shown us the truth. They have not only given us a sense of spiritual significance, but physical as well, these myths are attempting to guide and save our society aside from all the controversy, scepticism and misunderstanding. These films have left a positive impact on society and in our young minds whilst making no impact on the environment. These movies were truly eye opening and let us see the true dangers we face, but can fix together, as a community.
A webpage which allows you to create your own “Personal Utopia”, centered about the need for change in today’s society. Try it out and see which of your own choices conflict with what is already in place by our governments
In conclusion, "Utopia" is a very ambiguous term, and its definition differs from individual to individual. Each individual has different wants, needs and thoughts. The films and texts we explored in our blog today show us that our lives shouldn't necessarily be about finding our own version of utopia, but rather to put aside our differences and work towards an ideal version that would please most people. To achieve this ideal version, we must first ask ourselves; Are we ready to give up our own personal "Utopia" and put aside our differences to achieve an ideal Utopia for everyone?
I love the fact that Collin and his family, still wants to continue to reduce their ecological footprint when the project is finish. It wasn’t a one-time thing they were doing; it was a life changing project. The project changed how they see the environment, made then realize the consequences or producing too much, how they see their future. It shows that Collin and his family learned and understood a lot during the No Impact Man project. The documentary is inspiring, it makes you think of what you can do to help the environment, how you can change your lifestyle to reduce your ecological footprint.
ReplyDeleteGreat blog! I feel as though the criticism Colin's family got from a lot of people was harsh, because he did it without the intention to harm anyone. In the film, it was mentioned that the media only gave him attention because it was a subject that people could make a joke out of and not because he could have an impact on the environment. I find that that statement is not completely correct, because any amount media exposure attracts people with all kinds of different opinions about the subject. Because of this, while the media was making a joke out of him, they were also getting his idea of utopia across and in a way helping him. It seems to me that the film mainly showed the people that sided against him, most of the comments left by people were simply bashing him and there was no actual constructive criticism. This bias kind of dramatizes the film for the sake of making it more interesting.
ReplyDelete-Mingcao Zhang
Great blog entry! I totally agree with Mingcao. The harsh comments on what he was doing were not necessary. He was a man that had an idea and ran with it. I believe that he didn’t want the fame at first and once he got it he thought it would be good to teach people. I think this because when his wife starts talking about having another child in front of the camera he says something like ‘ it feels to me discussing this in front of a camera makes it feel like a reality show, can he talk about this another time?’. This just shows that maybe he isn’t this fame seeking person and that he wasn’t on TV to be made of joke of. On the blog you have a section ‘learning to change’ which I thought was a great way to really show what the movie was about and how he got to the final days of his project.
Delete- Samantha Cusano
Good job on the blog guys!
ReplyDeleteI think the Beavan family made a noble attempt to live with no impact on the environment, but I find that their approach was illogical. Their logic is: “If we don’t associate with anything that impacts the environment, then we will not contribute to its degeneration.” The problem is that they didn’t actually comply with this; everything they bought or used in the process came from a source that did not follow their “no impact” philosophy. While they themselves did not directly partake in activities that have a drastic effect on the environment, they turned a blind eye to everything that they couldn’t afford to boycott; running water, the source of Colin’s all-important laptop computer, the train on the way to the farm, etcetera. Ultimately, the only way to fully accomplish their goals would be to abandon modern society altogether.
My problem with this totalitarian approach is its categorical denouncement of everything associated with some impact on the environment. The overriding issue is not that something has an effect on the environment, but the quantity of things that do. Instead of mindlessly tossing away the advancements of mankind’s thousands of years of advancement, we must individually weigh the importance and impacts of large items (such as power generation, mass manufacturing of non-essential products and procurement of the resources necessary to their construction, and mass food production) and find sustainable alternatives to the present, non-ideal methods. The Beavan family is one hundred percent correct about one thing though; the current situation is not sustainable, and if it is not changed, there will be serious repercussions later down the line in all aspects of life as we know it.
Amit Ben-Eliyahu
Great blog guys! I was very interested and curious while watching this film because it is very relatable. The question I asked myself is “would I be able to do that?”. Would I be able to make any sort of change to have a smaller impact on the environment? Watching this film reminded me as well of a project that I did in elementary school. I did not know much regarding the environment and such but one of the things I did know was that composting was good. With the help of one of my teachers, me and two other students added a large compost bin in the school yard of our elementary school. We then gave every class a small bucket for students to put anything that could be composted inside. At the end of every lunch, we would go around emptying all the small buckets into a large one and then dump it and spread it in the compost bin. It was hard work, but I think with more motivation, the more contributions one might be able to make.
ReplyDeleteTyler Sorochinsky
I personally found the documentary “No Impact Man” as being very challenging as well as inspiring. The decision Colin Beavan made of changing his lifestyle in order to avoid having any impact on the environment was very brave. Most of the steps he applied were very daring and I would have never thought someone living in New York would be willing to apply these steps such as living without electricity for 6 months, eating locally as well as in a specific area, not travelling by car or not using any paper toilet for a year. These steps mostly shocked me, but the fact that Colin and his family accomplished this life changing way of living for a year proved that it is possible to change our normal habitudes and that it is never too late to become more environmental individual, by acquiring a better lifestyle to lowering our impact on the environment. I might not agree with a few of Colin’s life changing habits but it was a very inspiring documentary. In this blog, the bloggers clearly explained these aspects as well as the moral in the documentary “Surviving Progress”. It was well connected to the concept of utopia we learned a few weeks ago.
ReplyDeleteGood job!
Karen M.
Good job on the blog!
ReplyDeleteYou said: “People can’t imagine giving up the things they love most.” It’s true. Our lives revolve around consumerism; we need our Starbucks coffee every morning, we get takeout for lunch because we don’t want to cook, we buy new clothes every season because the ones we already have are “out of style.” The important things in our lives are materialistic. Colin Beavan and his family challenged this; to have no impact on the environment for a year. To most of us, that would seem impossible, but he did it. I think it’s sad that people would be against him because they assumed it was just for the fame of it, but in reality he did it for himself, his family and for our planet. I bet not a lot of people would be willing to turn everything around and change their ways in order to save our environment. The best part of the film was that not only did Colin survive a whole year without making an impact, but even after that he and his family kept the changes they’d made, such as no television, eating locally, etc. They improved our environment and they improved their own lives by all the healthy choices they made; Colin lost weight without stepping a foot in a gym and his wife Michelle’s pre-diabetic condition was cured. That is pretty impressive if you ask me.
Valerie Walsh
Interesting blog!
ReplyDeleteI thought that what Colin and his family were trying to do for the environment was great. I don’t think anyone should be against someone who is trying to do some good to our Earth. Although, he did go to some very extreme ways. For example, the total cutting of the electricity and the fridge was very intense. I agree that we should probably use very much less electricity than we do but by trying to save the earth, I don’t think we should regress as humans and supress all technology. Even if Colin was ready to live that way, I strongly doubt that everyone could live that way. I think that in order to maybe one day live like that, we have to slowly integrate the changes like now more and more people recycle and compost. Those things can’t happen overnight, they take time. I strongly agree with the conclusion Colin made at the end when he realised that alone he can’t save the Earth but that if he spreads the word and more people join him, then maybe there’s hope.
Sandrine Staco
No Impact Man, to me, was an inspiring movie about someone who wanted to make a change in the way we affect our environment. However, through the documentary we see that it can be difficult for some of us who have lived in so much comfort to give it up for the environment. People have criticized Mrs. Beavan because in the first half of the film she complains and doubt that she’ll be able to give up on coffee for a year. In every movie there’s always this one person who seems to annoy everybody the people in the film and the audience and Mrs. Beavan plays this role succefully. But can we blame her for being so annoyed and frustrated because she’ll have to give up on the very thing she has been dependent on for years? To me, Mrs. Beavan represented the society as a whole, us. We have lived so long if not our entire lives with electricity, takeout food, cars, more then what we really need therefore having someone threaten to take it all away in the name of “saving the environment” we can think that this is crazy and become just as angry and frustrated as Mrs. Beavan and the other blogers trashing on Colin Beavan and his family. We want what we don’t need and we want a lot of it because we are “good Americans.” If we all had to go through the same experience as the Beavan family we would find at least one or two things we enjoyed and we would contribute to the environment as well. Trough the project of No Impact Man we can find some silver linings. I really liked the movie, it made me think and consider the world I live in and the world I want the future generations to live in. We should all sit down and think about things like that once in a while because it affects us and others.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the blog entry!
Stella Abellard
Great job on the blog! I liked that you said that the movie taught us that anything is possible. Most people thought that Colin’s experiment was extreme and completely unattainable. Something that really bothered me during the movie was the criticism that Colin and his family received from the media and from his own community. People that they did not know were bashing his ideas on his blog. People accused Colin of attempting this experiment for fame and as an idea for his new book. It made me upset that people were attacking his ideas and judging him for absolutely no reason. Even if Colin was looking for new ideas for his book, or trying to become famous, at least he was taking a stand for something he believed in. In my opinion, whether Colin’s motives for the experiment were what he claimed them to be or not, people in his community and the media should have supported him because he was actually doing something. Colin and his family should have been praised, in my opinion because they were showing people that it is possible to consume less and live a simple and happy life without destroying the environment. I think the people who criticized him were upset because when they see someone else doing something good, it makes them feel guilty that they’re doing something bad. While Colin and his family were busy saving the environment, criticizers were busy destroying it. I really enjoyed No Impact Man because it showed me that the smallest things count. We think that because we recycle we are helping the environment, but there are so many small ways that we can change our lives that will benefit both ourselves and the environment. This movie also made me want to makes changes about my own life. I would love to try a less extreme version of Colin’s experiment to see if I would be able to live without things that we think are everyday necessities!
ReplyDelete-Jasmine Orosz
I, for one, adore the movie No Impact man. I have shown to it quite a number of people, because I wanted them to have a new perspective on life, as I did, after watching the documentary. It definitely left me thinking about certain daily activities from our lives that are so detrimental to the environment. We do not seem appreciate or take good care of it at all. Since I am a vegetarian, I really appreciated seeing Colin and his family trying it out also, and buying their food locally only. I try to do this as much as possible, and all of my family now eats a lot healthier because of the suggestions that I make (or rather strongly impose.) I could not believe the harsh criticism the family received, because not too long ago, everyone lived without disposable diapers, without electricity, without cars, etc. It was made evident that living that way had positive effects on their health, on their relationship amongst each other, on the environment, and so on. Therefore, as it was mentioned in the film, it is quite possible that many people who hear about all the good Colin and his family had been doing felt intimated and got defensive because they realized they were not doing anything of the sort to help the world be a better place. I definitely would like to someday attempt what Colin and his family did. It is harder to live without something when you know it exists, than living in the dark: which is why I believe most people wouldn’t be capable of living the way Colin’s family did. It’s like giving a child a new toy for a short period of time, and then taking it away. Evidently the kid will be sad because they knew what it was like to have that new toy. If the child had never been introduced to this toy however, he/she would have been perfectly satisfied playing with his/her old toys. This is how I see futile things we depend on such as phones, computers, cars and so on. If everyone took small steps to reducing their environmental impact, we may have a chance at preserving the planet we inhabit just a little bit longer.
ReplyDeleteExcellent blog guys!
Stephanie Flood
"No impact man" is a really good movie to watch if you're trying to change your habits when it comes to decreasing the worlds waste. There are many good tips to take down to be able to do this yourself, i personally like the only buying from the farmers market. Great blog by the way! brought up a lot of good points from the movie and made really good connections to "Learning to change"`
ReplyDelete~Albert Tohme
“No impact man” was my favourite film out of the four we viewed in class these weeks. It really caught my eye on how powerfully they wanted to change their lifestyle. Colin really had the strength and courage to peruse what we really wanted to achieve. Going into the project he knew that it wouldn’t be an easy task, but he pulled through with all his troubles, haters and defeated his challenge. This documentary was extremely inspiring, and it makes the viewers want to take action in something big, to change the world we live in. I know that by watching this movie it got me remembering this past spring when I was in Costa Rica, I attend an environment conference with Severn Suzuki as the speaker. As a twelve year old she traveled to RIO and spoke her mind about the environment and wanted everyone to notice what society is doing to destroy her future. To this day people are still looking up to her and following her success. Colin took on a great experiment and I am thrilled that his family decided to keep continuing to reduce their waste. They are doing a great job and I am very inspired by them.
ReplyDeleteLindsay Bomok
After watching No Impact Man, I felt bad about myself because I realized that there are a lot of things I can do in order to reduce my negative impact on the environment, yet I have been doing nothing about it. This has inspired me to now re-evaluate my life essentially and see what steps I can take, whether they are minor or major, in order to have a more positive environmental impact. I won't be aiming to be "No Impact Man" because I found some of the things they did to be a little ridiculous such as the pot in a pot or no electricity (since everything in our world runs on electricity) but I aim to be "Less Impact Man". I believe that Colin's goal wasn't to make everyone have no impact but rather be less impactful, which is what this documentary has gotten be to consider.
ReplyDeleteWhen anybody talks about a utopia, which is a topic touched upon in Surviving Progress, I always think about two things. The first is how great the world would be if my some miracle, we managed to create a utopic society and the seconds is how impossible it is to create such a society because humans as well as our planet are so flawed that it would cause more of a negative impact than positive if a utopic society was even attempted. An example that I could think of is in George Orwell's 1984 where everything is controlled by certain groups of individuals (or by Big Brother himself) in the attempts to create a better world but the result is the complete opposite. I think that the best we can home for is to have a better world and not a perfect world, which I think is what Colin comes to terms with at the end of No Impact Man.
-Luca Stabile
Interesting thoughts. I believe that it is incredible for one man and his wife and daughter were able to live a year with no/minimal impact on the environment. To be quite honest i cannot picture myself doing something so extreme. It seems to me that Colin believe that change is possible, but i believe the human's impact on the earth is already to extreme for it to be repaired. Yes of course things can absolutely be cut down on but i cannot picture a society of no impact on the environment or a "Utopian" society.
ReplyDelete-Daniella Occhionero
Nice blog guys it was a very interesting read!
ReplyDeleteNo Impact Man was a very interesting documentary. Colin had a dream to maybe start a revolution of people doing no impact to the environment to fix many problems. Although his dream sounded nice it was very unrealistic, there are too many people now a days relying on technology and other things that impact the environment. It was very shocking to me how Colin even managed to live 1 complete year without having an impact on the environment, I would never think id be able to do that.
Vlad.Talos
Great job on the blog! I really enjoyed no impact man. I liked how you guys quoted Colin about when people are told what they are doing is bad, they go in denial. I think Colin proves his point in the documentary that you don't have to go to extremes like he did, but there are some things we can cut out from our life to have less impact on the environment. It's breaking that comfort zone which is hard for people. I think some of the things he did were a bit over the top, such as cutting out the electricity, especially when you have a little kid or having a box full of worms in the house. For the most part, he showed us how we can buy local foods, reduce waste, use natural cleaning products and reduce of CO2 emissions. All in all, I think Colin had somewhat of an impact on people through this documentary but I don't see people leaving their comfort zones. Some people care enough to make a change while others would never be able to.
ReplyDeleteSkylar Bayliff
Awesome job guys! I really enjoyed reading this blog. The thing that I found most interesting was the part when you guys talked about progress traps, a solution to solving a problem without thinking about the consequences in the long run. Although this is an element that was found in your second movie ‘Surviving Progress’, I think the term and idea behind progress traps can also be used to link the movie ‘No Impact Man’ and ‘Surviving Progress’ together. I think Collin Beaven the main guy in the film deserves a lot of credit for what he did and the people who wrote hate comments on his blog and criticized him need to really look at what Collin was trying to do with an open mind and realize that they are no better than he is. I was surprised that environmentalists would also criticize him, because what he did was far better than anything they could do and being an environmentalist, criticizing someone who is on a project to do something in order to help preserve the environment is kind of hypocritical.
ReplyDeleteThe main thing that resided in my mind after watching this film was our role as humans in today’s society and our role in doing what we can to protect the environment. Sorry for my language, but we honestly don’t do shit for the environment. We preoccupy ourselves with so many materialistic things and our knowledge of the environment and the importance of the relation between humans and nature is lost. Collin, someone we could all judge and call a crazy man for going to extreme lengths in order to do something for the environment is someone to look up to and really model. It’s time we each do something individually for the environment, the environment is what feeds us and we use the environment for many things that we don’t really think about. I don’t want to sound like a hard core native Indian but seriously, we need to value the environment. I really believe that Collin is not to be criticized and its time we each start thinking about how we can contribute in order to preserve the environment than to harm it constantly. We as North Americans are primarily the ones too blame when it comes to endangering the environment. We all as humans have a duty to be served in order to protect the environment because it feeds us and keeps us alive. It’s time we stop criticizing what people do in order to preserve it and think about what we can do in order to preserve nature.
-David Opoku Nyarko :D
This blog was really well written. I think that the media was to harsh on Colin. Firstly, it wasn't like he was forcing anyone to go and join his cause, he was doing this for himself and his family. The whole point of the experiment was to prove that it is possible to live and be happy while having a smaller ecological footprint. Influencing other people to try and contribute to reducing the American ecologic footprint was not his goal. As said in class, they main reason why Colin received such an excess amount of negative critism from the media is because it caused everyone else to look at their own lives and realize that they were not perfect, that they were contributing to the destruction of their planet. And as said before, as humans, we are an egotistic race and do not respond kindly to constructive critism. In the end, it doesn’t matter how Colin and his family were perceived, as they benefitted greatly from the project. It reduced their connection with the media and electronics, bringing them closer as a family. It also improved their health, making their environment and safer, healthier place. And in the end, that is what matters.
ReplyDelete-Kristen Lee
“No Impact Man” was a very unique documentary. Firstly, prior to watching the documentary, I thought that the movie is only going to talk about a man and how he lived his life without impacting the environment. Surprisingly this wasn’t the case. It was Colin’s entire family who was subjected to this experiment yet the title gives us the idea that only one person is subjected to this experiment. I find that the director should have given the documentary a name that would entitle the entire Beaven’s family.
ReplyDelete“No Impact Man” emphasizes that only one person cannot make a different but working as community, the world can definitely become a better place.
I find this documentary forced the readers to questions the amount of unnecessary consumption they do in their daily lives. Watching “No impact man really surprised me”. I still can’t believe that the Beaven’s family was able to live without toilet papers, electricity and public transport such as cars for 1 year. It just seems something impossible to achieve when I think about it. I know I would never been able to stay on track with Colin’s experiment. I would have given up in 1 day! I’m really impressed by Colin’s wife on how she tried to follow the rules of his husband experiment which deprived her from her daily day activities such as watching Tv, putting on makeup, buying stuff, etc. She had a hard time doing it. In the documentary, we see that she cheated couple of times by buying coffee, dying her hair, etc. What I find really impressive thought is that she stayed committed to the experiment.
I think the group did a great job analyzing the film!
Congrats on a great Entry!
-Nighat Ali
First of all I believe that people had so many negative comments about Colin's actions only because they felt like his actions were put in place to show them that he is better than them and that it shined a light on everything bad that the consuming class do, which is over consuming and distancing ourselves from the products we buy. Colins never pushed other people to do what his family did, another misconception about his actions and a reason why he got so much negative comments is because people thought that if he did it then everyone will be forced to do it and therefore they would have to give up on things they didn't want to give up so by hating on him I believe they thought it would discourage him in his actions and by his failure they wouldn't have to pursuit what he started.
ReplyDeleteJoseph Boulos
Great blog I really enjoyed the read and the movie. I like how Colin was still thinking about the everyday type of person and how he reflects how they might act towards this. For example he says that it's crazy to leave without electricity and that very few will actually try. But He doesn't ask people to change right away but to try and use his little experiment as a guide. The movie was a really thought provoking while still addressing the average consumer without being one sided.
ReplyDelete-Thomas Nowicki