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Is He a Dot, or Is He a Speck? He's No Impact Man!

By Dustin Rowles | Posted Under Trailers | Comments (29)

no_impact_man.jpg

If you do anything you wouldn’t normally do for an extended period of time, it seems, almost anyone can get a book and movie deal. Look at Morgan Spurlock: Eat delicious McDonald’s food three times a day made him a millionaire. A.J. Jacobs read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, and wrote a book called The Five Most Unrealistic Depictions of Gay Characters in Film,, then he decided to live as the Bible dictates for a year and wrote The Year of Living Biblically,, which is also being made into a movie. That seems to be all it takes. In fact, the latest to jump on the gimmick living bandwagon is Colin Beavan, who hijacked his family and forced them to live an entire year without making a negative environmental impact. Or, what I like to call: Living with Mrs. Pajiba-hyphenate.

Watch as he makes his wife’s life miserable! As he gives up TV, cars, magazines, taxis, elevators, and all the joy’s known to man.

Jesus, what the hell do you have left? Anyway, I recall reading about this guy a few months ago in the NY Times. I think he also decided not to flush a toilet? Could that be right? The trailer doesn’t suggest that the lifestyle is any way I’d want to live, but it does look compelling, if only to watch and see if the family disintegrates under the ridiculousness of all these rules.

But best of all for Beavan, he gets a documentary and, from what I can tell, a feature film is also being made about it. A little suffering is apparently worth a lot of cash — think of all the TVs he’s going to be able to buy now!









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Comments

wow, and here i was contemplating going vegetarian for a month to see what it's like.

sounds really interesting.

Posted by: lizzieborden at July 14, 2009 8:51 PM

He seems kind of cool, and I can dig the ideas, but...

(you knew there was a but/butt.)

There is no way I am living in a house with four other people and not flushing a toilet. My five year old alone can clear an entire floor with one bathroom trip.

Posted by: Cindy at July 14, 2009 8:51 PM

Wasn't there already a TV series (I'm thinking maybe HGTV) about Ed Begley Jr. and his green obsession, and how his wife had to learn to live with this crazy man?

Much bigger ewwwwwwww factor was a story a year or so ago in the Pittsburgh paper about a family that had decided to quit using paper. Any paper. So the woman knitted and laundered (get ready) her tampons.

Posted by: , (the commenter formerly known as bucdaddy) at July 14, 2009 9:05 PM

dangit, comma, i *wasn't* ready.


i don't ever think i'll be THAT ready.

Posted by: gp at July 14, 2009 9:22 PM

So the woman knitted and laundered (get ready) her tampons.

Oh, now, come on, that's just unnecessary. Bitch never heard of a Mooncup?

Posted by: Geetch at July 14, 2009 10:25 PM

Excellent They Might Be Giants reference, dude.

Posted by: Mattfactor at July 14, 2009 10:36 PM

I don't know what a "Mooncup" is, but the concept of a cup and a woman's period is really just an awful, awful idea.

Posted by: Tracer Bullet at July 14, 2009 10:51 PM

Oh, Godtopus, I had mercifully forgotten some of that story, and I'm really really sorry I looked for it, because it's way worse than I remembered.

You've been warned:

http://m.knoxnews.com/news/2008/Aug/29/paper-products-get-no-respect-eco-friendly-mom/

Posted by: , (the commenter formerly known as bucdaddy) at July 14, 2009 11:12 PM

My friends recommended me a very good comunity
~~~~ Ageromance.com ~~~~-
People from all over the world gather together.
Go and have a try, you may find your love or friendship there.

Posted by: satokofan at July 14, 2009 11:13 PM

I wonder what kind of impact the film crew had? Now because of him, I'm going to have to waste more. Goddamn slackers.

Posted by: admin at July 14, 2009 11:30 PM

Maybe this is threadjacking a bit, but what do these people do for a living? I couldn't do my job without using a computer . . . I don't think it would be possible to support myself without necessarily wasting resources. I do want to see this film, and I know that I will.

Still, I'd be more interested to see this experiment done by a middle class family, adopting practices that more of us could.

Posted by: amenfro at July 15, 2009 2:36 AM

You wanna have no impact on the planet? Have yourself shot - with sustainably-produced bamboo arrows.

The thump when you fall is the last impact you'll ever make on the planet.

Posted by: BierceAmbrose at July 15, 2009 2:43 AM

I think that my favorite part of the trailer is how his wife is addicted to television so she must give it up, but he keeps his laptop to blog about his project. Smug.

Posted by: meg at July 15, 2009 3:48 AM

I respect his desire to make less of an impact. We're giving up TV when we move into our new place but not the computer - although to be fair, that's more about avoidance of the utter drivel on every channel and the neverending advertising. I don't think I could give up flushing the toilet though.

But i DO hate individually wrapped foodstuffs...

Posted by: missh at July 15, 2009 6:00 AM

Oh, the Mooncup. I want to care about the environment, and I do, but I will use tampons made of old-growth forests and dolphin tears before I block up the lady district with a rubber shot glass.

SPILLAGE. That is all.

Posted by: Lauren at July 15, 2009 6:41 AM

You know what makes an impact on the environment? Bunnies! Those furry eating, shitting and fucking machines screw up the earth for the rest of us. They are fat. They refuse to reproduce to replacement levels only. Their little bunny turds get washed into our waterways, polluting them for the rest of the Earth's creatures. We need to do something about this. Let's each one of us make it our goal to fricassee at least one one Roger or Bugs a week. Let's attack the problem where we can have the greatest effect. SAVE THE EARTH! KILL THE WABBITS! KILL THE WABBITS!

Posted by: ed newman at July 15, 2009 8:45 AM

If you're not going to flush the toilet, then DON'T USE THE FRIGGIN TOILET. Use a bush or build an outhouse. Yeah, doing that really has no impact after a few days or weeks. Hope your neighbors don't live downwind of your backyard / cesspit.

Posted by: BWeaves at July 15, 2009 9:43 AM

Look, I majored in environmental science. I'll all for having less of an impact on the environment. But it's impossible to have NO negative impact; your very existence requires the consumption of resources. Practically every damn thing made uses fossil fuels. So unless you shun all material goods, sleep on the ground naked in the woods, eat raw roadkill (no fire! Fire pollutes!) and don't reproduce (probably not going to be a problem at this point), you're going to affect the environment.

I do wish people would try a little harder to avoid heavily packaged foodstuffs, or buy less crap, or use less electricity, or, for God's sake, have fewer kids. Seriously. If we just got the goddamn population under control, we could all have a relatively high quality of life without fucking over the planet too much.

But giving up toilets and other basic hygienic necessities? Not going to work for humanity as a whole. We'd be waist deep in our own filth in no time. Of course, we'd probably lose a lot of the population to disease, and that'd be great for the environment.

Posted by: DeadBessie at July 15, 2009 10:39 AM

I really want to see this. I'm a greenie, but I don't know if I could ever go this far. You really can't live in this society without absolutely any impact. I mean if he's keeping up with a blog and a documentary he's still contributing to the carbon waste. But at the same time, it seems like this film will do a good job at showing how some of the easier ways to "go green" can be beneficial to family, health, finances and all that.

Posted by: kayla at July 15, 2009 11:01 AM

Ok, who is this Italian guy

Agero Mance

and why does he keep wanting us to come to his community?

Posted by: Drake at July 15, 2009 11:07 AM

Seriously. If we just got the goddamn population under control, we could all have a relatively high quality of life without fucking over the planet too much.
---
And everybody talks about war, plague, famine and pestilence like they're bad things. Imagine how many more people we'd have to feed/house/clothe/find jobs for without them.

Humanity's little regulators.

Posted by: , (the commenter formerly known as bucdaddy) at July 15, 2009 11:17 AM

Posted by: Lauren at July 15, 2009 6:41 AM

That is one of the best things I've ever read. Also, completely true.

Posted by: pereka at July 15, 2009 12:08 PM

One of my co-workers was just talking about this guy yesterday. Know what? I hate this fucking guy. Know why? Because he's living the way most of the goddamn world is forced to fucking live because they are POOR. He wants a pat on the back for doing something that people in developing countries do every single fucking day?

Turn off the tv? Boo fucking hoo. Don't flush the toilet? He's lucky he has a fucking toilet to not flush. What a self-righteous mother fucker. He can shove his blog and his movie up his I'm-able-to-do-this-because-I-have-privilege-ass.

I hate him.

Posted by: Melanie at July 15, 2009 1:06 PM

Chiming in on the hate for Douchebag-Of-The-Year Guy.

If he *really* wanted to lessen his environmental impact, he's a couple years too late. Should've gotten neutered shortly after puberty occurred.

Children are the ur-consumers of plastic and tons more of everything else. Temporary birth control involves plastic (at least in the packaging), and yes, Asshole-Man, individually-wrapped items.

No kids. Ever. Jerk can't even do that right.

We should listen to him because?


Posted by: bjs1109 at July 15, 2009 2:55 PM

That occurred to me too, Melanie. I remember a class where the professor brought in a poster with a bar graph depicting energy used by various countries. The US bar covered the whole poster. Then the professor reached behind it and continued to pull out the US bar until it stretched across the freakin' room. We are spoiled rotten over here. And we send our industries to third-world countries where we can pollute to our heart's content because they have no standards.

TCFKAB is right on--it sucks losing loved ones to disease but that's how nature keeps species in check. You'd think a supposedly intelligent species would be able to do that for itself by now.

Posted by: DeadBessie at July 15, 2009 2:57 PM

Yeah, I remember reading about this guy and thinking what a douchebag he seemed to be. If people who live on nothing (the ultimate environmentalists) in Africa knew that there were people in America volunteering to give up comfort and modern conveniences, they'd think they were insane. Then when they found out it was just for a year as an "experiment," they'd spit in contempt, providing they have enough moisture left in their bodies to form saliva.

Only smug, condescending, sanctimonious Westerners can afford to temporarily give up the Western way of life. Most of the rest of the world would love to live (at least as far as housing, food supply, transportation) the way we do.

Yeah, America wastes more power and water than lots of other countries use, and that sucks and should change. But experiments like this aren't gonna make it happen. It'll just make all the pseudo environmentalists feel good about watching it and nodding approvingly while they sit in the air conditioned movie theater and then drive home afterwards to blog about it from their personal computers.

Posted by: Slash at July 15, 2009 4:45 PM

Does this guy know that there are Amish people who live with no electricity or running water? Why doesn't he just force his family to join them? Or move out into the country in a one room cabin and have to dig his own outhouse and plant his own food? That would actually impress me.

Posted by: Kurdt at July 15, 2009 10:10 PM

You know who this guy aspires to be?

The Unabomer.

Posted by: , (the commenter formerly known as bucdaddy) at July 15, 2009 11:56 PM

triangle wins.

Posted by: jimmy at July 16, 2009 1:04 PM