No Impact Man Movie Opens This Week

You've seen the trailer. You've read the blog. Now go see the movie. Here's the schedule.

A number of organizations, from the New York Times, to the New Yorker to Grist, have accused Colin Beavan, aka No Impact Man, of devising a "stunt" and even gone so far as to say he just did it to have a topic for his next book. I don't know Colin well, - we have talked on the phone a few times, in person once and exchanged emails - but I don't have to know him at all to know that this is no self-serving stunt. What Colin did was to put his lifestyle where his mouth was and draw attention to something deep and insidious in our culture; we are consuming ourselves to death!

Colin used his own life as PR for the planet. Is that a stunt or is that public service?

So to those that call this a stunt, or think that Colin and his wife did this for self-serving reasons, ask yourselves this: what would you be willing to do, to sacrifice, to endure for any length of time to support your beliefs, to draw attention to an issue of dire importance, to change the world? Would you forego your Starbucks, your toilet paper, your car for what you believe in? 

The No Impact Year is an inspiration. We don't need most of the stuff we buy and we don't get even half the pleasure from it that we think we will.

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I plan to this weekend. I hope that some of you will join me!