Spencer Schillerstrom                                                                                                                                         1/5/15

Blog 1: The Problems with Change

            In the movie “No Impact Man,” a man takes on the challenge of living completely sustainable with no negative contributions to the environment for a year. This challenge meant that he could not pollute, contribute C02 emissions, nor consume goods beyond what was necessary. Making this lifestyle change is a very hard one especially living in the consumer driven world that we live in today. Never the less, our hero successfully completed his goals with only some minor slip ups. So, what was the goal of this little mission of his? What was he hoping to accomplish? These are the questions that I find very interesting.

            When the public discovered the No Impact Man, they wanted to promote him and celebrate this achievement. They were also very willing to ridicule him. People in the United States realize that climate change is an issue that we are currently facing, yet when they realize that the best way to do it is to give up all the material goods that they “cannot” live life without, the feel guilty for wanting those things and get defensive. All the No Impact Man was trying to do was show people that it is possible to live a happy life while being sustainable. In doing this, is was obvious that he wanted people to follow along and realize a more sustainable lifestyle. What he did instead, however, was open a can of worm that most Americans would rather keep shut.

            Like they very subtly mentioned in the movie, if change is going to be made, simply doing your own part and hoping people will follow you will not cut it. The actual root of the climate change problem is not that people don’t want to live sustainably, it’s that change is hard! As outlined in the chapter “Doing Nothing” from The Ethics of Climate Change: Right and Wrong in a Warming World, Garvey outlines that people don’t take action because of uncertainty of the issue, but more importantly because of the costs that people must endure in order to make the necessary changes for a problem that is not apparent nor definite. Watching someone else live sustainably will not be the answer to our problem. So in reality, the No Impact Man wasn't really helping the cause all that much. While he may be doing a very small part and taking responsibility for some of his actions, the human race is no closer to a solution than when he started.

            Garvey is very clear in his description as to why people do not act, and the No Impact Man does a great job of fighting through those barriers, but his actions did not help others fight through them. By acting individually, he did not show that the cost is doable by all. In fact, the movie seemed to accent the problems more than the benefits! If the no impact man really wanted to make a change, he should have taken mid-level action such as working with entire groups of people to show them that the barriers that stand in their way can be easily knocked down. This is the only way that significant change can be made.