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Ali Snell
Jodi Haney
ENVS
29 September 2011
No Impact Man Reflection
A wordle word cloud gives a brief description about a broad topic. It allows an
individual to write down different thoughts about a certain subject to make a summary. In
the wordle word cloud I created, the main topic was about the book No Impact Man by
Colin Beavan. Coming up with the word cloud I kept in mind all the things he “didn’t do”,
hence the name No Impact Man. Colin’s major goal was to waste nothing, use nothing, and
emit nothing. My next thought was he and his family gradually letting go of their
materialistic lifestyle. Finally, my last thought to finish my wordle was his ways of
sustainability.
In class we watched a movie called the Lorax, and what we learned from that was
I=PxAxT(S). Most people would look at this and have no idea what it stood for. Colin
Beavan however, is very comfortable with this equation. The “I” stands for Impact, and in
relation to Beavan’s lifestyle he essentially makes none. His goal was to be a No Impact
Man, and that’s exactly what he did. Beavan made sure he accumulated no waste, had no
emission travel, and spent no money. During his project he had a realization that as an
individual he can make a small difference. But to actually effect the world it has to be a
group effort, and that’s where the “P”, population comes into the equation. The next letter
“A” stands for Affluence, which essentially asks what effect does this have on the Impact
(I)? Simply the answer is don’t spend any money on anything unless absolutely necessary.
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For example, food is something you need to survive. Technology “T”, the next letter in the
equation can have both negative and positive effects on the environment. Some positive
effects technology has on the environment are coming up with modern ways to conserve
and reuse natural resources. Such as recycling, solar energy, energy conservation, and
renewable energy. Some negative effects of technology are pollution to the air and water,
such as cars that emit harmful gases into the air. Also things like televisions that use
electricity through a power source. Both of these things are a form of Negative technology.
The last letter of the equation is sustainability (S), of the world. Beavan achieved this by
continuing the practice of reducing the harmful things he once did to the environment and
reusing things that were possible to reuse.
A project we recently had to do we made a GLOG, which is like a multimedia BLOG.
We had to incorporate our “shade of green”, which is how we view our outlook on the
environment and how we play a role. Colin Beavan would most likely be bright green. He
believed in a group effort to have sustainability in the world. It has to be more than an
individual effort. Also in the GLOG we had to determine whether we were more ecocentric,
biocentric, or anthropocentric. Colin Beavan would be more ecocentric; he believed in more
of a nature-centered life rather then a human-centered life. Sustainability is key in having a
successful world. Beavan believes that if everyone conserves the earth instead of overusing,
that in of itself is the first step of sustainability.
Throughout the process of reading No Impact Man, making a wordle about it, and
writing multiple papers over the book I’ve learned many techniques in having a sustainable
earth. I don’t think I would necessarily do as much as Beavan had, but there are little things
that I have changed in myself and things I did due to all my research. I now recycle, and
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walk places whenever possible. Colin Beavan believed that as a whole we will change the
norms. I believe this is true, but it will take a lot of work and it will not be easy.