Divorce Attorney Wanted

We recently watched the documentary No Impact Man. It was based on a man, Colin, his wife Michelle and their daughter. The decided that they were going to attempt to go a whole year without making a carbon footprint. This was Colin's plan and he wanted to blog and eventually write a book about their experience trying to live this way in Manhattan. He made the decision that they were going to not buy any new clothes they could only go to thrift shops, make their own shampoo, laundry soap and dishwasher detergent, he told his wife she could no longer go to Starbucks, drink coffee and he threw out her makeup. Their goal was to make as little trash as possible, which lead them to have their own little compost box in their tiny apartment. They didn't buy any food at the grocery store, only at a local farmers market. They rode their scooter and bikes or walked everywhere they went. Because diapers are the second largest garbage category they decided to use cloth diapers on their daughter. He also made the decision that they weren't going to use toilet paper anymore. 6 months into the the year long study he decided to turn off the electricity and they would keep that off for the next 6 months.

How the wife made it for the full year I have no clue!

If my husband were to ask me to do this I would never personally do this. I agree with trying to lessen our carbon footprint, but to do what he was asking, no way Jose. I especially wouldn't have agreed to this when I had a small child. If I was a more green person, maybe I would have considered it. I also think the time limit was a little ambitious. Why not make it 6 months? If things were going according to plan you could extend the time limit.

The minute I would have told Colin I wanted a divorce was when he decided that the family wasn't going to use toilet paper. He acted like it was going to be no big deal to try and not use toilet paper, but he's a dude! It's a little different for a girl. Michelle should have gotten out an biology book and showed him that going to b
athroom isn't the same for males and females and that women also do this thing called menstruating. Mother nature comes knocking on the door and delivers her lovely gift once a month like clockwork. Clearly not having toilet paper would be much easier for a male than a female!

Another aspect that really irritated me was why on earth did he get to keep his laptop up and running when she had to get rid of the TV. I understand that he wanted to write about his experience and have people follow it and that was part of the project, but he just didn't seem to care that he was taking so many things away from his wife. I don't think he kept the vows that he most likely said in his wedding in mind during almost all of this experience. A fair compromise would have been him only being able to use the computers at a local cyber cafe. He did put in a solar panel solely for him to use it for his laptop after they shut the power off. Turning on the heat or lights for a short amount of time for a day would have been a much better and more fair way to use the solar panel.

He was just really selfish through this entire experiment, which makes me believe that he probably was already this way especially with the topic of them having another child. Michelle really wanted to have another child. She brought it up a couple times during the documentary and Colin did not want to give in he didn't want another kid. She was doing all of this for him and he barley listened when she wanted to discuss the possibility. Granted doing this experiment for a year verses raising another child for roughly 18
years is a little different. However, she clearly heard him out and decided to change her life dramatically for a year. They did get pregnant while on the show, but she ended up miscarrying, which he didn't seem to upset about. She also mentioned that he was putting energy into his dreams, but not into hers. My opinion on this whole relationship was that it was not very healthy. She even mentioned at one point that she was worried that if she slipped up she would feel his wrath...can you say unhealthy.

My overall thought on this is that it is a good idea, but the extent to which he took it and what it could have cost him was ridiculous.

First of all trying to do this in MANHATTAN was not the best idea. Being in a town where you had a back yard, a garden and could have kept the worms outside would have been a way better environment to do this in. Second, wanting to get noticed is something everyone wants. We get it, you want to be a name that everyone knows, if you are bachelor and are torturing yourself for this cause fine, but potentially putting your child at risk and maybe losing your wife is another thing. It doesn't seem worth the fame to me. Third, I think it was a little ambitious to think that this one experiment of a nobody in Manhattan was going to change the world, while it's a noble plan again all the risks weren't worth it.

I'm glad in the end that she stuck up for herself and said that the worms had to go. They decided to live as a minimal impact family verses a no impact family.

Making people more aware of the idea of making no impact on the earth and reducing your carbon footprint is a good idea. There are some carbon footprint calculator's out there such as the one I mentioned in a previous post. It's tailored to college students and it can give you some ideas on how to reduce your footprint. They also have a page on how to make a calculator that is more tailored to your college.

There is also a website called No Impact Project. It is a international, environmental, nonprofit project. It is inspired by the No Impact Man book, film and blog. They are trying to get people to reduce their carbon footprints everywhere. They give you tips and have a new experiment each week to try. They also give information on how to have your own no impact week at your universities, middle and high schools. communities and workplace.

Here at EC students have just started an Environmental Club and are trying to raise awareness about being more green on our campus. Maybe in a few years they can try a no impact project, just don't go about it the way Colin did.

Photos courtesy of creativecommons.com. All other information copywrite of Logan Tallmadge'13