No Impact Man is similar to Super Size Me, as it’s subject concocts a crazy idea to demonstrate how our everyday activity is harmful to ourselves and those around us. Protagonist Colin Beavan decides to go a year without using anything that produces waste, in order to lower his own carbon footprint and thus improve the world he lives in. Beavan drags his wife and daughter along on the journey and commits to a new life with no electricity, coffee or cab rides. 

In 1997, filmmaker Josh Tickell set out on a cross-country trip in a diesel-powered Winnebago. Instead of routinely filling up his tank at gas stations across many of the states he traveled through, Tickell used fuel created by frying oil from fast food restaurants. His experiment proved that there are alternatives to diesel fuel, and helped to create his documentary Fuel, which won the Best Documentary Audience Award at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

Both Spurlock, Beavan and Tickell effectively promote their messages by depicting the results of their own efforts on the screen. They aren’t just telling something, they are showing it first hand.  But where Super Size Me ends No Impact Man continues, with an interactive program designed to encourage viewers to attempt to make their own changes as well. The message of the film is furthered through the No Impact Week, which challenges people to pledge to produce “no impact” for one week, beginning on October 18, 2009.  In a partnership with The Huffington Post, more than 1,000 individuals have signed up and pledged to reduce their carbon emissions for one week. Whatever the results are, the early numbers are promising.

Fuel has continued to inspire and promote change, most recently through education. In response to some of the green solutions found in the film, Tickell and producer Rebecca Harrell have created The Green Curriculum. It is the first board certified curriculum to come as a result of a documentary film and will hopefully be implemented within schools across the U.S.  Using a 35 minute shortened version of the film, the program hopes to educate and inform young people about the dangers plaguing the environment and the ways that we can create positive change everyday.

Do these interactive projects have the ability to help make lasting changes on the environment? How else can a film’s message be achieved? 

Join the No Impact Project and see how much waste you can reduce in one week.

For other ways to make changes to our environment, check out Meatless Mondays, and help reduce meat consumption by 15%, or become a part of the upcoming International Day of Climate Action on October 24th, 2009, a global call to action for the importance of climate change. 

by Emily Exton