I’m taking a course this semester called The Intersection of Documentary Film and Journalism. It’s cross-listed as a film studies and a journalism course, so our class is a nice mix of students of from the two different majors. We have a professor from each department, and they switch off who facilitates the discussion based on whether we are discussing the documentaries or the accompanying long-form journalism pieces. It’s fascinating coursework.

This week, we watched No Impact Man. I had just glanced at the syllabus before I left for the screening and remembering telling my roommate, “I think it’s about global warming or something.” It wasn’t. It wasn’t that simple, anyway. The film followed Colin Beavan as he and his family tried to live “no impact” in New York City for one year.

What I liked about this film was that it wasn’t applauding or condemning Beavan’s ideas. It presented them in their raw form, and we walked with Beavan as he struggled with whether or not what he was doing was truly good for the world or not. The year he spends trying to avoid harming the environment (no public transportation, no plastic packaging, no imported food, phasing out electricity and diapers and toilet paper) teaches him how much he doesn’t know about the environmentalist movement in America. He says at one point that he feels like a fool because people have been working toward this goal for ages, and he’s only been learning about this stuff for a couple months. He felt as though he’d barely scratched the surface, and that maybe that was why so many people found him self-righteous and arrogant.

The most touching aspect of the film for me was the struggle within Beavan’s family to make this project work. Much of the time in No Impact Man was spent following Beavan’s wife, Michelle Conlin, who struggled with giving up caffeine, laundry, and ice. Their relationship seemed to be built on a strong foundation of communication, and the way the two talked about things made me think a lot about my own future.

I’m a vegetarian, but that fact is no significant contribution to the environmental effort. A man who Beavan worked with in the film said that he was most worried that Beavan’s efforts would make people think that cutting back in their personal lives was enough. Fewer plastic bags, more reusable containers– I’m saving the planet, right?

Although I abstain from meat, I’m doing more for my own conscience than I am for the environment. I eat locally when it’s convenient. I make most of my meals in the microwave. I drive when I could walk. I’m still consuming dairy. There’s an episode of 30 Rock where Liz Lemon buys what she thinks are eco-friendly jeans made in the USA. “These jeans are totally going to make up for all those long showers I took because I was bored,” she says. That’s how most of us live. We rationalize away our decisions. But we shouldn’t.

I want to do better in my own life. I acknowledge my privilege in this desire. It’s expensive to eat locally, to eat vegetarian, and to live in a place where you can get most everywhere you need to with self-propelled transportation. But I could do all of those things in Columbia if I really wanted to. The first step is awareness. The next step is action.

This documentary made me think. I’ve been buying eggs locally for a while now. I bought my first carton of Almond Milk yesterday. Let’s see where this journey takes me.