The Impact of ‘‘No Impact Man’’: Alternative Hedonism as Environmental Appeal

As ‘‘No Impact Man,’’ writer Colin Beavan conducted a one-year experiment to determine whether he and his family could reduce their environmental impact to zero while living and working in Manhattan. This article examines the No Impact Man (NIM) experiment both as ‘‘alternative hedonism,’’ a reconceptualization of the ‘‘good life’’ that avoids unduly damaging the natural world, and also as a kind of ‘‘eco-stunt,’’ an attempt to garner significant media coverage about positive environmental behaviors. We use DeLuca’s theorization of the ‘‘image event’’ to analyze the No Impact Man franchise—blog, book, and documentary film—though we modify that theory in order to explore how No Impact Man functions as multi-media and new-media spectacle. In particular, we explore the risky double-bind Beavan finds himself in when, through his choice to publicize the NIM eco-stunt, he is critiqued for opportunism, foolishness, and insincerity. We suggest that efforts to publicize eco-stunts, however well conceived, invariably invite backlash. As a result, we find that alternative hedonism theory and practice open a space of invitation to environmentally beneficial behaviors and attitudes that could have potential with some audiences, but their mass appeal is compromised by the limitations of the stunts that publicize them.