I was listening to a podcast of an old episode of Fresh Air on my Zune the other day (because I listen to podcasts of old episodes of Fresh Air, because I’m 122 years old) and they had a review of a new documentary coming out called No Impact Man. The documentary is based on a book of the same name, which itself was based on a blog by a guy named Colin Beaven. The premise of this social experiment is that for one year, Colin and his family lived their lives sustainably, without taxing the environment in any way. So they used a clay pot instead of a refrigerator, and they made all their birthday presents out of bark, and they turned urine into prison wine, I don’t know. You get the point! Now, to be fair to Colin Beaven, I have not read his blog, or his book, or seen the documentary, so I can’t speak too knowledgeably about the thing I’m about to complain about, but doesn’t it seem like he should change his name to Lots of Impact Man? (My carbon ZINGprint is huge!) Do you know how big of an environmental burden it is to print a book? Not to mention the amount of electricity involved in publishing a blog and creating a movie, which one assumes will later be distributed on DVDs. (Not to mention that the whole thing just seems self-indulgent and attention-cravey; the Supersize Me of the green movement.) I don’t know, something about the whole thing made me so mad.

You know who isn’t polluting the world with his well-meaning but terribly misguided book? Topher Grace. But this isn’t a column about what Topher Grace isn’t up to. It’s about what he is! Let’s see!

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