A new government study has come out stating that Americans waste (are you ready for it?) twenty-seven percent of all food available for consumption, and ninety-eight percent of that gets put in our landfills. That math equates to a pound of food wasted every day for every American. It may not be biodiesel driving up the price of food around the world after all.

As the New York Times also makes note, “The study didn’t account for the explosion of ready-to-eat foods now available at supermarkets, from rotisserie chickens to sandwiches and soups,” which get thrown away if they’re not bought in a timely fashion. This information comes out as we plunge into a global food shortage which starting to be felt here at home.

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You have to see HBO’s “Recount.” It’s an eye-opening and entertaining look at all that Florida election recount drama. The acting is amazing (Laura Dern as Katherine Harris is spot-on and hilarious) and the story, well, for me this film was a shocking and disapointing lesson in US politics and judicial loop holes.

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Social Action and Cinema YouTube Videos of the Day:

1) George Clooney Tells Us, “Peace Must be Waged”

For the Cinema YouTube Video of the Day, Click here >>>

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Only watch this video if you actually have time to watch the entire thing.. And beleive me it is sooo worth it to watch the entire video. It is maybe the BEST internet video I have ever seen. I was a little bored at first but as it picks up my mouth didn’t close.

The video takes place at Kruger and was captured by a group on a safari (who also couldn’t believe what was happening)

WOAH! The pan and the reveal..

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If you read our blog regularly you know I love movie trailers - they’re fun and can get you all pumped up about the movies. With this I’ve decided to implement a new series here on TakePart called “New Trailer Alert” - so those of you that are like me can always keep up to date on the first glimpses we get at awesome new films.

Hot off their Academy Award winning film No Country for Old Men, the Coens are ready with another film called Burn After Reading and while the trailer isn’t up on YouTube (meaning I can’t post it), I recommend you immediately go here :

http://www.apple.com/trailers/focus_features/burnafterreading/

and download the trailer as fast as you possibly can! It looks to me like the Coens are working with Big Lebowski-esque material again..

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Remember that book How Much is a Million?  Well, nowadays, we think bigger, and one group wants you to think about how much a billion is.   That is to say: If you were to plant a billion trees, it would cover 2.5 million acres of Atlantic forest.   This, by the way, is not a thought experiment - it’s a real goal from the people at The Nature Conservancy.

The target date is 2015 - only seven years to plant a billion trees in Brazil.   At this point, only seven percent of what once were the Brazilian tropical forests remain.   As each tree disappears, more carbon is released into the environment and the global climate becomes slightly more unstable.

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Some Iceland News for you - a magnitude 6.1 earthquake shook the town of Selfoss Iceland, about 30 miles east of the capital Reykjavik Iceland. As of writing this no one had been reported killed, but there were plenty of injuries and material loss. The most harrowing story came from a hospital in Selfoss near the epicenter where a hospital was damaged and in danger of collapsing. Patients were being evacuated.

It’s been an extremely difficult month for rescue workers and foreign aid organizations due to the plethora of natural disasters. The disasters are even coming in opposition now - an earthquake in Iceland near the poles and Tropical Storm Alma forming on the same day. Click here to learn more about Icelandic Red Cross (which does good work around the world, not just domestically), or check out our previous posts below to find out how you can help in this global time of need:

• Cyclone in Myanmar: Top 10 Ways to Help
• Nicole Richie & Joel Madden Support UNICEF Myanmar Relief Efforts
• 60 Pandas Survive China Quake
  
• Earthquake Devastates China

So, it’s come to this: An Inconvenient Truth is going to become an opera.   Like, with singers and orchestras and everything.   There’s not a whole lot of information out there at the moment, but with musicals based on every other piece of media in the world existing right now (Legally Blond as a musical?  Come on!), this seems like a totally rational idea that isn’t really, really, mind-blowingly odd.   From the Associated Press:

[O]fficials say the Italian composer Giorgio Battistelli has been commissioned to produce an opera on the international multiformat hit for the 2011 season at the Milan opera house. The composer is currently artistic director of the Arena in Verona. [ap.google.com]

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Hundreds entered.

Twenty one made the first cut.

In the end, only three were left standing.

They now take their rightful place as the sexiest, most eligible non-profits alive.

I write, of course, about the winners of Netsquared.org’s Mash-up Challenge: a competition for the best use of web tools for social good.

The 21 finalists — some of which are mere concepts, some of which are established websites looking to expand and scale — ranged from:

A proposal to use your mobile phone to do impromptu volunteer activities…to a system for getting targeted alerts about pending genocide legislation… to a  site that allows everyday citizens to submit questions for journalists to pose to lawmakers…

(full list of finalists)

Over the course of the two-day Netsquared Conference at the Cisco Center in San Jose, CA, the 21 finalist projects presented, jockeyed, politicked, and schmoozed their way toward the final voting session, during which conference attendees voted on their favorites. I myself was on the receiving end of an outrageous bribe — a bic pen — by a non-profit that shall remain nameless.

Check out my video blog on the winners:

Here’s my other coverage of the event, starting with my favorite post:

Live-blogging from Netsquared: Second Life and the Non-profit Commons (the most meta panel I’ve ever attended)

More videos and posts after the jump…

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It’s so easy nowadays to get caught up in “world issues”. By this I mean stories so dynamic they instantaneously traverse the globe through media. Burma is big and surely Cyclone Nargis victims need the world’s help (TakePart), but Myanmar also makes for great copy. An hour ago Associated Press carried its ruling junta lashing out at aid donors over all the chocolate.

But, what about less pithy or vogue causes, ones which do not shake the globe with their very mention? Do juicy/event-driven stories cause us to overlook smaller/more generic, but less urgent causes?

Cue “Sex and the City” moment: at this point I couldn’t help but ponder. Should we also spend time doing good in mundane ways?

How about sending Blind or Autistic children to Summer camp? It’s not life or death, but it sure seemed to matter to the children profiled in two very similar articles published in the L.A. Times California Local section this week. Credit the Times for shamelessly plugging their cause in the guise of newsworthy articles, and I mean that.

Donations to their L.A. Times Family Fund help give low-income children a summer to remember. The McCormick Foundation matches 50% of every dollar donated to the Summer Camp Campaign.

You may also wish to check out the American Camp Association, a non-profit with the mission of “enriching the lives of children, youth and adults through the camp experience”.

Mundane, yes. Good, also yes. Just some food for thought for all who TakePart in this sort of thing.