Jon Popham
April 28, 2008 | 9:09 am EST
Giulia:
Hey parents, listen to Desperate Housewives star Marcia Cross and kick those kids off the Xbox and out the door. Nature awaits! Cross and the Sierra Club are working together to raise awareness of the importance of getting kids to enjoy and appreciate the great outdoors. Their new PSA for the program Building Bridges to the Outdoors is below: Read the rest of this entry »
“The Green” on Sundance Channel is the first regularly scheduled television programming dedicated entirely to the environment. Presented by actor and Sundance founder Robert Redford and hosted by Simran Sethi and Majora Carter, “The Green”, now in its 2nd season, provides Prime Time environmental news, tips, ideas and knowledge every Tuesday evening at 9PM Eastern. Slated for this season are 13 new episodes of the award winning “Big Ideas for a Small Planet”, environmentally conscious documentaries, and the new episodes of the series “Eco-Biz” and “Ecoists”.
This week on “Big Ideas for a Small Planet” the subject is Food, as the series explores how businesses and individuals are trying to nourish us in an environmentally friendly way. Next up on “Eco-Documentaries”, the episode “All in this Tea” is an adventure into the remote world of Chinese fair trade tea production. Then “The Sierra Club Chronicles: Episode 5 - Breathless in LA” delves into the unhealthy air that plagues Los Angeles.
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Latino voters are overwhelmingly concerned about the environment and global warming, according to a national survey conducted by the Sierra Club. Previous studies show that Latino communities in the United States are disproportionately affected by climate change and environmental pollution, with some 91% living in urban areas where polluted air increases the risk of illnesses like cancer and asthma.
The poll also showed that:
**Overwhelmingly (80%) said that energy and environmental issues have “a lot” or “some” impact on the quality of life and health of their families. These voters have a high level of exposure to toxic sites.
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What is Earth Day? Let these top 10 eco-heroes guide you to a better understanding of what it means to love Mother Nature and all it’s inhabitants. These folks take first place in history for their dedication to bringing about awareness and action when it comes to our natural world. If this top 10 sampling from Newsweek’s excellent expose on patron saints of the environment isn’t enough to whet your eco-appetite, check out these 90+ more green campaigners from the Guardian UK. Happy (early) Earth Day!
1) John Muir is often referred to as the “father of national parks, and he helped Theodore Roosevelt to create Yosemite, Sequoia, Mount Rainer, Petrified Forest and Grand Canyon national parks. He also founded the Sierra Club in 1892, and served as president until his death in 1914.
The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Don’t miss these excellent posts on some very engaging and thoughtful topics - from going green at the office to Julian Beever to dystopian film telling us to take action now. Check out our most popular articles of the week on a variety of subjects, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites.
Katie:
Katoucha’s Body Found: Model Helped African Women Escape Mutiliation
Julian Beever Brings Art to New Orleans Sidewalks
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Nicole:
Heath Ledger Nick Drake Video for “Black Eyed Dog” Hits Web
Top 10 Ways to Go Green in the Office
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Gina:
Top 10 Dystopian Future Films Telling Us to Take Action Now
Going to “The Edge of Heaven” with Fatih Akin
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Kerry:
There’s a major spotlight on how to make your home a greener, healthier and happier place to live in, but what about those other places in our lives where we sometimes spend just as much time - if not more? Simple changes in our office habits can help to save energy and inspire our co-workers do their part in saving the earth’s resources. Many times, these eco-friendly alterations can save time and money too. Check out the Sierra Club’s top ten ways to green up the office:
1. Energy-efficient computer use
Unnecessary computer use in the business sector wastes $1 billion in electricity per year. Start making it a habit to turn off your computer and the power strip its plugged into at the end of the workday. Setting your computer to sleep during short breaks can cut back on your energy use by 70 percent. Also, consider investing in energy-saving computers, monitors and printers, and make sure old equipment is recycled properly. Older computers that still work and are less than five years old can be donated, and possibly used as a tax deduction.
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After seeing Lukas Moodysson’s black and white mystery film Container last night as part of Lincoln Center’s Film Comment Selects, I was left in a hypnotic daze contemplating first and foremost consumption here in America. The film is 72 minutes of silent black and white footage, mostly of two characters in various messy grotesque spaces, with a continual narration by Jena Malone. Malone speaks in the first person and talks about a variety of things including celebrity culture, Chernobyl/other disasters, being a woman in a man’s body, a porn star named Savannah, and being pregnant with Jesus. I later learned upon reading, that there are 21 voices or stories that she is telling, all mixed up and all heard over the black and white footage.
While I agree with Moodysson, that this is not a film you can decipher in one viewing, I also think that on the surface (since I’ve only seen it once) he has created one of the most poignant critique’s on the container that is American culture and the consumptive nature of all of us that I’ve seen in some time. The black and white images of excess, garbage, human bodies, and simple discomfort create a visual atmosphere that makes you question all the items in your own various spaces. Malone’s voice is calming and serene, a nice contrast to her words that are disturbing, sad, grotesque, confused and brutally honest.
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Planting trees–now, there’s an eco-friendly thing for a homeowner to do. Unless they happen to block your neighbor’s solar panels, in which case, if you live in California, you may find yourself guilty of violating the “Solar Shade Control Act.”
It would make a great episode for an eco-themed reality TV show, “Sustainability Smackdown:” a Santa Clara County couple who planted a row of redwoods along their property line for privacy a decade or so ago is locked in a bitter battle with the neighbor whose solar panels are getting less and less sun as the redwoods grow higher.
Both parties in this dispute have impeccable green credentials; treehuggers Richard Treanor and Carolynn Bissett drive a Prius; sun worshipper Mark Vargas has an electric car. But with the redwoods raining shade on Vargas’s solar parade, Treanor and Bissett have been ordered to chop down two of their eight redwoods, making them the first couple to ever be convicted under the Solar Shade Control Act.
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The EPA dumped a big box full o’ nuthin’ on Senator Barbara Boxer last Friday, more than a week after the deadline had passed for the agency to turn over documents that Boxer’s environmental committee had threatened to subpoena if the EPA failed to comply. The documents were requested as part of “a congressional investigation into why the agency denied California permission to impose what would have been the country’s toughest greenhouse gas standards on cars, trucks and sports utility vehicles,” according to the AP.
By Katie Halper
As if unions didn’t already totally overact to silly things like inhuman conditions, unlivable wages, and union-busting, now it’s getting its made in America panties all up in a bunch over the environment. Global Labor Strategies reports that December 4, trade unionists from around the world are attending negotiations in Bali to establish a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 1212, to limit greenhouse gas emissions. U.S. workers will be represented by delegates from unions including the Electrical Workers (IUE), Mine Workers, Service Employees, Boilermakers, Steelworkers, Communication Workers, Transport Workers (TWU), and UNITE HERE garment and textile workers. Labor, what is the deal? You’re supposed to be short-sited and hostile to protecting the environment, remember? You’re not supposed to make the connection between the environment and workers. Hard hat-wearing workers hate Patchouli- wearing environmentalists. And drum circle playing environmental activists are out of touch with country and western/ hard rock playing unionists. Their green hybrids and blue collar gas guzzlers are supposed to collide and crash, not ride side by side or, heaven forbid, carpool, towards a common destination.
So what’s up with the labor-environment mixed-genre cooperation? Why are a bunch of workers sticking their noses into global warming? What’s going on with the mixed-genre Blue Green Alliance, a coalition between the the Sierra Club United Steel Workers, also sending representatives to Bali. And why is the International Trade Union Confederation saying
As trade unionists, we are confident that Bali will mark the beginning of a new and more ambitious process of social change, where our collective hearts and minds must aspire to save our planet, on the basis of solidarity and mutual respect. Such solidarity first of all means countering global warming and its effects on the most vulnerable. Trade unions consider the best way for developed countries to exercise solidarity with developing countries is by cutting their own emissions in order to limit further suffering and irreversible changes, and by creating the means for other countries to participate in reduction efforts.
So workers of the world unite. You have nothing to save but your planet.