sundance

Agenda 21: First, they came for the light bulbs

Remember when threats of a global government were symbolized by black helicopters and implied by the phrase “New World Order.” They’re so 20th century, it turns out: these days, the phrase “Agenda 21″ and compact fluorescent light bulbs are the new signs of “They’re coming to get you.”

Agenda 21 – it does sound a little spooky. You might think of it as a plan for world domination cooked up by a cabal of wealthy evildoers in a dark backroom. In truth, it’s much more innocuous: Agenda 21 is the title of a non-binding plan released at the 1992 Conference on Environment and Development in Rio. No secrets or backrooms here: Agenda 21 even has its own UN website.

Crack gardening, or how to turn a pothole into a work of art

Potholes and sidewalk cracks are an ugly reality of urban living – but they don’t necessarily have to be ugly! East London guerrilla gardener Steve Wheen sees such blemishes as opportunities “to put smiles on peoples faces and alert them to potholes” (as well as show authorities “how shit our roads are”). As the video above shows, Wheen goes beyond just sticking a plant into a hole in the pavement: he creates very small themed gardens in the crevices he finds in his part of the city.

Occupying the mountaintop–Tennessee’s prayers for the planet

While those of us following the Occupy movement online or on television may see it as a fairly conventional protest movement, complete with marching and chanting, a quick look at various encampments (or remnants thereof) around the country shows something quite different: alternative communities that value the input of all participants. Those communities themselves are the real protest: by living something quite different, even temporarily, Occupiers are able to highlight the absurdities of the current political structure.

Dirty hippies and ice: green docs at this year’s Sundance Film Festival

If filmmakers are poets, than documentarians stand out for their use of synecdoche: the most powerful docs almost always rely on stories that point to issues bigger than themselves. AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH isn’t just about climate change, but also about human shepherding of resources. GASLAND isn’t just about fracking, but corporate power, and its effects on the lives of individuals.

Two documentaries premiering at this year’s Sundance Film Festival not only follow in this poetic tradition, but even revel in it.

You can pry the steering wheel out of Chevy Volt owners cold, dead hands (despite fiery rumors)

Heard about the Chevy Volt fires? Seems like you’re most likely to answer “yes” to that question if a) you’re a true car geek, or b) you get your news from right-leaning media. Conservative commentators have latched onto news about fires in two of the vehicles after test crashes as proof of everything from the immaturity of the battery technology to logical outcome of government investment in the auto industry. In response, General Motors has not only worked closely with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on its preliminary investigation, but also offered Volt owners loaner cars and even buy-backs to address potential concerns.

Ten-year-old tar sands activist/YouTube hit

Heard much about the Keystone XL Pipeline? If you get most of your news from mainstream sources, probably not. While there hasn’t been a lack of news about the transcontinental pipeline that would run from the Alberta tar sands to the Gulf Coast, it hasn’t exactly been hitting any front pages. Oil spills get that kind of coverage, but proposed pipelines, not so much. Regardless, the environmental community has taken to the streets, and luminaries within the movement, from writer Bill McKibben to actress Daryl Hannah to scientist James Hansen, have all spent some time in handcuffs because of their vocal opposition to the pipeline.

Los Angeles community garden tangles with City Hall – and wins

Food gardening seems like a pretty innocuous activity. Even “radical” acts like guerrilla gardening are pretty tame in the overall scheme of things. But we’ve already seen one instance in which a gardener faced jail time – simply for gardening (and, no, there weren’t any illegal plants involved).

You might be tempted to argue “Oh, but that was small town Michigan. Of course they’re going to respond negatively to something different.” But before you hang your hat on that argument, consider the case of Ron Finley, a fashion designer and Los Angeles resident. After taking a gardening course at the Natural History Museum, Ron decided to turn the 10 x 150-foot parkway in front of his home – the whole thing – into a food garden. Living in the Crenshaw neighborhood, Ron had taken his instructor’s words about edible food gardens in urban “food deserts” to heart, and began to share produce with his neighbors once it began to ripen.

Barbie’s dirty secret: rainforest destruction

Think what you will about Greenpeace and their often aggressive brand of activism… they do know how to create clever, eye-catching campaigns around important environmental issues. Rainforest destruction is a big one for them (as well as most of us), and after tracing the pulp source of packaging for toys from brands like Mattel, Hasbro, Lego, and Disney back to Indonesian rainforests, they did what any responsible organization would: they broke the news to Barbie’s longtime companion Ken. You can see the fallout in the video above…

THE LAST MOUNTAIN: one community’s fight against mountaintop removal

When did you first hear the term “fracking,” the shorthand for hydraulic fracturing, a decades-old natural gas extraction technique that’s come under scrutiny from both activists and governments alike? It was probably around the time of the release of Josh Fox’s GASLAND (which won a Special Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival). No doubt that director Bill Haney and the producers of THE LAST MOUNTAIN (an official selection at Sundance this year) hope their activist documentary will bring similar attention to the practice of mountaintop removal by coal mining companies… another extraction method that’s been in use for years, and received a ton of attention within environmental and activist circles, but that hasn’t hit a tipping point in terms of general awareness of the damage it does to Appalachian communities in West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky (as well as watersheds that feed huge portions of the Eastern US).

Riding a bamboo bike across America

Bamboo’s been touted as the ultimate green material, both because of its quick ability to renew itself, and its durability. While the environmental aspects are complex, the tropical grass has become a favorite material for everything from building materials to fabric to bicycles. A team of riders set off on a cross-country journey yesterday to tout the material itself, as well as the economic potential of growing it in the United States… specifically, in Alabama.

Student music video trains peers on recycling

Ever get frustrated when you see someone throwing away a recyclable item… right next to a recycling bin? Or throw a recyclable item in the wrong container? High school junior CJ Joseph certainly has, and has played the role of “recycling police” (or “recycling nazi” if you prefer) at Queens’ The Renaissance Charter School: “If I see somebody I’m like, ‘You’re throwing that out in the wrong bin. Follow the signs people! I know you’ve heard it: Papers go in the blue (bins), and bottles in the green.”

But as many of us have learned, badgering only gets you so far… so CJ decided to apply her other passion, music, to her recycling fervor, and wrote the song “R to the E to the Cycle.” If you read the lyrics, you’ll see they’re not much different from her “recycling police” instructions… but definitely more catchy!

Earth week activism: students protest coal fired power in their underwear

College kids running around campus in various states of undress… doesn’t sound that unusual, huh? If you see such a thing this week, though, it may be an activism event. PACT Underwear, a company that makes its products from organic cotton, and donates 10% of its sales to a variety of environmental non-profits, has released its “Beyond Coal” line of underwear… and students are protesting coal power on campus in the fashionable undergarments… and nothing else.

National PB&J Day: lower your lunch’s environmental impact

This Saturday, April 2nd, is National PB&J Day. While such an event seems aimed at our sense of childhood nostalgia, the folks at the PB&J Campaign have latched on to it (they didn’t add it to the calendar… they swear) as an opportunity to get us all thinking about the environmental impact of our lunch choices.

The Fresh Kills landfill comes to film

A couple of year ago, I took a look at New York City’s 20+ year plan to transform the closed Fresh Kills landfill into the city’s largest park. That plan represents the end of the story: for years, residents and leaders on Staten Island worked to get the landfill closed… with some even threatening “secession” from the city over the health hazards and sensory displeasure created by the US’ largest dump.

The Boston Tea Party meets urban agriculture

Think “strict constitutionalists” have control of the Boston Tea Party as metaphor? Not so fast… sustainable food activists in Boston itself are latching on to this seminal act of American revolt to “catalyze a movement” around urban agriculture, fresh food access, and green space creation this Spring.

Sundance environmental films: activism

Enjoy a good David vs. Goliath story? Or perhaps a tale of a passionate person who lets his/her zeal turn from good to ugly? This year’s Sundance Film Festival has you covered. Both of the environmentally-themed films in the US Documentary Competition address activism and activists… warts and all.

Bill Haney’s THE LAST MOUNTAIN delves into an issue that’s become very hot among environmentalists over the past decade: mountaintop removal by coal mining companies. Focused on West Virginia’s Coal River Valley, the film explores the community’s fight against this practice, which damages both the natural environment, and the people living in the vicinity. Check out the trailer above.

Environmentalists fighting Christo Arkansas River project… and each other

Six miles of fabric panels suspended over a portion of Colorado’s Arkansas River? Yep… it’s a planned Christo project. The artist known for transforming large spaces and objects has been conceptualizing his Over the River project for seventeen years… but many local green groups hope all of that thought and planning goes by the wayside because of concerns over environmental impact.

There’s a hitch, though… all the greenies aren’t on the same page on this one.

Green hip hop vs. the plastic bag

Let’s face it: an awful lot of environmental activism leans towards the stern and dour side. Getting artists involved (particularly as artists, not spokespeople) can shake that up… and even add an element of fun to a serious message.

That’s the approach non-profit Green Sangha took to its Rethinking Plastics campaign. Yes, the campaign page has all sorts of good scientific information on the costs of single-use plastic shopping bags, but to make the message a bit more catchy, they also produced a hip hop video featuring socially conscious artists AshEl Eldridge and Jenni Perez. The information here is also solid: “Plastic State of Mind” ties in everything from litter to the BP Oil Spill to dioxins in breast milk into its rap. The ultimate message: ban the bag.

Amazonia: art meets science to celebrate Amazon’s biodiversity

For environmentalists, scientists, and even celebrities, the Amazon rainforest has served as a vivid symbol of ecological and social degradation created by rapid global development. Artists Lucy and Jorge Orta traveled Peru in 2009 to see this environment for themselves in 2009, as well as to assist scientists in data collection. Their experience with the region’s biodiversity inspired them (of course); the Natural History Museum in London commissioned them to work with this inspiration, and is now has the resulting work on display.

Stephen Colbert: environmental activist

If you haven’t heard of the America’s Great Outdoors Initiative before, no worries… neither had I (and I watch out for these things). But, while most of us have been watching for news of climate change legislation out of Washington (that’s still hung up), President Obama launched this effort “…to promote and support innovative community-level efforts to conserve outdoor spaces and to reconnect Americans to the outdoors” back in April. There have been listening sessions around the country all Summer long. And now, the deadline for a report from the the Secretaries of the Interior and of Agriculture, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) is coming due (on November 15th).

Kids protest farmed frog legs in Virginia

You probably associate frog legs with French cuisine and its offshoots (they’re pretty popular in Southern Louisiana where I grew up)… but the United States is challenging France as the world’s leader in frog eating. That’s happening, in large part, because some restaurant chains now carry frog legs… which they generally import from farms in China.

Sigourney Weaver narrates Google Earth tour of Belo Monte dam impact

In April, I took note of James Cameron’s efforts to stop the building of the Belo Monte dam on Brazil’s Xingu River. Actress Sigourney Weaver (a co-star in Cameron’s AVATAR) joined Cameron on one of his trips to Brazil, and has now collaborated with Amazon Watch, Movimento Xingu Vivo Para Sempre (Xingu River Forever Alive Movement), and International Rivers to produce a 10-minute video (above) showing the probably impact of the dam project on indigenous people in the region, biodiversity, health, and even climate change (which were outlined in the previous post).

The music of the Gulf oil spill

Last week, Lafayette, Louisiana crawfisherman Drew Landry brought a meeting of the White House oil spill commission to awed silence as he sang a song he’d written about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the economic environment in Southern Louisiana. Landry’s become a bit of an internet sensation… watch the video above, and you’ll see why — but he’s just one of numerous musicians that have tried to encapsulate the Gulf tragedy in song.

Community organizing meets weatherization: WeatherizeDC

Critics from both right and left have pounced on President Obama’s Oval Office address last night as lacking in substance, and even purpose. But David Roberts at Grist noted that weatherization, an important element of any energy and climate plan, was one of the specifics Obama did mention as means of lessening the country’s reliance on fossil fuels (and also lessening the potential for disasters like the Gulf oil spill).

World Naked Bike Ride starts this Saturday

Combine the issues of sustainable transportation and body image, and what do you get? For many around the world, the answer is the World Naked Bike Ride, an annual global event dedicated to promoting cycling, community-building, peace of mind, and “…the indecent exposure of people and the planet to cars and the pollution they create.”