sundance

Something Borrowed: a lending library for brides-to-be

Do you need to own a copy of every book you’ve ever read? Every film you’ve ever watched? Every tool you’ll ever want to use? No: in most cases, borrowing or renting these items from a traditional library, another lending or rental outlet, or someone who already owns them works just fine for everyone involved, and gives our natural resource base a bit of a break. We want the use of these items; we don’t have to own them to get that.

That mindset often doesn’t carry over for one of the biggest days of our lives: our weddings.

Online gonzo documentary SOUTHERN TIER explores environmental attitudes… on bikes

Project: Southern Tier PROMO from Jeff Hyland on Vimeo.

Traveling cross-continent by human power isn’t new: Peter Jenkins walked across the US in the seventies, and Terry Fox attempted a run across Canada in 1980. Producer Jeff Hyland, along with long-time friend Mike Tryon set out on January 1, 2008 to do something similar: cross the continent by bike along the Southern Tier of the United States. And just as Jenkins and Fox set out on their journeys to answer questions and support causes, Hyland and Tryon’s nearly four month bike ride was dedicated to exploring the question “In a world of environmental change, where are we at?”

Got stuff? Give it away on Saturday…

Why Saturday? Because May 15 is now Give Away Your Stuff Day.

The brain child of New Yorker Mike Marone, the event is based on a simple premise:

Many of us own valuable stuff we just don’t want anymore. But instead of giving it away or selling it, we allow it to clutter our households and businesses. Billions of great items are just wasting away, taking up space.

Wouldn’t it be cool if we could magically shift ownership of this stuff, in one weekend, coast to coast, with zero effort, little time, and at no cost?

Green shopping: genuine change, or just another search for status?

So, do you look for labels such as “recycled,” “organic,” or “biodegradable” when you shop? Many of us do… but debates still rage over the overall impact of promoting green shopping as a means to lighten our collective footprint. Some argue we should meet people where they are… and that means addressing our self-image as consumers. Others counter that such tactics only maintain a status quo based on unsustainable resource inputs, and that we should be pushing for less consumption… particularly in the developed world. Such approaches may not only improve environmental quality, but also make us happier, as we’re not consumed by the need to get and spend.

What does 1 second of bottled water consumption look like?

Design firm MSLK notes that we American consume 1500 plastic bottles of water every second. Great statistic… but does it create a particularly vivid image for you of the levels of bottled water consumption? If not, no worries: MSLK has that covered. Their new art installation Watershed integrates 1500 empty water bottles with “signs with facts about the dangers of this rate of consumption and what the public can do to make a change.”

A day in a life told in logos

Pondering the influence and impact of brands on her life, this blogger created a visual representation, a timeline portrait displaying only the brands she interacts with on a typical Friday. The fact that with minimal context aside from time stamps and logos, the viewer can still deduce and relate to the blogger’s day is an [...]

William Hundley, With Cheeseburgers

This provocative series by William Hundley appears to comment on our banal consumptive nature. I get that, but am I just a mindless product, the proverbial Pavlov’s dog, of that societal tendency because those photos just happen to evoke a craving for a cheeseburger?

Story of Stuff called “anti-capitalist”

In internet time, Annie Leonard’s The Story Of Stuff is relatively old. But the 2007 web video, produced by Free Range Studios and funded by the Tides Foundation and Funders Workgroup for Sustainable Production and Consumption (among others) has attained cult status in American classrooms. According to the New York Times, teachers around the country use the video to supplement environmental education textbooks that often lack information on recent scientific discoveries.

Creative teaching, right? Not in Missoula County, Montana, where the school board responded to a parent’s complaint about the video’s “anti-capitalist” message with a decision that use of The Story of Stuff “violated its standards on bias.”