Sustainablog

Saving the planet through story is how Arianna shaped the green panel she moderated at the Produced By Conference held at Sony Picture Studios over the weekend.  The Conference was put on by the Producer’s Guild of America and co-helmed by the legendary Gale Anne Hurd.

If a person’s clout can be measured by the resources they can commandeer, then Hurd is most certainly still at the top of the Hollywood heap.  Not only was the Sony Pictures Studio lot supremely pleasant to stroll around, but volunteers were everywhere to assist with even small things like fetching water. Seriously.

And Sunday’s complimentary lunch featured no less than 10 honey wagons set up to serve the likes of lobster rolls, shrimp tempura and teriyaki flank steak.  Hurd commented to me that people were already asking her when next year’s conference was going to happen and said that “we didn’t even think we’d pull this one off!”  They expected 600 attendees - 900 paying producers showed up.

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Apparently, the pine wood snake has a very distinctive schlong: no one who entered our “Name that Schlong” contest confused it with the penis of, say, a blesbok or a dragonfly, or any of the other “members” of the Grand Gallery of Penises. Well done, schlong-namers!

Now, on to the important stuff…

We have a winner!

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It’s an experience many of us relish– taking a weekend stroll through the colors, sounds, and smells of a local farmers market and then choosing fresh items to take back to our homes, as well crafts, or maybe a cd from a local band. We know that the food will eventually fill our stomachs contently, or that another item we found will be a perfect and unique gift for a special friend or family member.

This summer you can show your support for your favorite farmers market, by helping it win a $5000 reward. Care2.com and Localharvest.org are sponsoring this great online contest. The $5000 top prize will be awarded to the farmer’s market that is voted the most popular by internet users like you. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’ve had dreams about Isabella Rossellini wandering through a forest of enlarged animal penises (peni?), either you need to get to the shrink quickly, or you’ve been watching Sundance Channel’s Green Porno series very regularly. If the latter’s the case, let’s see how much you’ve picked up…

Name that Schlong

Take a look at the picture above. The arrow in the picture is pointing out a specific species’ penis. Know what it is?  Name it… in the comments. Need help?  Check out the main contest post at Sundance’s SUNfiltered blog (disclosure: I’m a blogger there).

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While Ecologic Designs (one of my previous posts) is thriving by making practical products out of various waste streams – demonstrating green innovation and up-cycling – some artists around the world are working with a new medium: trash. These artists are coming together, actively gathering vast quantities of debris floating up on shorelines or collecting waste wherever it might be piling up and turning it into beautiful pieces of art.

On a trip to Santa Monica, California, a friend treated my family and I to an amazing – if not also disturbing and mind-opening – display of crocheted sculptures created from trash.  The exhibit, Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reefs by the Institute for Figuring, was displayed in several rooms of the Track 16 Gallery at Bergamot Station.  The Institute For Figuring (IFF) is an organization dedicated to the poetic and aesthetic dimensions of science, mathematics and the technical arts.

Created and curated by Christine and Margaret Wertheim, the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef exhibit was a stunning display of an ingenious use of waste materials, creativity and community, bringing together various reefs created by artists from around the world.  The exhibition also brought attention to the plight of our oceans and the depository for our trash that it’s become, accidental or otherwise. The Crochet Coral Reef Project of the Institute For Figuring is conceived as “a woolly celebration of the intersection of higher geometry and feminine handicraft, and a testimony to the disappearing wonders of the marine world.”

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Many thanks to all of you who entered the drawing for a gift bag from the Sundance Channel! We have a winner: Bryn Miller of Tempe, Arizona will be receiving the bag full of green goodies in the mail shortly… congratulations, Bryn!

Of course, even without the cool green swag, you can still enjoy Sundance’s The Green every Tuesday night. Tonight on Eco-Trip, host David de Rothschild follows the lifecycle of a cotton t-shirt, and the documentary Addicted to Plastic makes its television debut.

Image credit: Gad Reichman

Even after doing this for years, I still get a little flustered with the requisite Earth Day post. No, it’s not a matter of saying “Screw Earth Day” (though I get that…); rather, it’s a recognition that there’s so much content out there that I’m unsure what I can add.  So, rather than taking a feeble stab at something, I’ll make my contribution by sharing some of the good stuff I’ve seen around the web and blogosphere today.

• Green Living Ideas points to a couple of new films that may be worth checking out: Disney’s Earth, and A Sea Change.
• Cleantechnica profiles a family that’s tweeting its energy use today. Triplepundit covers this one, also.
• Speaking of “Screw Earth Day,” Grist wishes all a “Happy F’ing Earth Day!”

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The EPA’s going beyond the normal tips about recycling and saving water this year for Earth Day: they’ve launched a partnership with Boys and Girls Clubs of America to get young people involved in environmentally-themed community service projects. EPA’s ENERGY STAR program will also be offering “Go Green Nights” to Parent-Teacher Organizations across the country. Check out EPA administrator Lisa Jackson’s discussion with members of the media above.

Well, it turns out that getting a list of subscribers out of Feedburner is more challenging than it once was. So… if you’re still planning to enter our drawing for a Sundance gift bag (or you already have), please forward me a copy of one of the daily sustainablog emails you receive after subscribing and confirming your registration. Forward those to sustainablog (at) gmail (dot) com. Please use “Sundance Gift Bag Giveaway” as your subject line.

Image credit: striatic at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

As you might guess, the timing of my new gig with the Sundance Channel’s blogging team wasn’t accidental… a new season of Tuesday night The Green programming is about to launch. While I’ll be really careful about letting my two blogging roles overlap, I did take Sundance up on an offer they made to us (and other bloggers) last year: we’ve got another Sundance green gift bag to give away this year! So, what’s in the bag? A copy of Josh Dorfman’s The Lazy Environmentalist on a Budget, a set of green mp3 speakers, a t-shirt, and a notebook. Of course, the bag itself is suitable for adding to your collection of reusable shopping bags. Read the rest of this entry »