Sustainablog

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Do you recycle?

The seemingly innocuous question comes with all sorts of ethical baggage these days: for many Americans, recycling is not just an initial step into a greener life, but also an activity suffused with moral weight. While many will argue about the significance of individuals and families recycling items they might otherwise throw away, there’s no doubt that creative and innovative reuse of materials is critical for the health of the planet… and the people who reside on it (along with all of those other species). Tonight, the Sundance Channel’s Big Ideas for a Small Planet goes beyond the blue bin many of us place on the curb, and looks at three organizations that are taking recycling in some interesting, and effective, directions.

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Editor’s note: We’re pleased to welcome Max Gladwell, of MaxGladwell.com, as a regular guest writer on sustainablog. Max Gladwell covers the nexus of social media and green living. We feel that these two trends and technological developments hold tremendous promise for improving quality of life for everyone on the planet.

If you’re reading this blog, then you’re on board with social media. There’s a good chance you belong to social networks like Facebook or MySpace. It’s likely that you Digg stories and even possible that you Twitter. These technologies and services, together with a growing number of others, make up the social web. It’s much like the regular web, but more interactive. More…social. It invites and even demands active participation from everyone. It has a global reach with viral capacity, and yet it’s bringing local communities closer together. It enables people to connect, organize, and make a difference as never before. Indeed, social media is a powerful force, one that the world’s CEOs are starting to acknowledge and take seriously.

Many entrepreneurs, activists, and marketers are leveraging the social web for positive change. In the process and by its very nature, they are giving each of us the tools to change the world and make it a better place. There are thousands of examples, which is precisely why Max Gladwell exists. Here are 10 worth exploring.

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Wait, wasn’t there supposed to be a rabbi in there somewhere?

Tonight was the Time 100 Gala, where Time Magazine celebrates 100 of the most influential people in the world today. This year, three religious leaders are included.

What Richard Cizik, Patriarch Bartholomew I, and the Dalai Lama have in common is that they’ve all made headlines from leading green movements within their respective faith traditions.

Richard Cizik

Cizik, an ordained Evangelical Presbyterian miniser and head of the Office of Governmental Affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals fights global warming by quoting the Bible and calling on congregations to practice “creation care.” Cizik challenges conservative evangelicals to recognize climate change as a serious threat to the health of the planet.

Cizik also makes friends with scientists such as Nobel Peace Prize winner Eric Chivian, ignoring a once perceived barrier between the religious and scientific communities. Read the rest of this entry »

After previewing tonight’s episode of the Sundance Channel’s Big Ideas for a Small Planet, I couldn’t help but think that this week’s topic — fashion — tied in very closely with last week’s show on food. After all, we all eat, and we all dress. Our clothes, like our food, generally start off as crops in fields, and the process of transforming those crops into garments typically involves heavy chemical inputs and many miles traveled (especially in this era of globalization). The fashion industry has a heavy environmental footprint, but a number of designers and manufacturers are challenging those norms, and creating clothing that’s both fashionable and sustainable. Take a sneak peak at one of these companies featured in tonight’s episode: Del Forte Denim

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Regardless of how “green” we consider ourselves, we’re all concerned about the quality of the food we put on our own plates and serve to our families. Tonight, the Sundance Channel’s The Green explores the world of food, from farm to plate. It’s award-winning series Big Ideas for a Small Planet profiles a large food processor, a wine-maker, and a New Mexico high school student who are all doing their part to reject industrial-scale agriculture, and the bland, homogeneous food it produces. Following that, Sundance presents the documentary All In This Tea from directors Les Blank (Burden of Dreams) and Gina Leibrecht.

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In the last-minute rush of Earth Day press solicitations yesterday, it was easy to get a bit bogged down, and even let some things slip through the cracks. One email that did catch my eye, however, was web browser Flock’s release of its “Eco-Edition.” I’ve used Flock on and off for over a year now (it was fantastic for uploading a massive collection of stock photos for our writers last year), and was pleased to see that the browser had created a version that allowed for seamless “green” browsing, and tools optimized for green blogging.

I’ve always liked Flock for its focus on integration of social media functions into the browser itself: right now I’ve got one-click access to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. The Eco-Edition adds a one-stop shop for green news and blog hounds: the “Green” page that loads when the browser starts features feeds from most of the web’s top destinations for information and opinion on sustainability and environmentalism (including sustainablog — thanks, Flock!). The refresh button even features the ubiquitous recycling symbol — a nice touch! As our friend Michael d’Estries at Ecorazzi noted, this creates a seamless experience: the best of the green web is right at my fingertips. Combined with Flock’s integrated social media and blogging tools, the Eco-Edition provides an efficient interface for all of the steps we green bloggers go through in writing, publishing and promoting our work.

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Editor’s note: We’re excited to hear that King Corn is coming to the small screen, and that its creators have a new film coming out. Thanks to our friends at Eco-Libris for sharing this post with us; it was originally published on Saturday, April 5, 2008.

Two weeks ago Eylon Israely conducted an interview with King Corn’s Director and Producer, Aaron Woolf . Today we’ve got interesting updates on the film and its creators.

Firstly, If you haven’t seen this documentary yet, here’s your chance - King Corn airs on PBS on April 15! So mark it down in your calender.

And there’s also a new film from the creators of King Corn - The Greening of Southie. The film will have its world premiere on the Sundance Channel on Earth Day, April 22 at 9:40PM. This time, the filmmakers explore green building, and they’re focusing on the first green residential project in one of the favorite neighborhoods: South Boston, or Southie as everyone calls it. Here’s a little bit more about it:
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Unfortunately, my preview mailer on this week’s The Green episodes didn’t make it me, so I can’t review tonight’s features. As last week’s were just stellar, though, I wanted to make sure to give you all a “heads up” in time for tonight.

At 9 pm EDT, Big Ideas for a Small Planet will focus on the theme “Decorate.” The press materials from Sundance note that “it IS possible to have stylish furnishings without messing up the planet,” and will feature some of the designers that are working within this context. sustainablog and GO readers know this, of course, but I have no doubt we’ll all learn new things from this show.

At 9:35 pm, the aesthetic focus will continue with the documentary Manufactured Landscapes. The film profiles photographer Edward Burtynsky, and his work documenting China’s transition to an urbanized society (and the environmental costs associated with it). Ansel Adams he ain’t: think mines, factories and lava flows vs. stunning natural vistas.

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In my quest to live a greener life, my Achilles’ heel is my obsession with print media. We subscribe to our city’s daily newspaper, we get the Sunday Times delivered, and I get approximately eight monthly or bimonthly magazines right in my mailbox. There are also three or four magazines I buy off the newsstand on a fairly regular basis. I love the varying lengths of stories, which perfectly cater to my dynamic attention span. I love letters to the editor and dog-earing pages with things I want to explore further. I love finding a new issue in my mailbox after a particularly long day. I even love the ads.

While cleaning my home recently, I realized just how much paper this leads to each month, and my green guilt set in. Unfortunately, I really, really love both magazines and the daily newspaper. It’s something I am reluctant to give up. Fortunately, there may be a solution that seems almost plausible to a printaholic like me. ReadyMade, a design/home solutions magazine for the DIY set with a sustainable sensibility, is now providing readers with a digital version of its print form. You can see every page, just as it appears in print, in its entirety, starting with the current issue #34, their green design issue.

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Nope, not another April Fool’s joke: the Sundance Channel will be rolling out the second season of The Green starting tonight, hosted by Simran Sethi and Majora Carter. At 9 EST, a new episode of the award-winning series Big Ideas for a Small Planet will air. Subtitled “Power,” tonight’s show “explores the booming field of alternative energy as it introduces several individuals who are working to develop clean, renewable energy from resources like the sun, wind and even cow manure.”

Following that, Sundance will air its original documentary Garbage Warrior. I got a chance to screen this film a few weeks ago as part of a package I received from Earth Circle Cinema, and it’s well worth staying up past your bed time (if that’s an issue). Garbage Warrior tells the story of architect and Earthship creator Michael Reynolds, and his thirty-five+ year quest to create self-sufficient, sustainable buildings made from natural materials and society’s “waste”: “tires, beer cans, glass, and plastic bottles.”

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