Another video on what is wrong with the American food system and diet.

And once again I’d recommend the docurama film: King Corn, which explores our current model of corn production and how it is causing a malnourished, unhealthy population.

This might not be something that is happening in Arizona, but behaviors and successful sustainability practices in major industries affect us all. In the particular case of the movie and television industry, financial support comes from the entire world and Arizona’s money matters. For this reason, you may be interested in some of the environmental practices of production studios.

This 2006 report titled, “Sustainability in the Motion Picture Industry” (PDF) was commissioned by the California Integrated Waste Management Board (CIWMB) to review the movie and television industry and find some of the successful sustainability practices already in place. It is worth noting that although this is a public project funded for $170,000, the CIWMB claims full copyright of the report and does not allow reproduction of it in any form. The excerpts reproduced here are done so in Fair Use in order to comment on and review the report.

The Principle Investigators of this report are Dr. Charles J. Corbett, Professor in the UCLA Anderson School of Management, and Dr. Richard P. Turco, Professor in the UCLA Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.

The authors used interviews and case studies to learn about “best practices” within the movie and television industry between Summer 2003 and Spring 2005. The goal was to present this information in a clear fashion that would make it easier for the industry to make these best practices more commonplace. The reason for studying the movie/TV industry is that it is highly decentralized. A studio decides to pay for a film or television show, but it is the production team that finds an assortment of other individuals and businesses to help put it together. The argument is that other industries are starting to outsource more and therefore they can learn a lot from the practices of this industry.

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This is a really interesting documentary about working toward no waste, making products that are truly recyclable or compostable, buildings that respect the occupants and the land, and doing it in a way that is beneficial to business.

Man is the only creature that produces landfills. Natural resources are being depleted on a rapid scale while production and consumption are rising in na­tions like China and India. The waste production world wide is enormous and if we do not do anything we will soon have turned all our resources into one big messy landfill. But there is hope. The German chemist, Michael Braungart, and the American designer-architect William McDonough are fundamentally changing the way we produce and build. If waste would become food for the biosphere or the technosphere (all the technical products we make), produc­tion and consumption could become beneficial for the planet.

http://www.vpro.nl/

This is a entertaining look at two typical New Yorkers taken out of their element and off the grid for 30 days to see what happens. It’s a couple years old, but it’s a entertaining, educational, and funny look at how we’re affecting the planet and what some people are trying to do to fix it. Solar power, biodiesel, composting toilets, eco-footprints, veganism can the New Yorkers take it? Perhaps a happy medium will be found?

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Earth Hour