On Individual Action

We are gearing up for our next installment of Ecofest (after two successful years of the Ecolympics), which runs from April 15-22. In addition to the marquee events that we have planned -- we just added former National Poetry slam champion Regie Gibson to feature at our Eco-slam on April 16, we have a plethora of individual challenge events to help us raise awareness about our footprint on the environment. 

Certainly it's going to take more than committing to shorter showers, eating less meat and using reusable cups and bags to create a sustainable world, especially, according to this article by Chris Hedges, when we find out that individuals and municipalities consume only 10% of water resources while agriculture and industry gobble up 90%, but we must walk before we can run. 

All great movements start with individual action. Someone somewhere decided it was time to stand up and act. Check out these films from the Wild and Scenic Film Festival and see individual action in action. 

Here's Hilton Kelley fighting industrial pollution in Port Arthur Texas:

Here's Annie Leonard educating us that, hey, guess what, we're not broke:

I wasn't able to stay for the evening's feature, but it's a story about the founder of Bikes Not Bombs, located in Jamaica Plain and you can now see My Own Two Wheels. 

The main afternoon feature was Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan who won
the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. She started a movement to plant a million trees
and on the way she helped bring down the dictatorship. The new goal for her foundation
(Maathai died of cancer in September 2011) is to plant 14 billion trees. Now
that's a goal! You can read about this very inspiration person and her work here. 







When it comes down to it, individual action is indeed about action. You can find

other great examples at the Wild and Scenic website.

Brazilian Conserve Water Ad Campaign

A little creativity goes a long way... though I doubt we'll see this anytime soon in North America.

Watch this ad for Brazil's Save Water campaign once...


then watch it again with the translation below:
To sum it up: If you pee, you're invited.
(when you flush you waste up to 12 liters of drinkable water / 4380 liters in one year)
Pee in the bath! Help the Atlantic Forest.
Pee in the shower! We want everyone to do it!
Men! Women! Children! Brazilians! Or not! Nobles! Commoners! Musicians! Sports stars! People half-human, half-monster. Twilight creatures! Brazilian legends! Greek legends! Good people! Not so good people! Art geniuses! Science geniuses! Circus performers! Lovers! People from other planets! Movie stars!

In case you're wondering, urine is 75% water and sterile, so go ahead, and call it
conservation by urination.

World Water Day is March 22

To mark the upcoming World Water Day, the ESO (that's the Environmental Student Organization, not the European Southern Observatory, who, by the way, have a fine repository of images from around the universe) is showing the documentary film One Water. The screening will be in CAS B12.

Given the lack of standards in the bottled water industry, and the environmental harm caused by both its excavation and the pollution from the water bottles, it doesn't take an Einstein to know we should be drinking tap water.

See the trailer for the film below.

One Water Trailer from KnightCenter on Vimeo.