This is very, very cool: breathingearth.net

It is a real time simulation that displays the CO2 emissions of every country in the world, as well as their birth and death rates. Make sure you move your mouse over the countries to check out their stats.

I’ve always been obsessed with maps. That’s why I love books like You Are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination and I am really interested to see how people are using new technology to map events, people, places, and ideas in new ways. Thanks to Lina Srivastava for the heads up.

Al Gore’s recent Nobel Peace Prize has lots of people focusing on the role that An Inconvenient Truth played in the decision to award him the prize. If films really can change the world, what about filmmakers? Paul Harrill has a list of resources to keep filmmakers on their environmental toes on his Self-Reliant Filmmaking blog.

I will stop going on about Sicko soon but I like this review from Roger Ebert. Meanwhile John Pierson is causing a ruckus with his open letter to Michael Moore on indieWIRE.

If you want to join me on my high horse you can sign petitions and get involved in the campaign for universal health care here.

Now if I may lurch from one cause to another for a moment. I was feeling a tad guilty about all my flights to film festivals this year. I don’t drive a car but I’m leaving quite a footprint with my air miles so I bought a Terrapass to balance my impact. I realize it is only a small step in the right direction but it’s an easy, lazy way to do something good. You can buy them for your car and household too. You can even have a green wedding! I am trying to be environmentally well-behaved across the board but it’s fun to be able to throw money at my computer and feel good about it.