Shooting People: Shooting From The Hip » environment

Blog Action Day on Climate Change

Ingrid — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 19:08:33 +0000

There is something called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the Pacific Ocean, an island of rubbish roughly the size of Texas. This is the stuff that keeps me awake at night and turns me into a self-righteous pain in the ass during the day. I’ve started to pay more attention to the crap I throw away and it’s a lot. I feel like I live fairly lightly but I’m also a New Yorker. I like my coffee to go and I buy a lot of shit that is produced so cheaply the actual costs are disguised and there is usually too much packaging involved to boot. I recently bought a copy of the The Urban Homestead but living in a rented apartment with absolutely no outdoor space makes keeping chickens a little problematic.

Despite the lack of chickens I believe that the choices we make as individuals are hugely important and make a real difference so I am going to continue on my path of occasional hypocrisy, frequent sanctimony and absolute joy (swapping the subway for a bicycle!)

But we also need to come together to find solutions as communities which is why initiatives like Blog Action Day (which is today – hence this post!) and 350.0rg’s International Day of Climate Action are such a good idea. And we need to pressure our governments to make the really big policy changes. I’m heartily behind Gandhi’s “be the change you want to see in the world” but I’m pragmatic enough to realise that all my recycling and urban homesteading won’t amount to a hill of beans if governments don’t take action too. That’s why I’ve added my name to the Tck Tck Tck campaign.

I’m really not interested in yet more arguments about the scientific proof for global warming. Texas-sized islands of trash in the Pacific are SCARY and WRONG. We are not living sustainably on this planet and it’s going to bite us on the bum sooner or later. I’d rather err on the side of change and take action now.

Yours piously (but I stand by it),
Ingrid

UPDATE: You can also sign your name to the 10:10 campaign to cut emissions by 10% in 2010.

Breathing Earth – mapping in real time

Ingrid — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:06:57 +0000

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.

Green Screen

Ingrid — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 21:37:23 +0000

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.

Still on my high horse about healthcare

Ingrid — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 15:48:38 +0000

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.