The business section of the Arizona Republic today featured a real success story about a local Phoenix man, Justin Baumgartner, who in 2006 started his own company Laughing Giraffe Organics, which produces raw, vegan, organic products, including macaroons and granola.

Earning $50 a day at a local farmers market is a tough way to make a living, and it's hardly an incentive to start your own business. But it didn't deter Justin Baumgartner.

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I wanted to see the new Disney-Pixar movie WALL-E ever since I saw a trailer for it last January. I saw this sweet and charming film yesterday and just LOVED it. I highly recommend seeing this film no matter what age you are.

All the top film critics are raving about WALL-E. Here is what some of the other film critics are saying.

Gary Thompson, Philadelphia Daily News
WALL-E is probably the sweetest movie ever made about humans destroying the earth.

Stephan Whitty, Newark Star Ledger
WALL-E is a surprisingly moving parable of what we waste, and what we should cherish -- and wrapped in a romance so absurdly moving it could wring a tear or two even from Gort and Robby the Robot. Or a parent and child.

MaryAnn Johanson, Flick Filosopher
WALL-E is art. Hell, it's philosophy -- it's practically religion.

Sean Axmaker, Seattle Post-Inteligencer
WALL-E, an animated robot love story with an environmental message and a slapstick delivery, is a charmer of a film and a delightful piece of storytelling.

Austin Kennedy, Sin Magazine
Not only is this a great Sci-Fi film, it's also easily one of the most romantic! Dismissing this as just another kid’s film is not only unfair to the movie, it's unfair to you.

James Rocchi, Cinematical
Too many kid's movies are created to give kids things to buy; WALL-E is a kid's movie that might, perhaps, give you and your kids pause to think about what things truly cost.

Carla Meyer, Sacramento Bee
Offers a touching robot romance, visuals as artful as they are state-of-the- art, and vital messages about environmental and personal health.

David M. Kimmel, Worcester Telegram & Gazett
...an immensely appealing film for all ages.

Jeff Vice, Deseret News, Salt Lake City
WALL-E is not only a triumph in terms of style, it's also a triumph in terms of story. There's a real emotional resonance and depth to this material

Ken Fox, TV Guide’s Movie Guide
It can hardly be called a children's film, but a masterpiece of feature-film animation for all ages.

John P. McCarthy, Boxoffice Magazine
The genius of WALL-E is how so many disparate influences...are incorporated and evoked while creating something unique...What a wonderful world it would be if the talents they manifest here could somehow be marshalled to address real-life problems.

Marc Savlov, Austin Chronicle
By turns sad, hilarious, exciting and, ultimately, hopeful, this is a film of Great Truths masquerading as child's play.

Erik Childress, eFilmCritic.com
Not since Titanic will you have heard two prospective partners cry out each other's names with as much longing (and frequency) and if there's any karma, fate, or pure love out there to believe in than WALL-E will equal its attendance and then some.

Ethan Alter, Film Journal International
While the film's social message comes through loud and clear, it never detracts from the heart of the picture--the unlikely romance between WALL-E and EVE.

Adam Fendelman, HollywoodChicago.com
Though perfection in film is a highly unlikely proposition, WALL-E indeed has become 2008's first perfect film and one of the best Pixar projects of all time.


Source: RottenTomatoes.com

Just a reminder that GREENSBURG premiers this Sunday, June 15th at 9pm ET/PT on Discovery's new Planet Green channel. The 13-part series follows the green rebuilding story of Greensburg, Kansas after a devastating EF5 tornado traveled through the area on May 4, 2007 destroying at least 95 percent of the city. The series features Leonardo DiCaprio as its executive producer, and will be a behind-the-scenes look into the rebuilding of Greensburg as an eco-friendly community which will showcase as a model for the rest of the world to follow.

I have been feeling a little guilty about looking forward to this new series since a disaster had to happen in order to make this series possible. But now with all the recent disasters happening all over the country with more tornadoes and severe flooding causing people to lose their homes, businesses and towns, a series like this is hitting the airwaves at exactly the right time. The community of Greensburg can give hope now to other people by showing how they turned life’s challenges into personal triumphs.

Since Planet Green debuted this past June 4th I have had the opportunity to watch a few of the shows. My eco-ego has enjoyed watching WA$TED the most. I have to admit that watching this show gives me an air of superiority, in that I feel I’m very green compared to the people they profile on the show.  LOL  

Then I watch Living with Ed and my air of superiority gets diminished very quickly, because my actions pale in comparison to Ed’s actions. I don’t do anything even close like riding a stationary bicycle every morning to generate enough electricity to make toast like Ed does.

Compared to Ed, I’m a very light shade of mint green. 

No one can do everything, but everyone can do something...and that's what counts.




 

The nation’s first School of Sustainability was established at Arizona State University. The university, along with the School of Sustainability at its core, has been mounting an unprecedented comprehensive sustainability effort aimed at finding solutions to the most pressing issues the planet faces, and is committed to guiding humanity from its present course of environmental destruction.

ASU is showing how to walk the talk with plans for installing one of the largest rooftop solar-power plants in the United States. The plan calls for 2 megawatts of generating capacity installed on 135,000 square feet by the end of the year.

That's enough to run 4,600 computers and reduce carbon emissions by 2,825 tons per year, or the equivalent of taking 530 cars off the road for a year. Long-term plans call for up to 7 megawatts of solar-generating capacity to be built at ASU in Tempe, with additional solar installations at its campuses in downtown Phoenix and other locations.

"These large-scale solar installations demonstrate ASU's commitment to achieving carbon neutrality through on-site, renewable-energy generation," ASU President Michael Crow said.

ASU is becoming a major player in solar research and sustainability. This is a real-world showcase of its efforts.

Read More @ The Arizona Republic

  A Movie That Santa Does Not Want You To See!

What Would Jesus Buy? is a serious docu-comedy about the commercialization of Christmas that just came out on DVD. I rented it last night and found it quite hilarious and very thought-provoking as well.

What Would Jesus Buy? follows Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir as they go on a cross-country mission to save Christmas from the Shopocalypse: the end of mankind from consumerism, over-consumption and the fires of eternal debt!

Bill Talen (aka Reverend Billy) was a lost idealist who hitchhiked to New York City only to find that Times Square was becoming a mall. Spurred on by the loss of his neighborhood and inspired by the sidewalk preachers around him, Bill bought a collar to match his white caterer's jacket, bleached his hair and became the Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping. Since 1999, Reverend Billy has gone from being a lone preacher with a portable pulpit preaching on subways, to the leader of a congregation and a movement whose numbers are well into the thousands. Through retail interventions, corporate exorcisms, and some good old-fashioned preaching, Reverend Billy reminds us that we have lost the true meaning of Christmas. What Would Jesus Buy? is a journey into the heart of America – from exorcising the demons at the Wal-Mart headquarters to taking over the center stage at the Mall of America and then ultimately heading to the Promised Land … Disneyland.

Will we be led like Sheeple to the Christmas slaughter, or will we find a new way to give a gift this Christmas? What Would Jesus Buy? may just be the divine intervention we’ve all been searching for.

The Shopocalypse is upon us … Who will be $aved?

I thought the film had a nice mix of serious & relevant information, as well as outrageously funny scenes. The 11th Hour film expert Bill McKibben is featured in the film under the section called “Malling of America.” Bill talks about how he feels in a 100 years from now we won’t be doing the things that we are doing now. We will have figured way more interesting things to do than just go shopping as our main activity. Unfortunately, he thinks we don’t have a 100 years to make that transition. We have to make it more quickly than it would happen naturally or else we will derail the Earth’s physical systems – especially the climate.

One of my favorite scenes is when Reverend Billy and his Choir go Christmas caroling door to door. They sing these popular Christmas songs to families using new lyrics.

Deck the Malls with Folks with Money!
FA LA LA LA LA, LA LA LA LA
Tis the Season to be Dummies!
FA LA LA LA LA, LA LA LA LA

  AND 

Joy to the World!
In the Form of Goods!
Consume! Consume! Consume!
Bright Plastics This and That’s!
For Screaming Little Brats!
Take the SUV to the Mall
Take the SUV to the Mall

I also loved the part where Reverend Billy hears peoples’ confessions out of a confessional booth that he sets up on a street corner with a sign that reads, “Confess Your Shopping Sins.” Alright, I will come clean and confess my biggest shopping SIN from the past few years. I bought one of those big exercise balls, and only used it twice. It sat in my closet for a couple of years, then I finally gave it away.

I feel much better now that I confessed. 

The Institute of Noetic Sciences sponsored their third annual One Minute Shift YouTube video contest. The winning video was produced by a 13-year-old and his friends. The video expresses a heartfelt call from youths who are ready to make the change to living more sustainably. They pointedly ask if we’re ready to do the same and join them.

About the contest winner: Shannon Leonard loves to make films, and recruited his friends to participate in the creation of this video. He plans to use his winnings to buy a computer to create more videos for YouTube.

View video HERE.


It is encouraging to see young bright kids like this who are already engaging others into taking leadership in the sustainability movement.

They should all be applauded. 

Wasting Food = Money in the Garbage

I received an email newsletter today from the Sierra Club’s The Green Life commenting on last Sunday’s New York Times article One Country’s Table Scraps, Another Country's Meal.

The NY Times article is about the exorbitant amount of food Americans throw away each year. Most of all this wasted food ends up in landfills, and as it decomposes it produces methane, a major source of greenhouse gases.

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            William Kamkwamba

Can films change the world? No, films can’t change the world. But the people who watch them can. 


What is Pangea Day?
Pangea Day was the world’s largest global film event that took place on May 10, 2008. The cities of Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, and Rio de Janeiro were all linked to produce a live 4-hour program of powerful films, visionary speakers, and uplifting music.

Pangea Day was created as a worldwide cinema event with programming that highlighted the themes of unity, the common ties that bind us into a global culture. In a world where people are often divided, it's easy to lose sight of what we all have in common. Pangea Day seeks to overcome that - to help people see themselves in others - through the power of film. Pangea Day taps the power of film to strengthen tolerance and compassion, uniting millions of people to build a better future. The goal is to invite the viewers of these films to join a global conversation about the issues that affect us all.

Pangea refers to the supercontinent from which all current continents eventually separated. It serves as a reminder of the "connectedness" or unitary nature of all people on Planet Earth.


I only got to watch a little over an hour of Pangea Day live on May 10th, and I have been watching the rest of the films and speakers a little each day. If you want to treat yourself to something special then take the time to watch this inspiring event on the internet.

If you only have time to watch one film, then watch the award winning and very inspiring film Moving Windmills. This is a very short film about a 14 year old boy, William Kamkwamba who lives in a remote rural village in Malawi where they have no electricity. William saw a picture of a windmill in a textbook and decided to build one to power his family's home. Using found materials and scrap yard parts such as a broken bicycle, tractor fan, melted plastic pipes, bamboo and used copper wires, he built a series of windmills which would change his and his family's life.

You can watch the full Pagean Day program HERE, or just watch the films HERE.

ABC News takes a look inside the Panea Day Festival.

Enjoy!  Be Inspired!  Be Enlightened!

WASHINGTON - Americans rank last in a new National Geographic-sponsored survey released Wednesday that compares environmental-consumption habits in 14 countries.

Americans were least likely to choose the greener option in three out of four categories - housing, transportation and consumer goods, according to the assessment. In the fourth category, food, Americans ranked ahead of Japanese consumers, who eat more meat and seafood.

The rankings, called "Greendex," are the first to compare the lifestyles and behaviors of consumers in multiple countries, according to the National Geographic Society.

It plans to conduct the 100-plus-question survey annually and considers trends more important than yearly scores, said Terry Garcia, executive vice president of National Geographic's mission programs.

"This is not just a one-time snapshot," Garcia said. "Some of the most important information may yet be revealed."
India and Brazil tied for the highest score: 60 points out of 100. U.S. consumers scored 44.9.

In between, China scored 56.1, Mexico 54.2, Hungary 53.2, Russia 52.4, Great Britain 50.2, Germany 50.2, Australia 50.2, Spain 50, Japan 49.1, France 48.7 and Canada 48.5.

Results are based on 1,000 online respondents per country interviewed in January and February by GlobeScan, an international polling firm.

To see how you score, take an abbreviated version of the survey at National Geographic Greendex

How Americans ranked among 14 nations in eco-friendly choices.
Transportation: 14th Place
Housing: 14th Place
Consumer Goods: 14th Place
Food: 13th Place

Source: McClatchy Newspapers
Above article printed in Arizona Republic

In just a few weeks, the U.S. Senate will have a historic opportunity to pass legislation to combat global warming. Let your senators know we need a strengthened Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act to help avert a global climate crisis.

Make your voice heard through the NRDC Action Fund