All posts by zap-editor

07. recycling revisited

k. Dumpster Diving

DUMPSTER DIVING

Dr. Miltin Saier, Planet Green; San Diego, USA
2008, 2 min 30 sec

Dr. Milton Saier is a professor at the University of California, San Diego. He saves over 10.000 dollars a year getting his food from dumpsters. Get a crash course in dumpster diving from this accomplished biology professor who demonstrates the lifestyle of a freegan. Freeganism is a movement that minimizes waste by using what we already have. They believe in minimal participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources. The food is collected out of dumpsters of retailers, residences, offices and restaurants. They follow some common sense ground rules about food safety and end up with plenty of perfectly edible free food. Blemishes on our Sell-By-Date laws ensure that a criminal amount of edible food is placed in the dumpster every day. This is not just for freaks or homeless people. Meet an employed college professor who’s been doing this for 30 years and teaching his students to follow suit.

07. recycling revisited

l. Matthew Coolidge at the Mitchell Center

MATTHEW COOLIDGE AT THE MITCHELL CENTER

The Center for Land Use Interpretation ; Houston, USA
2008, 7 min 12 sec

The Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI) is a research organization established in1994 in Culver City, Los Angeles by Matthew Coolidge, examining
the relationships between the physical landscape and its human occupation, taking on the role of the impartial expert relating an ‘objective’ view, a wry stance that allows them to highlight the problematic relationships between the economy and land-use and their impacts on the environment.

This is carried out through an investigation into different land uses, their ownership, and the economic and cultural value associated with parts of the landscape. CLUI raise awareness and stimulate debate about the physical landscape, from vast working factories to abandoned military facilities or sewage treatment works and waste incinerators. Their research uncovers the variety of unusual and often environmentally catastrophic uses that support the lifestyle that we are used to in developed countries.

 

07. recycling revisited

m. $H*T!

$H*T!

Annika Gustafson and Phil Jandaly, Bedouin Viking Production; Kibera, Kenya
2012, 3 min 37 sec

Everybody does it – nobody talks about it. $H*T! follows radical solutions that turn human waste into green energy. From the bottom of the poverty ladder to the heights of power, $H*T! shows a transformation in thinking, where human waste is not a problem, it’s a resource. Human waste is a universal reality few want to talk about, but the truth is – it’s a killer. In the West, under-dimensioned and decaying sewage systems leak straight into our basements and rivers. In some places, the system has already collapsed, contaminating water sources so that drinking water has to be trucked in.

Almost 40% of the world’s population have no access to any kind of sanitation. That’s 2.6 billion people who have no choice but to do their business in the open, posing the single largest threat to drinking water and public health on the planet. But what if all that human waste wasn’t a threat? What if it could save the planet?

$H*T! is an international wake-up call for changing our attitudes to how we deal with our own waste. It’s a character driven film that offers solutions who can turn this deadly problem into the resource it is. A resource that can provide energy and clean fertilizer, all while cutting down on fossil fuel and CO2 emissions in the process.

08. climate

b. Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change

INUIT KNOWLEDGE & CLIMATE CHANGE

Zacharias Kunuk and Dr. Ian Mauro
2011, 3 min 55 sec

Nunavut-based director Zacharias Kunuk (Atanarjuat The Fast Runner) and researcher and filmmaker Dr. Ian Mauro (Seeds of Change) have teamed up with Inuit communities to document their knowledge and experience regarding climate change. This new documentary, the world’s first Inuktitut language film on the topic, takes the viewer ‘on the land’ with elders and hunters to explore the social and ecological impacts of a climat change on the Arctic. This unforgettable film helps us to appreciate Inuit culture and expertise regarding environmental change and indigenous ways of adapting to it.

Exploring centuries of Inuit knowledge, allowing the viewer to learn about climate change first-hand from Arctic residents themselves, the film portrays Inuit as experts regarding their land and wildlife and makes it clear that climate change is a human rights issue affecting this ingenious Indigenous culture.

08. climate

c. What in the World Are They Spraying

WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE THEY SPRAYING

Michael J. Murphy & Paul Wittenberger; www.realityzone.com
2010, 97 min

By now everyone has seen crisscrossing streaks of white clouds trailing behind jet aircraft, stretching from horizon to horizon, eventually turning the sky into a murky haze. Our innate intelligence tells us these are not mere vapor trails from jet engines, but no one yet has probed the questions: who is doing this and why. With the release of this video, all of that has changed. Here is the story of a rapidly developing industry called geo-engineering, driven by scientists, corporations, and governments intent on changing global climate, controlling the weather, and altering the chemical composition of soil and water — all supposedly for the betterment of mankind. Although officials insist that these programs are only in the discussion phase, evidence is abundant that they have been underway since about 1990 — and the effect has been devastating to crops, wildlife, and human health. We are being sprayed with toxic substances without our consent and, to add insult to injury, they are lying to us about it.

03. singing forests

a. Interview with Dr. David Suzuki

INTERVIEW WITH Dr. DAVID SUZUKI
AUTHOR OF TREE: A LIFE STORY

Talking Stick TV
2004, 28 min 13 sec

This is a story that spans a millennium and includes a cast of millions. It is the story of a single tree. Scientist and environmentalist David Suzuki and writer Wayne Grady tell the life story of a tree, beginning when heat from a devastating forest fire opens thousands of pine cones and sends millions of seeds into the air. Most of these seeds perish, but one falls into the soil and develops into the tree that is the subject of this story.

Suzuki and Grady also describe how the tree grows and receives nourishment and what role the tree plays in the forest throughout its life. It acts as a home to a succession of creatures and plays a crucial role in the water cycle, in breaking rock down into soil, and in removing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen. Even after the tree dies, it provides a home for moss, ferns, and other plants, which use the tree as a nurse log, and it provides nutrients for insects and fungi. Tree also looks at the community of organisms that share the tree’s ecosystem and at the events going on in the larger world during the tree’s lifetime.