One of my favorite aspects of Twitter is its use as a quick source of news, updates and information about the issues that are important to me. If you follow organizations and news sources that understand how to use Twitter, you get a constant stream of links to breaking stories, articles and media that are useful and thought-provoking. I use it a lot at work to stay on top of nonprofit trends and resources.
Anyway, Audubon of California just tweeted a link to this video called "The Majestic Plastic Bag: A Mockumentary." It follows the personified life of a plastic bag and it's migration. We follow it floating about in the breeze through parking lots and parks, down sewage drains, down a river and into the ocean. You can see the path of destruction as it makes its way to the Pacific Garbage Patch, this massive collection of crap--plastic, sludge, waste, etc.-- that's come together through ocean currents off the west coast of the US.
When I first heard about this a few years ago, I thought it was another Snopes story. But apparently, it's the size of Texas (perhaps even larger) and is estimated to contain millions of tons of trash.
We have plenty of reusable grocery bags, and most of the time these days, I actually remember to bring them with me to the store. But even those bags have a limited life and are made of materials that require processing and consume resources. The bottom line is that I need to consume less altogether.
I had this great environmental politics professor when I was at the University of Florida. He referred to "Birds and Bunnies Environmentalism" when he talked about this very American view that we can still consume the same amount of stuff and it will all be okay because of new scientific advances, technology and recycling. We all tend to forget (myself included) the "reduce" and the "reuse" parts. It involves a culture change. And that takes time. I just wonder how much time we really have before we've screwed things up so much they can't be repaired.
Interesting...this cycle of consumption beyond our means and beyond what earth can support is also causing the breakdown of our economy.
If you have 3 minutes, the "Mockumentary" is a cleverly written and filmed video (very funny too)....although for some reason, it's stretching waaay across my blog.
5 comments:
I love the Brit narration, and the uplifting music. Hilarious! Funny how a British accent can lend credence to any silliness. But yes, the Garbage Patch is hideously real.
Yes, when you click Embed in Youtube, you'll see several preset sizes below the Embed code, which you can click on to change the code before you copy and paste it into your blog. For this one, the smallest pre-set width is 560 pixels, but you can also click on Custom and type a width as low as 200 pixels. So you can make it fit better if you need to. I think our blogger columns are something like 400 or 350 pixels wide.
Marv gets the Mr Helpful award! I will look at the mocko video another time (net probs) but I'm intrigued. I'm into 'Reduce' and 'Reuse'.
I'm quite an optimistic person but I'm not sure how reversible the environmental screw-up is. However: remember in "The Day of the Triffids" that when man leaves shit alone, the plants just grow back. over. everything ...
Is that Jeremy Irons narrating? Isn't it funny how we associated British accents with nature programs? Thank you Sir Attenborough!
I first heard about the garbage patch on another blog, and then heard about it again somewhere else. Liked the narration of the mockumentary. I don't tweet...mostly because I lead a relatively boring life and I also know absolutely nothing about how it works. Guess I'm lucky to be able to maintain my blog! (and sometimes I need help with that!)
LOL I think this deserves a post on the blog. Great find Gropius!
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