Tesfaye: A Film About Reforesting Ethiopia

Tesfaye is a film by Brent Gudgel, made for Eden Reforestation Projects. It’s the story of an Ethiopian man who blames himself for helping to destroy the trees of his country. Now he wants to help fix the problem. It’s a beautiful film told with great simplicity and seriousness. It is the clear and direct communication from the man in the film that makes it so effective.

Eating Meat Contributes Enormously to Global Warming

Scientific American published the page of charts on the left.  Click the image to get a high-res version.  It explains how bad for the environment the production and consumption of meat really is.  According to the magazine, the annual beef diet of the average American emits as much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere as a car driven approximately 1,800 miles.

That’s very bad.  Here’s another statistic: According to Environmental Defense, if every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetarian foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off of U.S. roads.

The New York Times: Students Make a Green House

The New York Times produced this environmental film that follows a group of Oberlin College students for a day of green ideas that they used on their group student house.  Their sustainable living ideas are easy to do and fun.  Their methods for capture and reuse of water are effective and cost nothing to implement.  I really like their very balanced view of sustainable energy and resources.  They also go out to peoples’ homes in the area and exchange regular incandescent lightbulbs for energy-efficient compact fluorescent lightbulbs.