The Distance Project

Watching the Change and Getting the Message - Why Wall-E Matters.

Posted on July 7th, 2008 by hg.
Categories: General, Renewable Energy, Sustainability, Pop-Culture.

For those of you who don’t have a youngster in the house, aren’t a fan of cutting-edge animation, or just don’t get out much, you may be interested to learn that the movie WALL-E is perhaps the greatest environmental film of all time. I write this not as a steadfast environmentalist (which I am) or a shill for the Disney Company (which I am not), but as a student of mass communication , in general, and message framing and mass opinion, in particular.

Released to near universal critical acclaim for its animation, story and general creativity, the film was produced by Pixar/Disney for $180 million with a global marketing budget estimated at 20-30% of that number. The movie’s made $130 million since its release June 27^th (10 days ago). Industry estimates are that the film will gross a minimum of ½ a billion dollars globally, and may well bring in close to twice that much by the end of its theatrical run.

Whether it will or not I can’t say, but what’s fascinating is that we are now at a time, globally, where we can see the world as a whole engaging in the act of mass opinion change; in this case, with regard to moving from how we have historically powered our lives to a new, cleaner, more earth-centric system.

The movie does more in its 97 minute running time for the concepts of renewable energy, conservation, recycling, and consumer awareness than any 97 minutes of anything I can think of. I would challenge anyone to come up with an article, speech, ad or lobbying effort of the last 30 years that does as much for spreading…globally and to a wide swath of the human demographic…the awesomeness of solar power than does the 10 second bit that takes place in the first 30 minutes of this film.

There aren’t many times in life where you can look behind you to see what was, and forward to see what will be, but that’s exactly what’s happening at this time in history, as is evidenced by the production, release and embrace of a movie—ostensibly made for children and about two little robots in love—that tells its story using the backdrop of a dark, dystopian future of an earth rendered nearly uninhabitable by lack of environmental care, and that calls out to you to consider where you stand in the midst of the change occurring around you. Are you a part of the problem, or a part of the solution? Are you an apologist for the oil and gas industry? Are you a lobbyist at Bracewell and Giuliani, paid to discredit climate scientists? Are you a political appointee, dragging your feet on global warming, air quality, progressive energy policies and true energy security?

While our matinee showing was heavily populated by kids of all ages, my wife and I were surrounded by 5 and 8 year olds; people who will, perhaps—if everything goes well– never drive a vehicle that runs predominantly on polluting fossil fuels, and may actually drive to Prom in a “plug-in electric biofuel hydrogen fuel cell solar charged” number made by a company that actually “gets it”. (A discussion as to whether that company will be either of the current Detroit-based crew is best saved for another day).

I won’t give away the plot or ending, but I will tell you that the film is both aggressively “green” and elegantly not. It’s for the viewer to decide. It’s sometimes uncomfortable to watch, with its themes of consumerism gone amok, the melding of corporations and government, and idea that humans lack appreciation for the difficult and natural in favor of that which is easy and packaged. But don’t get me wrong, it’s also a joy to watch and experience this little gem of an American film, so don’t think you have it figured out before you even go see it.

That said, it’s possible that those people existing at the edges of the political spectrum will find things to dislike and diminish about the film. I’m relatively certain that the defenders of our historically “brown” system will find much to pooh pooh about a silly cartoon with the temerity to suggest the current system isn’t working just fine, thank you very much. But If that’s the case, then I don’t think they really understand the meaning of a movie like WALL E.

WALL E means that the world has changed. That if you’re still fighting on Capitol Hill to keep CAFE standards low, you just don’t get it. If you’re trying to get a coal plant sited, you’re on the backside of the curve, dude. If you’ve been running a car company where people call your main product “The Extinction”, or “The Bummer”, then you’re about to be extinct yourself, my friend. And, if you think it’s OK to spew filth into the air, make money without regard for the only planet we have, and work to blur any intelligent dialogue about the need for us to move to a new system as fast as we possibly can, then you are, quite frankly, old, and WALL E just ain’t for you. But that doesn’t matter anyway.

WALL E is for those kids born after 2000, who someday will ask what you were doing when the world changed. They’ll ask what it was like burning black rocks and liquids to heat your house and get to the supermarket. They’ll ask what a gas station was, and wasn’t it a drag to have to go to one all the time. They’ll ask why so many people had asthma and what acid rain was and to explain the Exxon Valdez; and why the people you chose to be in charge didn’t do more to clean things up and change things more quickly.

And they’ll ask, to gauge whether or not you’re really “with it”, whether you’ve ever seen the best environmental film of all time.

0 comments.

Holiday Loot - My Thank You Notes

Posted on December 29th, 2007 by Zach.
Categories: Sustainability, Pop-Culture.

So with holidays winding to a close I am sitting around trying to digest the incredibly delicious turkey dinner and feeling slightly ill. To avoid the waves of bloating that have overcome me this year, I have been surveying my little pile of loot. It is quite a great haul this year - not a ton of stuff, but things I am really excited about.

Thought I would share some of the cool stuff that came my way:

Green Roof: A Case Study

There are so many books out there about green, but so few of them go into the details of the process. This book talks about everything from design, to the plants they used in the project. As it happens, the project was in DC, so all the info is especially relevant for me.

Worldchanging: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century

I have coveted this book for a while, and oddly had never bought it for myself. Such a great look at the lifestyle shifts that are upcoming for us all. Love it.

Cool Green Stuff: A Guide to Finding Great Recycled, Sustainable, Renewable Objects You Will Love

There are a lot of books like this on the market, but this one is nice because it gives you a URL for each product. Some very cool products, though they have the wrong solar bag. Nuff said. Thanks JS.

REI Mojave Polo Shirt

Eco Fashion, is something that is often tough to buy for someone. The high end is either too expensive for gifting, and the low end often looks like the giftee is wearing a burlap sack (this can be worse than the awful christmas sweater). But I got this excellent polo shirt smack dab in the middle, making it a totally successful gift in my opinion. An organic cotton/Recycled PET blend. Thanks CS!

Brookstone Hand Crank Flashlight/Radio

I have developed an obsession with all things hand-crankable. Bring on the antique ice cream maker of my youth! In the meantime, I got this sweet flashlight/radio. It is unclear to me why all flashlights aren’t built this way. I suspect a battery and flashlight manufacturer collusion. Ten minutes of crank leads to all the light you could possibly want. Pretty sweet radio, and a great Nokia phone plugin for charging the device! Hand-crank phone charging, now that is slick. Thanks RF Dos.

OLPC’s XO Laptop

The One Laptop Per Child concept is a Media Lab project run by Nicholas Negroponte. It used to be called the $100 laptop project. These things are so cool, Check out Laptop Magazine’s review. Until the end of the year if you donate a laptop to one of the education sites around the worls, they give you one as well. I am so psyched to try out the laptop, it looks awesome.

Er, and as it only needs 5 watts of electricity to charge, I am DEFINITELY hooking it up to my JuiceBag…You Rule RF.

The TerraPass

RF Dos, offset my whole house’s carbon consumption for the year. For someone who cares about enviro stuff, think this is a great gift. It also comes as a little gift pack with a CFL Lightbulb and a couple other things. These are the kinds of things that I mean to do, but don’t get around to. So great to get.

The LED Lightbulb Pack

I have been meaning to play with LED lightbulbs forever. With this swanky mixed pack I get to decide wich style I really like before investing in a bunch. So cool, I can’t wait to get home! Thanks C+BF.

On the stocking stuffer/hanukkah gift level, I also got some great stuff:

Bamboo Cooking Utensils

Dagoba Chocolate

Cedar Chips Sachet (Full disclosure, I did not know what these were until I get ‘em, but apparently mothballs are super toxic and these solve the moth problem)

Bamboo Toast Tongs I think we all get things we don’t really need, how about something biodegradable and of sustainable materials?

There was some other great stuff as well, but these were some of the highlights. What also ruled is that there was not a huge pile of packaging this year, it really was pretty minimal. Minimal travel, minimal packaging, great useful gifts - who really could ask for much more?

0 comments.

Dressing Well.

Posted on August 1st, 2007 by Zach.
Categories: General, Sustainability, Pop-Culture.

So I have had this small secret goal to make everything I wear have some sort of environmental story - Organic fabrics, low toxicity, made locally, or by Co-Ops somewhere for a fair price, recycled materials - you know, all that hippy crap. The challenging part has been that it has to fit into what I like to wear. I am not a big Tie Dye or Birkenstock wearer, I don’t really like the traditionally “natural” look. No offense to that stuff, but it just not my scene.

Oh yeah, I also hate to shop. There is almost nothing worse than trying stuff on in a store. It sucks; nothing ever fits right, you have to spend the whole day just to find one or two things you like, in the end it is always the most expensive thing in the store that fits the best. I mean, come on I am on a start-up budget here people, I can’t be buying expensive clothing. So generally anything I can do to reduce my time in a clothing store is great.

I have been trying to work this into my clever plan by looking for things that can be worn for more than the six minutes that fashion trends seem to last these days. This concept of the “timeless classic” is probably harder than trying to find eco-fashionable wares. It rarely exists, so in the cases where I am buying on trend I have been trying to buy only one of those things and wear it into the ground. (This is known to many of us the River’s Vest Phenomenon - sorry for the inside joke)

No industry has been more successful with the concept of “planned obsolescence” than the fashion industry. Very clever of them, the clothes don’t wear out in their plan - they just go out of fashion. This is brilliant! Basically you shame people into not being cool becuase their clothing is 3 months old. Fashion is the most second grade concept in adult life.

By the way, that Juice Bag of yours is SO last season, have you seen the new Daylight Series?

This is probably more than you ever wanted to know about the little secret plans I come up with when I have to much time on my hands (and, let me tell you, have I got a million of ‘em…). Nevertheless there is some cool stuff out there right now, and my little task has been greatly reduced. Thought I would take some time to point out some of my favorites.

Levi’s Eco
Loomstate

Edun
Mission Playground

Nau

American Apparel Sustainable Edition
Patagonia
Simple Shoes
Terra Plana

Shoes are the hardest, but I just got a pair of WornAgain sneakers from Terra Plana (big up to Riv for the gift). Love these things, I have them on right now. Recylcled rubber soles. Leather from that used to be waste product. Recycled cloth innards. Designs with some funk, how can you beat it!

As I sit blogging in a coffee shop in San Francisco (could I be more of a stereotype right now?), I am feeling right at home with my shoes. At one with the shoe universe you might say. Now hopefully they will be on trend for the next 15 years.

They will right?

0 comments.

Entry Points: Why Live Earth Mattered.

Posted on July 18th, 2007 by Zach.
Categories: Sustainability, Systems of the World, Pop-Culture.

I managed to watch a fair amount of the Live Earth extravaganza, here are some quick thoughts:

- Maybe time has marched on, but I didn’t get the same cultural buzz off the concert that the African Relief shows did in the 80’s. Not sure why, but the whole thing felt a little hollow. (Except for Wembley, see point 3)

- The transition sequences, little movies, and statistics were awesome. Not sure who did all of them, but they rule. They felt like they had tangible significance. Loved it.

- It was so obvious how the venue setup matters. Giant stadium seemed energyless for most the most part. The floor area all had seats and they were FAR from the stage. In contrast Wembley looked so impressive. It had huge energy and just seemed crazy cool. Even the smaller venues seemed to work better than Giant Stadium - Brazil looked so fun. But then a free concert on the beach in Rio? How is this not fun?

- Foo Fighters ripped it up. Those guys put on the best set of the concert - by far.

- Bob Geldoff is grumpy someone stole his idea. Check this bit from Treehugger. Love that picture. When did he last sleep?

Ah Live Earth - concerts for the planet. Such an easily ridiculed concept, with such huge implications for the future.

It’s just hard. Hard to watch Madonna tell me that it is time to pay attention to the planet. It has the feel of being chastised by your Mom for not cleaning your room. You know you probably should listen, but this Xbox…is just…sucking…your attention…away…

Time Magazine has a good piece on the concerts - both the good and the bad. An interesting argument comes up in the piece, one that is growing I think. It’s surmised by this quote of Arctic Monkeys’ drummer Matt Helder: “We’re using enough power for ten houses just for lighting,” Arctic Monkeys’ drummer Matt Helder told AFP. “It’d be a bit hypocritical [if we played].”

Hmmm, I wonder if they feel hypocritical every time they play, or just this particular time when highlighting climate change. Sorry I digressed there.

The truth is he’s right. In some ways it would be best if this concert didn’t go on. Massive reduction, conservation and efficiency are the greatest sources of potential energy in the world - especially in the US. Reducing our consumption - less travel, fewer products purchased, reduced electricity use - these things would make the planet we live in fundamentally better.

I started wondering why this quote bugged me so much. I realized it’s because the issue hits so close to home. We produce a product that we call “green”. The Juice Bag incorporates a solar panel for charging your phone, iPod, etc. In our ES line we source recycled fabrics for the bags. But like the Live Earth concert, it is partly true that the world would be less impacted if we didn’t design, produce, or ship a Juice Bag to you.

The flaw in this logic is that as a society we are not consuming less. Concerts for entertainment go on - the Arctic Monkeys will tour all over the world, come climate change or not. People camp out for the “Must Have” gadgets like the iPhone. I drove to work today. These are the realities of our world. These are the systems we live in.

It’s what we have, and while it is nice to dream of consumption disappearing into thin air, the reality is that our consumption is getting worse not better.

So the question is how do you begin to make that transition from where we are, to where we want to be? To a less consumptive place.
I think it begins with systems we use every day. Around Reware we dream of the day where every bag bought is made from recycled materials. Where the process Nau is using is the norm in clothing manufacturing. That it would be expected by the consumer. Sure we would still be buying too many bags as a society, but we will have begun the transition to reduction.

Recycled fabrics and solar panels create what we like to think of as an entry point for consumers to expect this type of thing from their products. We are still buying too much, but we have at least started to think about our system. This sets the stage for the next set of changes we have to make. Recently the New York Times had a good piece looking at this concept.

The crucial point, I think, is at the end of the article. Entry points (done well) really work in this context of transition. Central to the argument, there are a set of social marketing studies that show people who are consuming organic products, are attempting to incorporate other climate mitigation strategies into their daily lives. I can’t find a link to the one I was reading, if anyone has one of these studies send it my way and I will post it.

From our own experiences (and I may have used this anecdote before); we once sold a Juice Bag at a solar show in Arizona. The guy came back the next day and said “This thing works great for my phone, do you think I could power my house like this?” That is a good day for us, and a successful entry point into sustainability through consumer goods.

Entry Point theory is a tricky marketing business though. EPs have to be easily accessible to a wide market regardless of politics, socio-economics, or geographic location. They have to make transition strategies fun and engaging for people who live busy lives. Entry points have to create the same feel for consumers that the iPhone has - A sense of belonging, of identity, of excitement, in product - a hard thing to create in any context. If only we could get Apple on board with some of the eco-theory…

But, this is where pop-culture can be such a powerful tool. And this is where Live Earth matters. Now it wasn’t perfect, some of the artists were annoying and self rightous, but when is that not true? For one day the words “climate change” were on millions of peoples collective minds - whether they liked the idea, or hated it. Climate Change was everywhere. And that is an amazing feet. Amazing.

Like Reware, like Wholefoods, like the Prius, the concert had its impact on the environment that was not ideal. The critical debate should not center around this, the debate should be more around Bob Geldoff’s grumpiness. Did the concert create a successful entry point for people wanting to find out more about sustainability, or did it fail to capture the imagination?

Now that is a question which matters..

0 comments.

Laziness and the Environment.

Posted on June 18th, 2007 by Zach.
Categories: Sustainability, Industry, Pop-Culture.

This title looks like I am going to rail on people that are too lazy to care about the environment.

Not True!

No, as I have voiced here before, I am at my fundamental core - lazy. With so much change going on in the world I often feel like I just need a nap. Really it is the personal decision making process that is so exhausting. Should I get the Organic socks, or the recylced ones? Is a hybrid better or worse than running Biodiesel? What if my ethanol is from a corn based feedstock and not Switch grass or cellulosic waste product? Does that make me a horrible person? Should I reclaim some furniture that looks bad or buy new sustainable harvest wood designs?

Can you hand me that pillow, I’m just going to lie down here for a sec…

Fortunately there are many people out there to guide us through our new enlightenment. A Beacon of Green Light as it were. One great example just came out: