What’s better than the opportunity to make a video that sends an inspiring message about climate change to our next president? How about the chance to win a cash prize and your video broadcast on internet and TV channels?1Sky and Brighter Planet are inviting Americans to create powerful video messages that deliver a clear message to Washington: We’re ready for strong leadership on climate change. Upload your 30- or 60- second video to the contest page on Vimeo.com before September 22, 2008 to compete for $4,500 in cash prizes: www.vimeo.com/climatematters.
The ten videos with the most views per day will be judged by a select panel that includes award winning documentary filmmaker and producer Rory Kennedy (Ghosts of Abu Ghraib) and Academy award-winning producer Tia Lessen (Trouble the Water, Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine), among other notable individuals.
Last year, our partners including Green for All made sure that the 2007 Energy Bill included the Green Jobs Act and Conservation Block Program, which both are critical to building an green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty. Are you ready to help make that a reality?
Yesterday, our champions in the House of Representatives fought a tough battle and secured $22.5 million for the Green Jobs Act in the fiscal year 2009 House Labor, Health and Human Services and Education (LHHS) Appropriations bill. Many other programs are getting slashed in this tough budget year. But with help from your emails to Congress, we were able to secure the $22.5 million for this new program. It’s not the full $125 million, but it is progress of which we can be proud.
But the appropriations process isn’t over yet. Next week it goes to the Senate.
On Tuesday, June 24 the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee will vote on their version of the fiscal year 2009 LHHS bill.
On Earth Day many people are looking to environmental organizations to help them understand how they can reduce their consumption, stop global warming, and other efforts to improve the health of our Earth. These are important issues to tackle, but I find it even more exciting to discover organizations that are making additional strides to address environmental and social justice at the same time.
The Oakland Food Connection, is an environmental justice organization in the Bay Area that brings together practical gardening, food security and nutrition to urban schools. One of their projects includes creating a rooftop vegetable garden at a local elementary school. I found out about this project on RyanIsHungry.com, where Ryanne explains, “These vegetables will serve as more than just a healthy meal, they’ll help educate kids and their parents about the possibilities that exist beyond processed, packaged foods and the often limited variety of produce sold in stores.” It’s my hope that they will also be turned on to issues around industrial agriculture and its negative consequences that spans economic, labor, and the environmental issues. Check out the video to hear from the director of the Oakland Food Connection and learn more.
Other environmental justice organizations that focus on green jobs are also receiving more attention as the climate justice movement is growing. In the extra from the Everything’s Cool Activist DVD, Green Job Revolution , Van Jones who is the Founder and President of Green for All explains that there is only one solution to the ecological and the economic crisis: we need a green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty. Green for All is at the forefront of the national movement to building an inclusive green economy.
Check out the Green Job Revolution video below to hear more of what Van Jones has to say and see what the Chicago-based organization Growing Home is doing to provide job training and create employment opportunities for homeless and low-income people in Chicago within the context of a non-profit organic agriculture business.
Solutions are rooted in every city and town in America. Today and all year long – since Earth Day is everyday – let’s support and celebrate efforts for environmental justice.
Are you interested in bringing together your friends and neighbors for an entertaining and engaging conversation about global warming? This month the Sierra Club’s book and film club, Let’s Talk, is featuring Everything’s Cool, so you can do just that. Every other month Let’s Talk recommends an illuminating movie and book while providing background reading materials, tips on hosting a film club, and questions to help spark a good discussion.
Make your screening meaningful, check out the Sierra Club’s Cool Cities and Cool Counties campaigns and get involved by urging your local government to move forward with innovative energy solutions that curb global warming, save taxpayer dollars, and create healthier cities!
Our partners at Clif Mojo and Focus the Nation want you to propel your creative Global Warming solutions into action with Project Slingshot. Three winners will receive up to $10,000 to slingshot their ideas into reality. How can you best utilize your skills, talents and passion to make a difference? There will be one winner in each of three categories:
1. Outdoor Fanatics: How will you protect the places you love to play?
2. Artists: How will you inspire your communities?
3. Innovators: How will you challenge our expectations?
Ok all you aspiring filmmakers. ..If you’ve been inspired by the global warming messengers in Everything’s Cool, now’s your chance to put your filmmaking skills to use and do your part to get the message out about global warming. Current TV’s 60 Seconds to Save the Earth contest is your chance to encourage folks to be part of the solution (and for you to win prizes) . You just have to make a spot of 15, 30, 45 or 60 seconds that inspires people to get off the couch and do their part to reverse global warming. For more info on the contest check out the 60 Seconds to Save the Earth page on the Current TV site.
Remember that School House Rock segment called I’m Just a Bill , where the scroll of paper named Bill talks with a little boy about how he wants to become a law? Well just like the cartoon Bill the clean energy legislation passed by the House and Senate has not quite become law.
The good news is that the hard work of activists like us assured that the House version of the bill included a renewable energy standard (RES) that requires utilities to get at least 15% of their electricity from clean, US based, renewable energy sources by 2020, and the Senate version included an increase in CAFE, or fuel efficiency standards for vehicles. The bad news is that the differences between the two bills have to be hammered out in conference committee and then, just like we learned from School House Rock, the final version must be signed by the president. For this clean energy bill to have the same happy ending as the school house rock Bill, who does become a law, we must keep up our pressure on President Bush and our Congressional representatives. Read more about the legislation at It’s Getting Hot in Here, a blog by youth climate change activists, and then find the find and write your elected officials to tell them you want both increased CAFE standards and the RES in the final version of the bill.
Focus The Nation, a Campaign partner of Everything’s Cool, won the MySpace Impact Award for Environmentalism. Focus The Nation is a major educational initiative that is coordinating teams of faculty, students and staff at colleges, universities and high schools in the United States, to collaboratively engage in a nationwide, interdisciplinary discussion centered around the theme of Global Warming Solutions for America on January 31, 2008. This award honors MySpace members for the positive impact they’ve had on our culture and it includes a $10,000 prize and a month of exposure on the site.
Past winners of the MySpace Impact Awards include Skate 4 Cancer, Surfrider Foundation, Invisible Children and ONE.
Working Films is always on the lookout for new developments in the news about global warming. This is the first in a series of future posts highlighting interesting news articles we think you might like to have a look at.
Increasingly a diverse set of constituencies is lining up to fight global warming, and one of these constituencies is the world’s Catholics. At a recent Vatican conference on climate change Pope Benedict said that scientists, religious leaders, and political leaders should “respect creation” while “focusing on the needs of sustainable development.” To find out more about how the Catholic Church is responding to global climate change read this article that we found in London’s The Guardian newspaper.
Protect God’s Creation: Vatican issues new green message for world’s Catholics John Vidal and Tom Kington in Rome
Friday April 27, 2007 The Guardian
On Sunday, April 15th Everything’s Cool co-director Judith Helfand and Robert West, co-founder and executive director of Working Films, participated on a panel at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival about using film to support the movement to end global warming. Working Films is coordinating the two-year audience and community engagement campaign for Everything’s Cool. The panel was sponsored by the Fledgling Fund and moderated by Fledgling’s founder Diana Barrett. Diane Weyermann and Lisa Day of Participant Productions were also on the panel speaking about An Inconvenient Truth.
The panel emphasized the need for filmmakers to listen to the needs of organizers in order to form a campaign that will effectively support the movement. Robert and Judith illustrated Working Films’ methodology for the audience by discussing their partnerships formed around the Everything’s Cool world premiere at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.
Audience members asked: What comes first, the film or the movement? The panel made it clear that it has to be a reciprocal relationship. Robert said, “the environmental movement – like all strives for justice – needs the skills of filmmakers, crafting the stories that will incite and ignite audiences. Film and video hold unique power to move audiences to action.” Judith explained that it is helpful to get feedback early on in the production process in order to create a movie that can be used as a tool for the movement. By working in close partnership with the organizations and activists on the ground, filmmakers are able to connect their stories to current campaigns and initiatives which take the film and audience to another level of engagement – action.
