Green Options

As you might guess, the timing of my new gig with the Sundance Channel’s blogging team wasn’t accidental… a new season of Tuesday night The Green programming is about to launch. While I’ll be really careful about letting my two blogging roles overlap, I did take Sundance up on an offer they made to us (and other bloggers) last year: we’ve got another Sundance green gift bag to give away this year! So, what’s in the bag? A copy of Josh Dorfman’s The Lazy Environmentalist on a Budget, a set of green mp3 speakers, a t-shirt, and a notebook. Of course, the bag itself is suitable for adding to your collection of reusable shopping bags.

These facts may surprise you:

1.1 billion people live without clean drinking water.*

There are over 116,000 human-made chemicals that are finding their way into public
water supply systems.*

Water is a $400 billion dollar global industry; the third largest behind electricity and oil.*

Flow, a new film about the implications of the world water crisis, can help you wrap your head around those dismaying figures. The film, which opens tomorrow, investigates the growing privatization of the world’s dwindling fresh water supply with a careful attention to politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel. Stories are told about how water has changed people’s lives and health, communities’ economies, and corporations’ bottom line. Throughout the film, we are asked to ponder “How did a handful of corporations steal our water?” and “Can anyone really own water?” For centuries water has been called “blue gold,” and after this film you will understand why.

Mark Twain once said, “Whiskey is for drinkin’, water is for fightin’ over.” In Irena Salina’s award-winning documentary, FLOW, which opens this Friday, the global battles to own, protect, and understand water are virtuously examined. Experts have labeled the world water crisis the most important political, social and environmental issue of the 21st Century, and with 3,900 children dying every day from water borne diseases caused by the lack of access to clean water, one can see why this is a critical issue.

In our conversation, Irena Salina shared her thoughts about the spiritual nature of water, the Earth’s fever, and what needs to be done to alleviate the crisis:

You spent five years making this film. Why do you think it’s so important for people to care about water?

The earth is made of almost 70 percent water, and we are made of almost 70 percent of it. Without it, we won’t exist. From the moment we are born, to when we are adults we are surrounded by water and it is one of the main things we need to live. And we need clean water because ever 8 seconds a child dies from diseases from unsanitary water. There is so much to water and most people don’t know about it.