Articles by Holly Richmond

The green films on show this year at Sundance

It's a reel good time in Park City, Utah: The 10-day Sundance Film Festival kicked off there on Jan. 14, and five of the 32 documentaries have environmental themes. An additional 50 eco-related films were submitted but didn't make the cut -- more greenish submissions than in the past two years combined, said a Sundance programmer. It's no wonder that budding eco-filmmakers clamor to get in, as An Inconvenient Truth and Who Killed the Electric Car? got their starts at Sundance.

Here's a rundown of this year's greenish offerings:

 

The Cove: This eco-thriller exposes the slimy underbelly of the cultural infatuation with dolphins. Activists -- led by Flipper's trainer -- sneak cameras into the cove of a major Japanese dolphin supplier and document the sketchy treatment of the animals. Which probably includes making them pose for neon Lisa Frank merch.

 

 

 

No Impact Man: You may've heard of Colin Beavan, aka No Impact Man, the New Yorker who attempted to go carless, eat organic and local, and not create any waste (including toilet paper) for a year -- and who made his wife and kidlet go along with him. If his wife is really as "espresso-guzzling [and] Prada-worshipping" as she's made out to be, this could be a tasty greenish slice of Simple Life-esque schadenfreude.

 

 

Greenish phone from Motorola underwhelms

It's not as cool as talking into a tin can, but thanks to Motorola, soon you can talk into recycled water bottles. Or at least a phone partially made of them. The Moto W233 Renew, which was unveiled in Vegas last week at the Consumer Electronics Show, features a faint lime hue and the delicate, lingering scent of greenwashing.

In case you'd like a side of token eco gestures with your heavy metals, Motorola invested in carbon offsets and printed the important advertising messages instructions on 100 percent postconsumer recycled paper. The company is also providing a postage-paid envelope so you can return your old phone for recycling. (And if that rings a bell -- snap! -- it's because groups like Inform also provide pre-paid mailing labels so your old phone doesn't have to join the 80 percent of discarded cell phones that sleep with the trashes.)

Eco-buzzwords make annual banned words list

Hush your mouth, eco-child: That green buzzword you were about to utter is probably on Lake Superior State University's annual list of banned words. "Green" itself topped the list, with it or "going green" garnering the most nominations. True that. Please, no more press releases titled "Midwives/Fighter Jets/Port-o-Potties Go Green!"

"Carbon footprint" also made the 34th annual List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness. And as for "staycation," Dan Muldoon of Omaha, Nebraska, commented with his nomination, "Let's send this word on a slow boat to nowhere."

It was inevitable

Santa Goes Green. It’s a kids book about a little boy who, instead of toys, wants Santa to spread awareness of global warming because the boy is friends with a polar bear. Two thoughts come to mind: A kid who doesn’t want toys? Srsly? I bet the polar bear eats the boy before the end […]