Rated G(reen): Bottled Water, Community Gardens & Global Warming

Tapped (2009)

As someone who grew up next to Poland, ME (of Poland Spring fame), I am very familiar with bottle water. Not that we drank bottled water – the well water that came out of our tap was delicious…in fact, I liked to tell people that I showered in Poland Spring water! When I moved to Brooklyn, I drank the also delicious city water out of the tap. Now we live somewhere where the well water at home is full of iron and other sediments not yet tested, and the tap water at work has a funny taste, so a Brita filter or large water dispenser is the best option for now. All that’s fine and good…but I do find myself occasionally buying bottled water, especially because I don’t drink soda. In the end, I own quite a number of stainless steel water bottles and would rather use them rather than buy what I believe should be a free resource for ALL.

Now having watched Tapped, my dislike of the bottled water industry has only magnified. These companies are essentially pumping water out of communities and then selling it back to those same communities at roughly 2000% the cost. Add to that the fact that while city water is regulated (and people have the ability to test their well water), bottled water, for some reason, does not have to be tested – meaning it’s pretty much sold to consumers with who-knows-what bacteria, etc floating around in it…not to mention the plastic itself releases dangerous byproducts into the water encased within.

In short, anyone who watches this movie and doesn’t want to immediately boycott very bottling plant is missing the point. It’s much easier to stick our heads in the sand than take a closer look at what is in that plastic bottle we’re holding, which is exactly what the bottled water industry is hoping that we do!

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The Garden (2008)

I recently watched this “Oscar-nominated documentary follows a group of low-income families struggling to protect a 14-acre urban farm in the middle of South Central Los Angeles from bureaucratic real estate developer.” It was somehow both inspiring and devastating – I felt like I was on the heart-wrenching mission alongside the South Central Gardeners in saving their piece of paradise.

Local community gardens are an extremely important addition to any neighborhood: They bring people together while giving participants the pride (and the health benefits) of growing their own food. The Zenda Community Garden at TILT’s Zenda Farm Preserve does just that, and I’ve had the pleasure of seeing it first-hand.

So watch The Garden, get inspired, and then join (or create your own) a community garden in your neighborhood – only good things can grow from there!

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Unstoppable Solar Cycles

Now this was a random DVD sent, unsolicited, to the TILT office – probably because we happen to be hosting a lecture in August called “Dirty Weather in the 1000 Islands” and someone felt the need to “set us straight” on the “truth” about global warming. In short, this self-serving little video disproves the theory that man has anything to do with global warming by…well, presenting a different theory that we don’t. That’s it!

While I do acknowledge that the earth has gone through times of extreme temperature fluctuation throughout history, I do not agree that the CO2-happy actions of today’s society are not negatively impacting an already tenuous situation. Maybe I’m prejudiced because the ridiculous Heartland Institute is apparently behind this film, but it is highly unproductive to twist words around (and call it “science”) so that people can pretend that their harmful actions have absolutely no effect on the future of this planet.