Two short films about orangutans and palm oil

MacQuarrie Byrne films teamed up with students at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Tennessee to make some short films about the present biodiversity crisis under the project title, Sixth Extinction in Motion. Here are two brief public service announcements about orangutans and palm oil, both reminding us that we as consumers can regularly vote with our dollar and make positive rather than negative changes in the environment. The first is by Maya Irvine and the second is by Sophia Chan.

Orangutan PSA from Maya Irvine on Vimeo.

6th Extinction: Orangutans from Sophia Chan on Vimeo.

A Mini Eco-Film Festival, Part 2

We're pleased to see our Ecolympics registrations coming along (yes, you can still sign up!) and we'll get back to blogging about our events soon. But given that our mission is to raise awareness of the human footprint on the environment and that it's the weekend, it's time for another mini Eco-film festival. Get your coffee or snacks, get comfortable and enjoy.

The first film is a succinct history of 300 years of fossil fuels, with the catchy title, "300 years of Fossil Fuels in 300 seconds." It's from the Post Carbon Institute, which aims to "lead the transition to a more resilient, equitable and sustainable world." They're based in Santa Rosa California, and I have a feeling we're going to be hearing more about this world "resilience" in years to come.


In our second film, which is more a seminar than a narrative but still engrossing, the inimitable Sir David Attenborough delivers the annual Royal Society Lecture.
Here, Sir David comes out swinging against population growth, which he argues is unsustainable. This is the short version, containing just the speech.


Here’s the complete version, with audience questions and answers. In one of the questions, Attenborough makes the point that the future where we have to worry about famines is already here. And given the list of food crises and famines in the last decade and century, it’s easy to see that despite the green revolution the land cannot sustain as many people as now live on it.

Our third film is an impressive Ted talk by biologist Willie Smits about his efforts to regrow a rainforest in Borneo. It shows how, with science, we can repair even the most devastated parts of our planet. And, his "people first" ideology is going to go a long way toward solving many of our problems.


Smits starts off by talking about the plight of the orangutan, whose habitat is being destroyed by our demand for palm oil.

Our 2nd eco-film festival ends there, but if you would like a sobering look at the sad life of at least one orangutan, then you should see the film, Green. It's about a female orangutan who is victimized by deforestation and resource exploitation. From the website, where you can see the whole 48-minute film, "This film is an emotional journey with Green's final days. It is a visual ride presenting the treasures of rainforest biodiversity and the devastating impacts of logging and land clearing for palm oil plantations." The film has won prizes at film festivals.

Thanks for watching! Feel free to leave comments.

Ashes and Snow

Has anyone seen this exhibit by Toronto artist Gregory Colbert? Apparently some ten million people have seen it, making it the most-viewed exhibit by a living artist in history. I didn't know anything about it until I stumbled on a Youtube clip last week and the images have stayed with me, particularly of the orangutan and the woman in the boat. I wish I could see the whole film! The website for the installation has some lovely black and white images of harmonious interactions between our species and others. As described in the clip, it truly is a celebration of nature.

I found it when I was looking for information about palm oil, which is even more ubiquitous than high fructose corn syrup as it is in 50% of all consumer goods, from breakfast cereal to snack bars and chocolate bars, and from soap and cosmetics to biofuels. According to the Rainforest Action Network, demand for palm oil has tripled in the US in the last five years, making this crop one of the key causes in global rainforest destruction. Particularly hard-hit are the rainforests of Indonesia, where one of the last remaining populations of orangutans lives (the other population lives in Borneo). You can watch the last days of the orangutan, Green, in the 48-minute film by
Patrick Rouxel now being screened in documentary festivals. Patrick has also put the entire film
online. I see that Patrick also has a Facebook group with more than 2000 fans.

Here's the bad news on orangutan numbers in the 20th century from Patrick's website for the film: a decline from more than 300,000 to less than 10,000. The Honolulu Zoo has more information about orangutans.

This is why one of our events at the Ecolympics
is "Tell-A-Friend", which so far as many as one third of our participants have signed up for. We hope you'll consider signing up for it and sharing the information you find with us on our Facebook group.