January 2007 | Mindful Living
No, Really, The Shins Might Change Your Life
By Paul Constant
If Seattle’s Sub Pop Records didn’t exist, it’s conceivable that Nirvana, the independent label’s biggest discovery, would never have gotten big enough for superconglomerate Geffen Records to steal them away. It’s also imaginable it would have resulted in ultimately depriving the world of grunge entertainments like Singles, that “Black Hole Sun” song, and professional rehabber Scott Weiland. Six months ago, the label, now a happy home to rock giants, The Shins, and up-and-comers like Band of Horses, quietly changed the world in a different way. Sub Pop became one of the first record companies in the United States to use 100% certified green energy.
Sub Pop has partnered with non-profit organization Bonneville Environmental Foundation to purchase enough renewable energy credits to equal the entirety of its energy use. The Green-e Certified Green Tags plan, which encourages citizens and businesses to offset their energy use by purchasing equal credits of renewable energy, has recently come under some criticism as an artificial, work-free path to carbon neutrality. However, Bonneville supporters point out that all the company’s revenues go toward leveraging the increased costs of clean energy, making them more financially competitive with coal and petroleum.
“I was, quite frankly, shocked by how easy it is to support renewable energy,” said Sub Pop president Jonathan Poneman.
Chris Jacobs, Sub Pop director of special projects, notes that the Green Tags idea was promoted in part by one of their artists, the self-described “ambient showtune” singer Kelley Stoltz.
“We’re pretty open to ideas about how we might be more environmentally responsible,” says Jacobs. “There’s been increasing interest by the bands on the label in using recycled materials in the packaging for their records.”
The fact that Sub Pop and its artists are working together to reach toward a clean energy model is one concept the major labels should steal.
Silver Turning Green
Nobody knows whether Mother Earth’s story is shaping up to be a tragedy or a comedy. What is clear is that her narrative has drama, and that, at last, she is getting the silver-screen coverage she deserves. Just witness the box-office success of An Inconvenient Truth, David Guggenheim’s unsettling presentation of Al Gore and his popular slide show on our heroine’s current plight. Like most bad, yet compelling, news, Guggenheim’s film initially made a small box-office splash, but quickly matured into the third largest grossing documentary of all time, behind Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 and the French film March of the Penguins.
In the corona of Truth’s recent Academy short-listing for an Oscar, Seattle’s Hazel Wolf Environmental Film Network (HWEFN) and 911 Media Arts Center present a Green Film Series the first Friday of every month between November 2006 and March 2007. Enviros seeking more independent points of view, yet no less important, take heed: Tickets are a friendly $5.
The premiere series kicked off November 3 with Cuba: A Story of Sustainability followed by Transforming City Spaces and Landscapes on December 1. It continues with Alternative Transportation and Lifestyles on January 5, Conscious Consuming and Fair Trade on February 2, and Reducing our Ecological Footprint on March 2.
When it comes to the truth about the environment, American audiences vote with their eyes: Apparently the documentary, not mass media, is the format capable of covering Mother Earth’s current predicament .
“In the last five years we’ve seen an increase in documentaries devoted to the environment and global health,” says Sandra Ruch, executive director of Los Angeles’s International Documentary Association, “and to us they’ve increased in quantity and quality.” Though Ruch emphasizes that environmental topics have long been a focus of documentaries since Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North in 1922.
Recently, Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006) received national distribution and has quietly shattered the $1 million average ceiling of most documentaries. The Great Warming, a 2003 Canadian production with content similar to Truth narrated by Keanu Reaves and Alanis Morissette, is now in limited distribution. And currently, buzz is gathering about The Green Chain, another Canadian production that tells the story of the never-ending war between tree huggers and tree cutters.
The HWEFN/911 Media Green Film Series runs through March, and the start of HWEFN’s third annual Film Festival March 30–April 1, 2007. Monthly screenings are at 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. the first Friday of the month through March at 911 Media Arts Center, 402 Ninth Ave. N. Call 206.682.6552 or visit www.911media.org or www.hazelfilm.org for more information.
—Jamie Friddle
Change your life, Change the world
The champagne popped, the ball dropped, and millions of us resolved to create positive changes in our lives. Typical New Year’s resolutions are pretty self-serving, but there’s no reason our efforts can’t benefit others as well.
To help you achieve your goals for ‘07, we’ve collected some resolution-worthy volunteer opportunities around Seattle to usher in a happy New Year for all.
Lose 10 pounds. Focus on feeding those less fortunate at Phinney Neighborhood Association’s soup kitchen, and your own diet issues will waste away. Visit www.phinneycenter.org or call (206) 783-2244.
Exercise more. Leave your living room behind and go outside! Join the Green Seattle Partnership. Green up your neighborhood, increase our city’s fresh, clean air and help restore Seattle’s native forest. Contact Joanna Nelson, 206-292-5907 (ext117) or [click to e-mail]
Get creative. Help protect water quality in Seattle. Sign up to stencil storm drains in your neighborhood with the message: Dump No Waste, Drains to Stream, Lake or Bay.
Call Carlton Stinson, Storm Drain Stenciling Coordinator, at (206) 684-7624.
Quit smoking. Adopt-A-Street. Commit to adopting 1 or more miles of city street(s). A few hours spent retrieving millions of butts from the roadside will make you think twice about firing up another cancer stick. Visit [click to e-mail] or call the 24-hour hotline at (206) 684-7647 and leave a message.
—Jessica Ridenour
Worth Repeating
“For some reason, when Democrats are in power the press corps immediately goes from being merely shallow to insufferable, sophomoric assholes.”
—digby on www.digbysblog.blogspot.com, blogging about mainstream media’s disdain for Dems, 11/17/06.
“[The US] destroyed Iraq. There was no civil war in Iraq until we got there and took certain steps to pit Sunni against Shia. We need to know that we are responsible.”
—Journalist and author Nir Rosen upon his return from months in the Middle East to Democracy Now! 11/27/06.
“[Acceptance of the DVDs would place an] unnecessary risk upon the capital campaign, especially certain targeted supporters… [and there is] little, if any, benefit to NSTA or its members.”
—The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) in an email refusing 50,000 free DVDs of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth to distribute to their members. One of the NSTA’s targeted supporters is the Exxon Mobil Corp.
“I’ve never learned anything from refusing to listen to other people or refusing to engage in conversation with them, and that surely can’t be the basis for healthy politics in our society.”
—Sen. Barack Obama responding to objections to his invited participation in an HIV/AIDS summit at predominantly Republican Saddleback Church in Orange County, 12/2/06.
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