Today my ever present boss was at it again with insightful ideas like “recycling is worse for the environment than not recycling”(I think she read it in a book). So my mission right when I got home was to see if there is any truth to what she said. Is recycling worse for the environment than not recycling at all? This of course comes as a concern to me because I drink a good 4 liters of diet mtn dew/pepsi a day. I kill a lot of two liter bottles, but always make sure to recycle them on campus because my apt. complex just put their recycling bin contents in the trash. I even make bird feeders out of them, I know it sounds awfully gay, but hey, it’s being reused for a good purpose and the house finches and cardinals love it. When looking at recycling we have to take in the whole picture. This doesn’t mean only looking at a plastic bottle and knowing that it will get melted down and reused. Instead, we need to look at the whole process, which includes fuel costs, emissions, and chemical processing as opposed to just putting it under ground somewhere and letting microbes munch on it for the next thousand years. In my quick search for the answers I’ve found conflicting information. Some say it’s good and saves a non-renewable resource, while others say it’s using up more of the resource your trying to save by recycling. Although, plastic does take up an extremely large amount of space in landfills for its weight. One of the problems with recycling is that it’s costly. For companies it’s easier just to make it from a virgin product. However when oil and natural gas prices rise, the demand for recycled plastic does to. Aluminum is much more efficient to recycle than plastic, the most in fact. However, aluminum is also very abundant and easily taken from the earth. So which is worse spending the money on recycling or continuing to mine? Opposition says that because the ore that aluminum is smelted from is so abundant, we shouldn’t worry about recycling. The same goes for plastics, because they’re derived from petroleum, we shouldn’t worry. The theory being that with the price of gas going up it will leave more petroleum in the market for plastic production, because it’s so much cheaper to derive from petroleum than gasoline(although that sounds a bit fishy to me). Paper is another big one. My father is a paper salesman, so I have a bit of an interest in this. His company has an environmental specialist on board, but when dealing with larger paper product producers it’s something that must be hard to manage. Much paper comes from paper farms where the trees are grown specifically for paper use. This is a much better option than going and hacking down forests. However, where these paper farms once were, were actual forests. It could be said that now it isn’t posing much of an environmental risk, but it did at one time, and continues to be a poor ecosystem for native animals. This is especially true in the Southeast U.S. where much of the trees for paper production are grown, not to mention sprawl. Not too far from Wilmington you can see these tree farms. The ones I’ve seen have been owned by International Paper. So does recycling benefit or cause harm to the environment? It’s hard to say. There are pros and cons to both. Recycling saves a material from rotting in a land fill for years. Not to mention the greenhouse gases that landfills produce, like methane. I know a landfill back home was thinking about trying to capture the methane produced and using it to produce power. This doesn’t even touch on the issue that trash isn’t localized. Instead it’s shipped from one place to be buried in another. If people’s trash was buried in their own backyard, I think they’d be a lot more apt to save. However, it also takes energy to put it back into a reusable form. What’s the best answer? Let’s go way back to “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.” Notice how recycle is the last one? REDUCE. If people would just cut back, use things more than once, and be creative about it. I use my paper bags over for things like ripening fruit or just a good cabinet liner. In the end consuming like we do will outweigh any benefits given by recycling. It just promotes the consumer ideology that is so engrained in our heads. We’re going to have to relearn how to live. Cuba is a great example. They get by on so little, but yet manage to make things work with ingenuity and creativity. America doesn’t award those ideals, instead it awards consumers to buy more stuff and make more money in a perpetual cycle that will be our demise. It’s time to wake up and start cutting back, reusing and yes recycling.

I just got out of a film put on by the school as part of their “sustainability” series. it was called The End of Suburbia. I gotta say this was a really cool film. It brought up many good points which include, peak oil, unsustainable housing, over consumption and the downfall of the American dream. Essentially the jist was this. Peak oil is the idea that oil production will peak somewhere around NOW or the near future. With production from then on decreasing and the demand only increasing we will be in serious trouble. Natural gas has the same problem. The Northeast almost ran out of it last winter. Some would say “why don’t we just convert everything over to electric so we won’t have to rely on oil.” Well, how do you get electric? Coal and Natural gas along with some other ways such as Hydro.

The film covered the history of the suburbs from when it was for the affluent who wanted to get out of the city, to when it because a way for more middle class to live away from their jobs and the grime of the city. Back then they had rail cars much like buses that would stop and pick the workers up. Company’s like Standard Oil and GM bought those railways and tore them up to pave roads for their automobiles. Thus started the American dream. Living far from your job and taking a highway to get their in your new car which you were encouraged to by along with other cheap shiny stuff for your new house which eventually have become the McMansions. There was a wide array of speakers in the movie, one even included a former Cheney energy adviser, Matthew Simmons and he adamantly said that peak oil is real and we aren’t doing anything about it except running full speed ahead off the cliff. However, 20-50 years from now oil will become so expensive it won’t be economical to buy it. What do you do when you can’t afford to buy gas to drive your car to work? Or how about heating your home, or even transporting food from southern California to New York so you can have your salads in December. It will all go out the window. Such little things that we all take for granted because of cheap oil. Suburbs will become the new slums because there won’t be a way to support that type of living. Instead multiple use housing will have to start. However, if we don’t start that now it might be too late to begin it when everyone wakes up and realizes this is a problem. What energy will we use to build these homes so it’s affordable. It just won’t be possible to go on living like we live now. Everything as we know it from air condition to driving over to grandma’s house will either have to change or become non-existent. Yet we insist on oil as a cure all. Dare I say we might even be trying to secure all of the untapped oil in Iraq? There are a lot more oil wells in Texas than there are in Iraq…strange. Of course all this doom and gloom doesn’t have to happen. We can start conserving. The UNCW teacher panel tonight insisted that even by little things like turning off lights or turning the ac down or washing with colder water, all are small steps. If we all did that we could make a sizeable impact. They did quite a good job at not only educating but entertaining. We will need to start making an impact or this doom and gloom will come true. We can’t just wait around for some technology to be handed down by Jesus to free us of oil. It’s going to be a hard road full of sacrifices made by everyone. In the end it’s everyone who will suffer so we have a responsibility to start living smarter. Here’s a link to the film’s website. I encourage people to check it out if at all possible. It really gets you thinking.

As some of you know I’m spearheading the first annual “Cape Fear International Environmental Film Festival.” It’s a long name I know. The point of the film festival is to bring awareness to global and local environmental issues through different media outlets such as photography, poetry, and mainly film. This will be happening next spring through UNCW’s facilities, if all goes as planned. Well, today I met with UNCW’s film dept. chair, Dr. Buttino. He finally gave me the go ahead even though nothing is final until it gets approved through the school. Now I’ve got to meet with a group of academic advisers to lay out the blue print for the festival. This way, Dr. Buttino can take the semi-concrete plan over to his friends in the Environmental Science departments and see if they want to get on board. In the end I’m hoping the school will sponsor it, and with help from the students and faculty it could become something really big for the area. More importantly I hope it just gets the message out there. Anyway I’m open to taking suggestions or ideas for the festival. So if you live in the area or just have an idea, feel free to leave a comment of email me at seancarr54@yahoo.com. Thanks.

Today was a good day. I woke up real early and head almost three hours south to Santee Coastal Reserve just north of Charleston, S.C. It used to be an old rice plantation that has since been turned over as a wildlife and land reserve. There are plenty of alligators out there that’s for sure. I had alot of trouble getting any real good shots of them because by the time you were close enough to film them, they’d make a huge splash and hide under the water. I saw some really big alligators, and some even bigger mosquitos and horseflies. That was the main reason I didn’t make a whole day out of the are. I put just about a quarter of the bottle of deet I had with me on and it did nothing to stop or even slow down the relentless attack by the bugs. This is an area I definitely want to go back to when it’s a bit cooler and the bugs aren’t as bad.

P.S. - I hate Myrtle Beach and the traffic it has. I’d also like to say that I saw way too many housing developments and signs like, “Twilight Forests - not just a place to live, but a lifestyle… 3 golf course, 2 tennis courts and plenty of cardboard cutout homes” for one day.

Click To Play

Just started messing with the Alaska footage some more and put some small clips together to some music. Hopefully I can get start on the whole thing this week sometime…meanwhile check the video out.

I just returned from a few days out at Linville Gorge and Chimney Rock in the mountains of North Carolina. I needed it. I don’t know what it is about Southeast North Carolina, but I just can’t wait to get out of it. I’m really more of a mountain and freshwater guy than flatland and saltwater. Don’t know if that has much to do with it, but I’m sure it plays its part. Anyway I decided to get outta town on a whim the other day. I told my friend I was leaving early in the morning to drive out to the mountains. I had no real plan or even any idea where I wanted to go. So he said he’d come along. I had a party. We drove I-40 west until we saw signs for Linville Gorge where we pulled off and got a hotel room. When the southern lady at the desk saw two guys asking for a single room, she got “suspicious.” The single was just to cut down on the cost even though the room was still 70 bucks. The bed however was the biggest one I’d ever seen and was more than enough to accommodate us and possible a couple of homeless vagrants. After we got the room we drove out to the gorge and started hiking. At first we went to a very tourist filled area and just saw some scenic vistas along with kids trampling the ground in front of us. Soon after I got the photos I wanted from there we drove up to “Table Rock” and started hiking. You drive most of the way up the mountain, but still have a good 30 minute hike straight up after the parking area. That hike was well worth the effort, as the view rivaled some I’d seen in Alaska. The best part was nobody was to be seen. I could have stayed up there and camped out for the night. If I’d been by myself and not already gotten a hotel room I’m sure that’s what I’d have done. The solitude was pretty amazing. There were also little bowls carved out of the rock. Some were filled with water and some were dry. I came to the conclusion that over thousands of years these bowls were carved little by little by the rain they held. I don’t know if I’m right, but I’d like to think I am. After Table Rock, we went back down and to the hotel to change and grab some dinner. The lady at the hotel told us that the Brown Mountain Lights were nearby. I’ve heard about these lights ever since I was a young kid introduced to a haunted North Carolina book. I had to go being so close. So after dinner Justin and I drove out to where you were supposed to be able to see them. Of course, we saw nothing. Disappointed, but not deterred we stayed out there and looked at the stars for close to an hour. It was so dark and clear that I saw more stars than I’d seen in a long long time. It was well worth the effort even if the Brown Mountain Lights didn’t want to put on a show for us. Of course, it could have been that Justin was calling them names like “cowards” and pussies” because they wouldn’t show. I don’t know if going out to see what may or may not be imaginary lights or calling possibly fictitious lights names is worse. After that we went back to the hotel and promptly passed out. Today we woke early and drove down to Chimney Rock. On the way we stopped at a roadside gem mine and bought a bucket of dirt. The bucket unearthed some really cool gems. From there we headed to Chimney Rock where I was forced to face my fear of heights climbing on the side of cliff the entire time. It was beautiful but sometimes annoying because of all the people. Table Rock was by far the highlight of the trip, and had I known about it earlier I would have planned the trip to be a solo camping mission to the top, although the company was nice to have for the ride. Now I’m back in Wilmington, and watching Scott Coady’s films because if I’m helping the guy in October it’d probably be a good idea to see what he’s made already. Tomorrow I might take the kayak out for my first plunge into the water for the year. We’ll see though, I’ve never taken it out, don’t have a rack and don’t have a life preserver. Plus I don’t have health insurance. Safety first.

Into the Wild

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I did alot of hiking today. It was a good day, spent outdoors for the most part. I saw a hawk, bald eagle and a black bear when I was hiking alone down by the Eagle River Nature Center. I was too busy staring at it to remember to take a photo. Anyway, I just wanted to post that Into The Wild now has a trailer online and I gotta say the movie looks pretty good as far as I can tell. If you haven’t read the book do so. Here’s the link to the trailer….CLICK

Well I’m finally back home. Graduation is over and I left north carolina to come back to rural new york for just over a week. Then I’m off to Alaska for two weeks with one of my friends. I’m filming the whole trip. Hopefully I’ll have time to edit a bit and throw some clips up on youtube.com for you all to see. If not I’ll at least upload my photos when I can find a wifi signal. It sure is nice to be home and hear nothing but the peepers at night and the occasional train, rather than the drunk 19 year old downstairs in the parking lot. I’ve been taking a ton of photos since I’ve been home. I figure as long as I have the digital camera I might as well, so I’ve been snapping way more than I should. That’s what is great about digital though, if you don’t want it you just erase it. Problem solved. I’ve got quite a few things planned during my time home. I want to get out to Allegany state park and do some hiking and mountain biking, along with photography out there. This whole area is so beautiful with the trees and hills and river. It’s really a photographers dream, and I appreciate it a whole bunch more now that I’ve living in Wilmington, NC, home of the SUV and self righteous Christian. I’m also planning on spending alot of time with my dog, because well he’s my dog. I saved his butt from the pound a few years ago and we’ve been like “peas and carrots” ever since. I wish I had something interesting to tell you guys, but really I’m just planning my trip to Alaska, visiting with family and trying to soak up as much time outdoors as possible. However, I did put a new saddle on my mountain bike. None of that expensive crap either, I took it off my old “eco terra huffy” and slapped it on my trek. Nothing against Bontrager, but that huffy seat is super comfortable compared with the one that came on the bike. Oh well, I’m heading out now, gotta get up early and buy a new prosumer camcorder, final cut pro and a sleeping bag for the trip to Alaska. have a good night, and godbless!

Well its 9am, and I’ve got class from 12-9pm today. I really am starting to hate class. Seems like I have no time for anything else. When I’m not in class I’m either doing homework, or if it’s the weekend I’m shooting on DV for class projects. I haven’t had a chance to go camping or hiking in a LONG time. It’s starting to give me cabin fever. I need to get out of Wilmington and into the hills. I was born and raised in the Allegany mountains on the NY/PA border. Flat land will make any “highlander” crazy. I’ve done three years of it too. I always think its funny how people love to come to the beach like it’s some precious jewel. There must not be any other places that have water meeting earth like say, a lake, anyway… I was like that once, long hair, shell necklace, Jack Johnson in my cd player and visions of a sandy paradise where all my problems would fade away. Oh how I was wrong. The only thing Wilmington has given me is an overpriced education(something in the order of 65 grand for three years, not including my first year at Albany), and a hatred for the high valued materialism that seems to go hand in hand with beach towns. Anymore, it’s condos and strip malls, oh and I can’t forget the BMW’s and Land Rovers. With the stress of graduation coming soon, I’m losing it I think. I keep thinking that if this is how I feel about Wilmington a growing city of 100,000, how am I going to feel if I have to move to LA or New York. Quite honestly I don’t want to do either of those. Let alone I have no idea how to even get a job in the film industry(that’s one of the things they don’t teach us). Although they are making The Monkey Wrench Gang into a film, that’s something I’d gladly be a coffee gopher for free…but alas I’ll be in Alaska for two weeks in June and shooting on that starts in May.
I need to get centered again. Hike into the mountains for a good week and forget about everything. Unfortunately that’s only going to put off the stress of not knowing what the hell do to with my life. I’d love to be 18 again. Live in a perpetual summer of cycling, working out, driving around the green hills of northern Pa and western NY. I’d go boating every week and get a tan that would never fade. I’d go out to eat with my dad every couple nights at Mickey’s, and take my dogs for a walk in the 5 acres behind my house while my mom tended to the nearly equivalent sized garden. Unfortunately, that’s not the “real world”. Instead I’m going to have to get a job and pay the bills. I don’t mind having a job, but I refuse to have one just for the sake of working. I’m determined to do work in film, and not just doing 1st ac or camera work for commercials. I’ve thought about doing a documentary, but there’s not a lot of money in it and it takes time which I don’t have much of. Come October of this year I’m going to have to start paying those loans back. Jesus, it sucks being an idealist. I don’t know, I guess I’ll have figure it out, don’t have much of a choice. It’ll be interesting to see if I can combine my idealism with being successful career in the film business. Any advice anyone? Anyway enough of this jibber jabber, I’ve gotta take a dump.

Well I just finished watching The Departed, fucking awesome if I must say so myself, and I must. Go and rent it if you can or if you’re like me you can just have your friend burn you a copy of it illegally(disclaimer:of course I’m only kidding, wink). Moving on however, I noticed its now cycling season. I love the background music for cycling on OLN(actually its called Versus now, but I think that’s retarded and still refer to it as OLN). I’m aiming to get out on a good ride this weekend some time, its finally in the high 60’s to low 70’s everyday so the weathers just right. As for mountain biking, well I live at the beach. Although, my school does have riding trails through the wooded area of campus. But I haven’t found much joy in riding through flat, sandy trails. It’s boring, I hate sand, and worst of all its too flat.(heres the link to the trail map at school http://www.sirbikesalot.com/UNCW/UNCWTrailMap4.jpg) Though through sirbikesalot.com I have found a new mtn biking trail over on river road where I do my road biking - surprise, surprise it’s slated for development. Good thing I’m going Saturday morning because I’m pulling up every survey marker I can find. My bike has been acting up on me lately. The left pedal keeps coming loose because of some bolt. The dust cap came loose and fell off and ever since then the nut that holds the pedal to the bike has been coming loose every three or four days. Now they say the dust cap is merely cosmetic, but I’m beginning to think that’s a load of crap. Anyway that’s about all I have to say, but I think everyone should watch this clip, especially if you are around young children or having a bible study…. http://www.glumbert.com/media/roleplay

Just watched a great documentary about the “winning” of the west…screw buying it though, look for it at the public library… THIS WAY WEST

One more thing, this is an editorial from my hometown newspaper. I don’t know who this guy is, but I’m going to exercise my free speech and go out on a limb here by calling this guy an idiot. Those damn leftist communist Hillary supporters!! She wants war, and to kill your babies! seriously…and Bill O’reilly is a douchebag, can’t defend that.

…it should say the song title and artist in the player, but since it doesn’t it’s sting and allison krauss from the cold mountain soundtrack.

I was doing some thinking last tonight and it occurred to me why I have had such a love for animals(at least ones I don’t eat) and the environment. Of course I’ve always had a natural affinity for being outdoors, but I think growing up in a very rural area encouraged those inherent feelings. But beyond that I’ve gotten a chance to do something that only people with biology degree get to do, I’ve worked at a zoo. There’s a small zoo not too far from where I live here in Wilmington. They survive essentially on donations and what donations they get are generally not enough to make a dent in the food and supply cost. But I’ve had hands on experience with lions, tigers, bears, wolves, Codimundis, camels(the coolest), buffalo, raccoons and the list goes on and on. I’ve gotten to do something that most people would either only dream of, or never dream of. I think once you get to see these animals face to face and see them for what they really are no one would want to shoot them or use them for fur. That line of thinking got me to the a conclusion that applies not only for the animals but for everything. For example there is genocide in Africa. Normal everyday Americans go about their business and worry about things like groceries, what time their kids have a game, or why the grass won’t stay green even after all the illegal immigrant lawn care. The fact that people in Africa are dying doesn’t cross their mind, or even that we are at WAR, yes we are at WAR! It isn’t until we get to see it first hand, that we can really appreciate either the gravity of the situation or the importance of correcting the wrongs that exist. Film making allows that experience to happen. I can only hope that any of my films will do the least of that, and if they do then I’ve exceeded as a filmmaker, money/awards/fame aside. They don’t matter as long as you can make a positive change in the world through 24fps. I know this might sound like I’m trying to connect the dots that really shouldn’t be connected. But I ask you, what are you doing in that cubicle punching numbers? Making money? For what? To spend so that you have nice stuff when you die? Meanwhile a lot of the world are being hunted or starved or forced to work in deplorable conditions. I wish more people would try to make this world a better place because if we focused less on ourselves and more on others then I think we could make the world a better place. Sounds cheesy I know, but I’ll risk being cheesy if it’ll save one gray wolf or a newborn Sudanese child who will be slaughtered without our help.

…Sorry for the poor video quality…this doesn’t have much to do with anything except it’s an awesome song at the end of Green Street Hooligans and might be one of the best fight scenes I’ve ever seen in its context. It’s much better if you’ve seen the whole movie(which you should and soon), it’s probably one of the most underrated movies I’ve ever seen. definitely a new favorite of mine and I don’t even like “soccer”…. but this part is really good. well done. well done.

Finally people who disagree working together for a good cause. Who would have thought you could put aside difference to accomplish things for the overall good of the country and the world. Amazing.

I should post more but all I’m going to say is that I just got done watching “Green Street Hooligans” and it’s probably one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. Just makes you want to drink a pint and makes soccer look half way respectable as a sport. But I suppose that’s European soccer not American. Anyway I’m heading downtown tonight for a few drinks and some relaxing, be back soon.