Okay. It is Friday and the last day of Grist‘s summer publishing break — which means a little diversion from the more serious posts.
Now, the images below are not conceptual renderings of DestiNY part deux, but pics of Olympus, a fictional “utopian” city featured in the anime movie Appleseed. While I won’t go on and rave about this movie as I did with Sky Blue, I did want to mention that Olympus had a few interesting qualities.
One, a million solar roofs that would make Arnold envious. (Okay, so I’m not sure how many there were, but it seemed like a million).
Two, green roofs.
Three, Olympus seemed to be an efficiently dense city.
Four, it is run by Gaia! (So what if this Gaia is actually a self evolving computer network — they used the term Gaia!)
While I’m not suggesting every Gristmillian go out and rent Appleseed, I am sharing this as I believe integrating sustainability ideas, terms, etc. into pop culture is yet another way to reach those people who need to be, um, reached.
Anime is a good place to start, as it often portrays a future in which either an environmental catastrophe has occurred or society has struck a sustainable balance with nature. But there needs to be more.
While Bill McKibben asks “where are the the books? The poems? The plays? The goddamn operas?” I ask, where are the movies? The TV shows? The comics? The bleeping video games?
A few come to mind: Sky Blue and Appleseed of course. Alias, West Wing, and Trippin’. The Day After Tomorrow and Be Cool (John Travolta’s character drives a Honda Insight Hybrid). Can anyone think of more?
And for all you Hollywood types reading Gristmill, I suggest visiting the Environmental Media Association website for when you make your next enviro flick.
