If I were a caught fish, I think I would at least want someone to look at, in full awareness, my death. As my blood slows and my scales fade, I wish at least that there will be eyes watching me, hot and caring for even just that moment.
Culture
Climate and the Coast: Learning to Love Filipino Culture
Maybe it was the first time I rode on a sakayan, a handmade pontoon boat; or perhaps it was when I sat down to hire my research assistant; or possibly it happened when I first saw bags of live, brightly colored reef fish being offloaded from boats into a truck, destined for sale to a pet store: somewhere along the way, […]
How the West Was Won: The Sage + Westies Photo Essay
What happens when a magazine and a student group collaborate to put out a call for images that tell stories about the North American West? Inboxes rapidly fill up with muskoxen and lots of people gain an excuse to drink Oregon beer while looking at mind-blowing pictures. A selection of photos from beyond the 100th meridian.
Dear Earth: Happy 400th Birthday! Love, Groupon.
Ah, Earth Day: an opportunity for the country’s worst polluters to rise, phoenix-like, from puddles of industrial effluent and recreate themselves as environmentalists. An opportunity for America’s retailers to shamelessly hijack the words “eco-friendly” and “sustainable” and repurpose them to quicken the pulse of fetishistic shoppers. An opportunity for a free canvas shopping bag with every purchase!
I was hardly surprised when Groupon sent me an email proffering Earth
Review: The Whale
arrived at the theater a little early. There were good seats left at the front, and the crowd – an older, calmer population than I am used to – was chatting and milling about contentedly. I expected this to be a routine assignment: show up, watch a movie, write a digestible review. What I didn’t know then, as I settled […]
Review: Big Boys Gone Bananas!*
Big Boys Gone Bananas!* documents the year-long battle between film director Fredrik Gertten and the crushing public relations and legal force of Dole Food Company. “If you have mighty enemies, then you need many friends,” said Gertten when introduced to the audience. He founded and heads a four-person film production company in Malmö, Sweden. Dole oversees 36,000 full-time employees worldwide […]
Review: The Last Mountain
The Last Mountain, Bill Haney’s piercing new documentary about coal mining in the Appalachians, features enough explosions to make Michael Bay blush. In shot after shot, violent plumes of rubble erupt skyward from the side of denuded mountains, leaving malevolent clouds of dark ash lingering behind to coat the inside of West Virginians’ lungs. The explosive montages are brutal and […]
Review: Eating Alabama
shaggy haired man perches in a little wooden shack, camouflaged head to toe, arms cradling a rifle and eyes watching for deer. Trepidatiously, he loads a shell and while his voiceover announces unassumingly, “I’ve never done this before.” And so begins Eating Alabama, which follows Andrew Beck Grace and his wife, Rashmi, as they return to their childhood locale in […]
Other Creatures: A Poetic Tribute
Have you ever been asked, “If you could be any animal in the world, which animal would you be?” This is a tribute to all of the animals that never get chosen.
The 2012 Environmental Film Festival at Yale
Reviews, red carpet interviews, news, and more from the world’s largest student-run environmental film festival!
Evolutionary War Hero: An Interview with Carl Zimmer
Nearly 40% of Americans don’t believe in evolution, and acknowledgment of anthropogenic climate change is equally spotty. Acclaimed author Carl Zimmer spoke with Sage about how science communicators can begin to reach creationists and climate deniers, why Einstein makes for a great magazine cover, and what to do when your work gets slandered on the Daily Show.
Could Doing Chores Save the World?
While laboring at a remote commune in the wilds of New Mexico, Emily Schosid learned what real sustainability means. And it’s not at all what you’d expect.