2/18/13 –Unintended Consequences of Our Design

Today, we watched the trailer for the new movie coming out called “Midway Film”. It’s a documentary about Midway which is more than 2,000 miles from the nearest continent. Basically it is a documentary on where our waste goes. Our waste, most of it, ends up landing on the coast of this island and birds mistake it for food. Chris Jordan (referenced in my most recent post) went there and started taking pictures and documenting the sick and dying birds.

This really was sad to me and it made me very somber. I honestly almost cried. It is so touching, without words. And it very accurately portrays the waste stream…where our waste ends up! It is so sad and awful that these birds are dying because of it; it really shows you how the actions of one, more developed, nation can negatively affect another nation very far away.

Also, we looked at the very disturbing images on his website of these poor birds. Check out the link here. Having trouble accessing the link? Just type www.chrisjordan.com into your browser and you’ll get there and you’ll be able to select the artwork for Midway up at the top,

Here are some of the images that I’d like to show you. I’m not going to annotate them or caption them, but I want you (anyone looking at this) to understand that these birds died because of whatever you see in their stomachs.

What are we doing to our birds!? We need to care more about the waste we create, where it goes, and who it affects.

The documentary is supposed to be released in Fall 2013. Check out more details here.