With the new awareness campaign Sky Ocean Rescue the European TV channel wants to inspire people to take action to protect our planet. After the Sky Rainforest Rescue which helped to save one billion trees in Brazil, the new action focuses on or oceans which make up three-quarters of our planet.
Every minute, the equivalent of a rubbish truck load of plastic goes in to our oceans, it never decomposes and will remain there forever. If nothing changes, by 2050 all the plastic in the ocean could weigh more than all the fish. Plastic impacts on an entire ecosystem, marine life get caught up in it, eat it and live in it. It also has a direct impact on our health, acting as a sponge for toxins which can end up in our food.
More plastic was made in the first decade of the 21st century than the whole of the 20th.Manufacturers churned out 311 million tonnes of the material in 2014 alone. Over the next 30 years, annual production of plastic is predicted to soar to 1.8 billion tonnes – the same weight as almost 250,000 Eiffel Towers. That means by 2050, the plastic in the world’s oceans will weigh more than all the fish, according to The Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
"Almost 80% of plastic in the ocean started off being discarded by someone on land",Thomas Moore points out in his report for Sky. Everyone is responsible for plastic in the ocean. "From 2014 to 2015, there was a 43% increase in the number of plastic bottles washing up on UK beaches.The UK’s rivers carry plastic from across the country out into the seas around us." Once plastic reaches open water it can be carried for thousands of miles, but it is more likely to join one of five huge circulating masses of water known as ocean gyres. Gyres are mainly made up of tiny fragments of plastic that build up over time. These huge masses of plastic are found all over the world.
„We’ll bring the issues of ocean health to life and discuss the solutions“, states the European TV company. Sky News will take the lead by airing the special one hour documentary A Plastic Tide showing how plastics are affecting our oceans.
Through the campaign Sky will explore the different ways people can help to make a difference and will aim to inspire people to take action. The staff members in the TV stations in Great Britain, Ireland, Germany, Austria and Italy are also going to look at everything that they do that impacts the oceans, from designing their products with less material, to ensuring their products are recycled. „Removing all single-use plastics is a significant step we are looking to take. We’ve made a good start by removing all plastic water bottles, plastic cups, straws, and our cutlery is made from corn-starch“, says the Sky team. „This is just the beginning of the changes – we are up for the challenge and will do more, including looking at our supply chain and the products we make.“
Photo: Sky – scene from Sky documentary A Plastic Tide
“The time for half-measures and climate denial is over. Unless we move quickly away from fossil fuels, we’re going to destroy the air we breathe, the water we drink, the health of our children, grandchildren and future generations. If we’re going to avoid the worst of the impacts, then we’ve just got to act boldly. And we must act immediately."
Robert Redford
Actor, Director, Producer, Environmentalist
"The media has a powerful role to play in the fight against climate change. Through films, television, and all media outlets, we must continue to deliver the message that solutions are out there and are happening now. We have to make it attractive for people to take action. Movies like Avatar, The Day After Tomorrow, and documentaries like Years of Living Dangerously, which I was proud to be a part of, have been very popular, reaching and inspiring millions of people. And I believe films in particular can really inspire and make people want to take action. It’s great to see some of my film-industry friends working with climate related organizations to push forward those messages."
„It‘s high time to reorganize film production in Germany in a ‚greener‘ and more sustainable way. So far, I am flabbergasted by how much our industry works in environmentally harmful ways.To this very day, it starts with until today one-sided print-outs of scripts, and then it continues with plastic bottles in production offices and lots of plastic waste with every catered meal, and it doesn‘t stop with the limousines that pull up to a red carpet.
For many years, people have sneered at me when I brought my own cup or I declined to eat cheap meat served on paper or plastic plates with plastic knives and forks. It would be great if the Green Shooting Card could change all that.“
Director (Ben X, Time of My Life)
„It’s absolutely great that filmmakers all over the world are trying to clean up their act, and are trying to film as sustainable as we possibly can. Still, I think we shouldn’t underestimate the incredible power of the moving image to also change the hearts and minds of people.
So, apart from trying to be more environmentally aware in our business, I think the big gain lies in how we might make everyone more environmentally aware. Yes, cinema can change the world.
I think filmmakers should start using the powerful weapon in our hands that is the camera.
Let’s not only try to do ‘less bad’. Let’s try to do right, and help drive the change that we all know needs to arrive.“
“We are living in a time in which we can’t afford to behave irresponsibly towards nature. The more important is it that film productions try to work as environmentally friendly as possible. A film team produces every day tons of garbage. I try to avoid using plastic cups on set, I bring my own cup, use ecofriendly cosmetics and avoid needless single rides.”
Photo ® Maddalena Arosio
Darren Aronofsky, Director, Noah / Jury President, 65th Berlin International Film Festival
“When we did Noah we knew we were making a film about the first steward of the earth, so we wanted to be good stewards ourselves. There’s so much waste on film sets. Because of groups like Earth Angel, we were able to change that a little bit.”
"As a TV and film producer I try to incorporate environmental storylines into my projects as much as possible. But it’s just as important, if not more, to ‚go green‘ behind the scenes! Therefore, I help run the Producers Guild of America’s Green Initiative.
We provide resources such as a Best Practices and a Carbon Calculator to help producers green their productions. We also partnered with all the major studios to create www.greenproductionguide.com which is a free green vendor database with over 2,000 vendors offering sustainable production solutions worldwide!"
‚Green screens excepted, we will do everything in our power to be as innovative as we can in order to make our production as green as possible.‘
Photo: (c) herbXfilm Dieter Mayr
Lars Jessen
Director (Fraktus, Dorfpunks, Am Tag als Bobby Ewing starb)
‘It is somewhat embarrassing that green filming is only now becoming an issue in our industry because there have long since been many possibilities to shoot more efficiently.
Technical innovations such as energy efficient lighting are as much a part of this as the awareness of every crew member.’
I do work with a company in the States called Sungevity that leases solar panels to homes. They figured out how to move forward environmentally and how to make it economically successful.
So that’s my small but steadfast global contribution. I think everybody doing a little bit is all that’s made any difference, ever.‘
Producer, Director and Visual Effects Supervisor (2001: A Space Odysee, Blade Runner)
"Trumbull Studios in Massachusetts is dedicated to being green as much as possible, including the use of LED lighting, solar power, and solar laptops. This is not just because our location has limited amperage and no three-phase, we believe we have a responsibility to our community and our planet to be a clean industry.
We are planning for digital photography in 3D 4K at 120 frames per second from remote and inaccessible locations that will not have available power. Solar is the way to go."
Dieter Kosslick, Director Berlin International Film Festival
„The Berlinale is already actively addressing the sustainability subject since years. We appreciate it very much that a growing number of filmmakers, among them this year‘s jury presiden Darren Aranofsky, is following green guidelines on set.“
Benoit Delhomme
Director of Photography (A Most Wanted Man)
‘I never have been told precisely what the rules are for shooting a green movie, but we are trying to do it. This is something new for me. Sometimes people overlight scenes at night. I don’t. If I can see with my own eyes, then it is enough for the film. In that sense I am a green DoP.’
Academy Award winner Jeremy Irons who stars in the Berlinale Competition entry The Night Train To Lisbon is a fan of source segregated recycling. „Especially in Germany you have done a lot for that. You are examplary in the matter of waste separation.“
The Hollywood actor travelled around the world to promote the environmntal documentary feature film Trashed by Candida Brady which deals with the global garbage problem: „We buy it, we bury it, we burn it and then we ignore it“, says Brady. „With Jeremy Irons as our guide, we discover what happens to the billion or so tons of waste that goes unaccounted for each year.“
Since the world premiere at the International Cannes Film Festival in 2012 Trashed picked up various nominations and awards at international festivals.