Last year, Mountainfilm committed to reducing its carbon footprint by powering the festival with bio-diesel-generated electricity. This decreased our fossil-fuel consumption by 78 percent, and this year we’re committing to a 100-percent decrease through the power of WATER.

Now it’s your turn!

Through our new initiative, called the Village Green, we’re asking you to make a pledge—a Mountainfilm Commitment—to reduce your carbon footprint. Maybe your commitment is something simple and small—such as reusing every plastic bag or turning off the water while you brush your teeth. Or, hopefully, its more challenging—such as not using plastic bags at all or giving up bottled water.

Here are three ways you can make a Mountainfilm Commitment:

1. Visit www.mountainfilm.org and pledge your commitment online.
2. Look for the Village Green boards in Elks Park, where you can write your commitment.
3. Attend the FREE Village Green program and learn how to make your commitment a reality.

We’ll publish all commitments online, and the most original and significant will be published in next year’s program.

The Village Green was inspired by the typical English village of Ashton-Hayes, which in November of 2005 decided to do something quite atypical by committing to going completely carbon neutral. The program was also inspired by my friend, Laurie Garrett (a fiercely talented journalist), who has committed to retrofit her “village”—a 30-story, 80-year-old Brooklyn building where she lives—into a greener habitat.

This FREE program will explore how to make a commitment that will reduce your carbon footprint and how to see it through. Garry Charnock, of Ashton-Hayes; Laurie Garrett from Brooklyn; and Kris Holstrom from Telluride's New Community Coalition will lead a discussion on their efforts to turn their villages green.

Then you can take the stage to explain how you will do a little more to impact the planet a little less. For every commitment made at the Sheridan Opera House, we’ll give you some Mountainfilm schwag and a special Village Green ticket, good for one a show at the Palm or High Camp.
At the Village Green, we’ll also play some of our favorite short films from this year’s festival, including the world premiere of The King of Telluride, a film by Isabel Marlens and Raphael Berrios about Telluride’s own Bradley Jones.

As Laurie wrote me recently, “This morning the Shell Corporation's chief strategist was on NPR's Morning Edition, making dire predictions. If the oil company leaders are telling us that we MUST make changes in how we live—and fast—what are we waiting for?”
Indeed, what are we waiting for?
- David Holbrooke