>>  The Green Business Network is holding their monthly networking event this week. Refreshments will be served and there will be a raffle and discount certificates for Pepe & Sherina Designs.  Bring any old batteries, cell phones, shopping bags and dry cleaning bags you want recycled.  The event takes place on Tue., Nov. 8 from 6-9 pm at the Working Village, 212 Marine Street, Suite 100, Santa Monica.  Cost: $15 at the door or $10 online.

>>   Come and support the LA premiere of THE BIG FIX, a documentary about the continued damage caused to the Gulf of Mexico by the BP oil spill last year.  The screening will feature a Q&A with the filmmakers and takes place on Sat., Nov. 12 at 12 and 2:30 pm and Sun., Nov. 13 at 12 and 7 pm at the AMC Loews Broadway 4, 1313 3rd St. Promenade, Santa Monica.  Cost: the price of a movie ticket.

>>  Come out this weekend for the BAGS FOR BNEATO event.  Donated, reusable bags will be distributed along with tip sheets (in English and Spanish) on how to organize your reusable bags so that you always have them when and where you need them.  Come out this Sat., Nov. 12 from 12-4 pm to either the Echo Park Vons (1342 N Alvarado St, 90026) or the Silver Lake Trader Joe’s (2730 Hyperion Ave, 90027).  Cost: free.

>> Update, 11/9/11: This event’s been canceled. CalRecycle invites you to the Santa Monica Pier for a day of outdoor fun and education as they kick-off CalRecycle’s “Check Your Number” campaign.  CalRecycle is offering free parking to visitors who stop to check their car manuals to learn their oil change interval this Sat., Nov. 12 from 10 am – 3 pm.  Cost: free.

>>  Come ride bikes with the mayor of Burbank! The Burbank BikeStop is a high-capacity indoor bike parking facility located at the downtown Burbank Metrolink Station. Ride with the Burbank mayor to the Metrolink Staion for a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Mon., Nov. 14 at 10 am.  The meeting point is Burbank City Hall, 275 E. Olive Ave, Burbank.  Cost: free.

>>  Cornerstone Theater Company continues their first annual “Creative Seeds: An Exploration of Hunger.”  This two-week event has some of LA’s most innovative artists, food activists, farmers, chefs, food critics and thought leaders address the issue of hunger through an artistic lens.  The festival ends on Nov. 20 and events take place throughout Los Angeles.  Cost: some events are free and some have suggested donations.  See website for details.

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About this time tomorrow, I’ll be in Detroit — getting off the plane before heading to Dearborn, Michigan, where I’ll learn about Ford’s new green initiatives at the “Forward with Ford” conference put together by the company. So it seemed only fitting that today I found about other green initiatives happening in Michigan — showcased in a new film called “Urban Roots.”

Produced by Leila Conners and Mathew Schmid, “Urban Roots” shows the growing urban farming movement in Detroit — where people are finding ways to feed themselves locally and sustainably during economically turbulent times. Watch the trailer for an inspiring preview.

A few screenings are in the works, but none are in L.A. You can, however, buy the 90-minute DVD for $19.95. Or if you think watching the film will inspire you to finally plant your own urban garden, spring for the $30 “Root Level” package that’ll get you the DVD, three packs of heirloom seeds, plus the happy knowledge your money went to fund farms in schools.

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Remember those news articles about government regulators seizing raw milk and gouda from California stores and producers? Those articles are now coming to the big screen. Farmageddon, a 90-minute documentary film by Kristin Canty, aims to tell the tale of the people behind these raw food products — as well as the bigger story of how America’s food policies favor giant agribusiness and factory farms — to the detriment of small, local family farms.

I haven’t seen the film yet myself, so I hope it’s an in-depth, nuanced look at the issue. The cheese scuffle alone’s pretty contentious and complicated — since unpasteurized cheese has been linked to recent E.coli breakouts. That said, FDA’s recall tracking website is full of recent cheese recalls, and as far as I can tell, most of those named and shamed aren’t raw. And of course, the issues of local versus factory farmed food goes far beyond just cheese.

Farmageddon opens in Los Angeles on Fri., June 24 at Laemmle Monica 4-plex. The Los Angeles Whole Food Nutrition Meetup Group‘s planning a meet and greet with the director after the 7:45 showing on Friday. Don’t delay going to see this film, because it’s only screening for a week!

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Still hungry for more eco-foodie films after watching “Food, Inc.“? Sit down to see “Fresh,” an eco-documentary that celebrates the people who are re-inventing our food system to offer more local, just, healthy, and fresh fare.

“Fresh” and “Food, Inc.” both have the same goal — to make eaters (you!) aware that what you put in your mouth has wide implications — for your health, for the economy, and for the environment. But the two films have widely different feels — with “Fresh” being simultaneously grizzlier — and more uplifting — than “Food, Inc.”

How so? Well, “Fresh” gets to the dirty, scary places that “Food, Inc.” never gets into — like the really disgusting factory chicken farms where once-sick and now-dead chickens get whipped up to land at your feet when chickens are hurriedly corralled towards slaughter. But to balance the depressing stuff, “Fresh” focuses primarily on positive, personal stories, following farmers and entrepreneurs across the country working to make local, fresh, healthy food an easier, tastier choice.

Yes, there are the usual eco-foodie talking heads — you guessed right if you thought Michael Pollan — who offer their explanations about the problems with big ag subsidies and factory farming. Michael explains in simple language that cutting the symbiotic relationship between livestock and plants — putting the former into factory farms that breed diseases and create methane pollution while forcing the latter to grow unnaturally in monoculture farms using synthetic fertilizers and pesticides — created two gigantic problems.

But from there, we really get into the unique, individual stories of people creating a difference. We see Russ Kremer, a once industrial hog farmer who goes all natural — after getting a life-threatening antibiotic-resistant infection while working with his often-sick, antibiotic-fed factory farm hogs. We see Joel Salatin, a Virginia farmer who calls his free range chickens “ladies” as he brings them outside to feed for the day, explain that before factory farming, cows were never fed meats as they are now — simply because herbivores are not made to eat meat. We see Will Allen of Growing Power in Milwaukee, turning urbanites into city farmers and encouraging to play with worms.

Watch “Fresh” at a community screening near you. Many are happening across the world; I myself “Fresh” at a Gather Green screening. Or buy a DVD and arrange a public or private screening of your own.

Photo: Will Allen of Growing Power via Growing Power/Fresh

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On Earth Day, I took an after-work hike up Runyon Canyon in West Hollywood, then settled in for the night with an eco-themed movie — to watch the screen show a fellow West Hollywoodian hike up Runyon Canyon!

Who is this neighbor doing the same thing I’m doing but making a film about it? That would be Sebastian Copeland, environmental photographer extraordinaire — except to be fair, he and I don’t exactly hike alike. Unlike me, Sebastian hit the trails wearing a 100-pound vest. Why? Because he was training to trek to the North Pole. On foot.

Sebastian accomplished that cold goal back in 2009 — and documented his journey into an eco-documentary that came out this month called “Into the Cold: A Journey of the Soul.” The film begins with Sebastian undergoing an intense training regime in California before moving on to a hardcore winter boot camp in Minnesota — then follows the eco-activist to the arctic — where he, with a fellow traveler called Keith Heger, makes the slow two-month, 400+ mile trek on foot to get to the North Pole.

Why this crazy cold walk? “Into the Cold” seeks to draw attention to the effects of climate change. Sebastian made his trek on the centennial of Admiral Peary’s 1909 trek to the North Pole — capturing gorgeous images of the Arctic for posterity — because by the bicentennial in 2109, the Arctic as we know it will no longer exist, thanks to global warming.

Along the journey, Sebastian and Keith suffer frostbites, dangerous icy adventures, and temperatures below -50 degrees Farenheit. But aside from a few anxious moments, “Into the Cold” is a quiet film. After all, most of Sebastian and Keith’s adventure consists of a painfully steady, near-silent plodding along in a white barren landscape for days on end.

As such, I actually wished for more soul, more introspection in this documentary. When asked about his personal reasons taking the trip at the beginning of the film, Sebastian says he seeks some sense of peace — yet doesn’t go any further into what compels him towards these highly-challenging, painstakingly difficult trips. The end of the film left more questions than answers. Did Sebastian find the peace he was seeking? What, if anything, did he find for himself in this journey of the soul? Is personal peace possible in a melting world?

Mostly, “Into the Cold” left me with a sense of discomfiting wonder — at the beauty of the Arctic (seen in HD, no less), and the restlessness of the human soul. “Into the Cold” is now available on DVD for $24.95.

Photos via Into the Cold

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