Canadian College Students Find Funny Ways to Reduce Their Carbon Footprints

Student films from goBEYOND'S "little feet" series bring the message from UBC. Then watch funny green videos.

April 6, 2009 at 2:50PM by Brian Clark Howard | comment

Ah BC, with your spectacular mountains, rugged coastlines and laid back atmosphere…British Columbia is also home to goBEYOND, a youth-led project working to educate and inspire people to take action on climate change at area colleges.

canadian student from gobeyond little feet videos

The project's friendly Website invites students to participate in "challenges" -- current one: shop at a farmers' market at least once a week. There's also a handy carbon calculator, and resources to help students convince their learning institutions to go green.

A centerpiece of goBEYOND is the student-made videos in the "little feet" series, which follows the lives of six earnest, lovable University of British Columbia students as they try to reduce their CO2 footprints. The videos are endearing, entertaining and enlightening, and showcase ways the young people try to eat less meat, save energy and reduce waste, all with a quirky twist. They have a real student-film feel, which is great for the message and target audience.

Not all the jokes hit, and the videos tend to run a tad long IMHO, but they're definitely worth checking out. They made me laugh several times, smile, and even learn a little more about going green. I wouldn't try everything they do at home (wouldn't their pipes freeze if they totally shut their heat off in BC in winter?) -- but that’s part of the fun: these college kids are trying out alternative ways of living so we don't necessarily have to.

The rest of us can stick to the more practical tips the students try at the end of the videos. As one student in the videos put it, he was surprised when he learned he is responsible for 1.5 elephants worth of carbon emissions a year. "My goal is to get to at least half an elephant," he said. Nice!