Big Ideas for a Small Planet
Big Ideas for a Small Planet is an American documentary series on the Sundance Channel which focuses on environmental innovations such as alternative fuel and green building techniques. The series premiered on the iTunes Store prior to its release on the Sundance Channel on April 17, 2007. The television series is part of The Green, a block of programming on the Sundance Channel focusing on the environment.
Episodes13
Fuel
Take a look at the automobile fuels of the future. Featured are a vegetable oil powered truck, a bio-diesel publicity campaign, and a race car that runs on ethanol.
Build
See ways that some in the building industry are helping the environment. Features is an architect who builds “green” homes, a designer whose tree house is made of growing tree trunks, and an environmentally conscious ideas geared to low-income neighborhoods.
Cities
Featured is a real-estate developer who created a community from a polluted field, an energy innovator who put underwater turbines in New York City's East River, and guerrilla gardeners who plant flowers in plots of unused urban land.
Wear
See how the fashion industry is turning green. Featured is a designer who uses eco-friendly fabrics to create high-fashion clothes, and a sportswear manufacturer whose products come from recycled materials.
Eat
Featured is a green restaurant, a burger restaurant buys local meat, and an entrepreneur who finds treasure in another man's trash.
Drive
Featured is an electric sports car, an affordable electric commuter car, and a high school team's electric vehicle that they use for road rallies.
Furnish
Featured is a furniture company that wants to make its new products 100% sustainable, and two designers who are creating furniture from leftover scrap wood.
Create
Featured is a photographer who documents the biodiversity and indigenous cultures, an artist who uses audio tape to make clothing, and a green architect who made a house from a retired 747 airplane.
Kids
Featured are young activists who are saving portions of the Costa Rican rain forest and raising awareness about plastic problems.
Paper or Plastic?
Featured are innovators who are working to create intelligent, eco-friendly design, including a designer who is helping the U.S. Postal Service eliminate toxins in its packaging.
Sports
People who are trying to keep Earth safe for athletic reasons are profiled. Included is the creator of bamboo racing bikes, a world-champion skier and the maker of bio-friendly skateboards.
Work
Featured is a brewing company dedicated to the environment, offices of the future, and a Bay Area company that wants to reduce its environmental impact.
Pray
The Reverend Fletcher Harper inspires environmental concern in the religious world with GreenFaith, an interfaith coalition dedicated to greening places of worship and taking action against polluters; Judy Bonds, director of Coal River Mountain Watch, uses her faith to galvanize local communities in the battle against the mining companies who are destroying their homes; and avid diver Don Brawley gives life to the cremated remains of the dead by including their “cremains” into a man-made reef that supports coral re-growth in the Florida Keys.