Top 3 Eco-Friendly Animated Films to Celebrate Earth Day

Joshua Noel: 00:01:11

Foreign what are the all time best animated environmentally conscious films to watch?

That's what we're going to be discussing this time on Systematic Geekology, going over our top three favorite environmentally conscious animated films from myself, co host Laura Whitman, as well as the one and only Herbie Ramsey, I am Joshua Noel. Kicking this off with what we've been geeking out on for. For myself, I've, you know, I got my Steam deck.

I've been weirdly enough getting back playing Final Fantasy 15, trying to rewrap up that up and finish it. I never finished it the first go round and now I got a Steam deck and it's just handheld, it's pretty easy to finish.

So I'm just beginning into that, having a good time and now I'm about to throw it over to my co host, starting with the one and only Reverend Laura Whitman. What have you been geeking out on lately?

Laura Wittman: 00:02:09

Oh, man.

Okay, so everyone's gonna stop listening to anything that I record on here because I keep, I keep saying Dungeon crawler Carl, but I just finished book five finally and now I'm on book six. So specifically I'm still on this trend. If anybody is listening and you've heard me say that 10,000 times, I am talking about different books.

I'm on book six now, so you should journey with me. I need like a whole series.

Joshua Noel: 00:02:33

What you're doing.

Laura Wittman: 00:02:34

True. It's true.

Joshua Noel: 00:02:36

Yeah. I mean I'm still talking about my Steam and I got it in February and I'm acting like I just got it. It's fine.

Laura Wittman: 00:02:40

But gift that keeps on giving. So.

Joshua Noel: 00:02:43

Yeah, yeah. And Herbie will be here in a minute. We'll throw it over to him.

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And now we're here with the famous honorable retro Herbie Ramsey. Herbie, what you been geeking out on lately?

Herbie Ramsey: 00:03:50

Well, recently I started watching the new Daredevil series that is on Disney and I am currently loving it.

Joshua Noel: 00:03:58

Yeah, as you should. It's great.

Herbie Ramsey: 00:04:00

There's only one flaw and they didn't release them all at once like they used to do when you had it on a digital medium.

Joshua Noel: 00:04:06

I am unsure if I like that or not. Is yet to be determined. That would be a good future episode. How should shows release there?

Herbie Ramsey: 00:04:14

I would actually be okay with it, but I didn't realize that the season hadn't ended yet when I started. So it is what it is.

Joshua Noel: 00:04:22

I mean, it's over now. All right, well then let's jump to the main crux of today's episode. We're going big.

It is Earth Day when this is releasing and we have limited time to talk about our top three animated environmental friendly films. We're gonna do some groundwork before then though.

First up, I wanted to just get on, get everybody's history with Earth Day, environmental consciousness, all that kind of stuff, just like general background. I guess I can go ahead and start since I'm making it such a vague question. I feel like that might make it easier for everybody. I.

This is kind of weird, but I think growing up I just kind of a disregard for the earth like almost intentionally. I don't know what it was part of my culture or something that I don't know.

I remember like going into college and like intentionally going out of my way not to recycle because I'm just like, all that stuff is just leftist, made up, hooey, gooey, you know, whatever kind of stuff, you know.

And it wasn't until weirdly enough I had some from secular influence when I was at a university college where I started kind of being like, okay, well I guess it's not really meaningful to just not recycle when there is a recycling bin. It's like, why am I going out of my way to do this?

And it wasn't until I went to one of the Baptist colleges, Charleston Southern University, that a professor actually was like, you know, the Bible actually kind of mandates that we, we give a crap about the Earth And I was like, oh. And then I started kind of being more mindful. Then I got into hiking and nature and started loving our national parks and going to that stuff.

And I'm like, I kind of want to do more to preserve this. This stuff is good. And then I became a tree hugger, I guess. So I guess that's my. My background. I feel like I'm giving, like, a testimony.

And I'm really concerned about our national parks right now.

And I think people should write concerned about that if you are, because once we put hotels and tear them down, we can't just reverse that very easily.

And one of the places the last time that the current administration was in office try to get rid of was Cumberland island, my favorite place to go camping. So I want that place to be safe because it's my favorite place to go. And it' beautiful and untouched by humans. Need places like that.

Reverend Laura, what about you? What's your background? Just like Earth Day environmental stuff in general.

Laura Wittman: 00:06:47

I'm kidding. I. I was born in: 1985

But anyway, I was born in: 1985

And so I cared very deeply about that because I was indoctrinated as a child. And so then, you know, I grew up to be a kid who also loved hiking and going outside and camping and doing all of those things.

And then when I went to Duke, I remember my first year at Duke in grad school, um, when I threw away a plastic bottle and another student literally yelled at me in front of everyone. And I was so embarrassed that I started recycling immediately. So that's sort of.

My journey is a journey of accountability and, you know, growth and Captain Planet influence. So. But recycling is really important to me. I have a Soda Stream and everything, so.

Joshua Noel: 00:07:53

Man, that's awesome. I. Later, I'm going to talk about something I actually actively write my representatives about, because I care now, but. Yeah.

Anyway, Herbie, what about you, man? What's your history? Just with this stuff in general?

Herbie Ramsey: 00:08:06

I mean, honestly, taking care of the environment, it's always just kind of been there. I'm not like the. I'm not like, all the way on the extreme with it. My point of view is probably somewhat in the middle.

It's a little more nuanced, but recycling has always been a thing, making sure you reduce what you use and recycle what you can. When it comes to my views on the earth is we should be this good stewards of what God's given us.

But at the end of the day, do remember that the heaven and the earth will be destroyed and made anew. So when it comes to the environment, do what you can.

But at the end of the day, if we can't take the perfect care of it, it will be destroyed when God comes again and he will rebuild the earth the way it is supposed to be.

Joshua Noel: 00:08:55

Yeah, if this was a more strictly theological podcast, we'd probably get into that a little bit more. For those who don't know, our podcast has a lot of people from different walks and talks and etc.

I tend to not believe the Bible as literally as some, so we probably have some disagreements in there.

But you know, I also feel like I probably have a little bit more nuanced stuff with some of the environment things too, just because it's not all as black and white as people often like to make it out be, which some animated films show very well and others do not. And I'm going to talk about that later. Before we do, we did want to get into some of the other ones.

You know, not only are there really great animated films that talk about environmental stuff, but there are also just some great shorts, specials, TV shows. You know, we already mentioned Captain Planet. I'm going to get to that. Well, you know, let's get to that first.

Actually, Captain planet, everybody gets 30 seconds to say as many great things as you can or just things. Because I had complaints about the show too, about Captain Planet. Herbie, you want to start us off?

30 seconds of just Captain Planet, whatever you want to say.

Herbie Ramsey: 00:10:09

s, early: 2000

I can't remember the exact runtime, but the base basic idea was in order to get Americans to care about the planet, you have to make it a superhero like idea. The idea you have Captain Planet to care for it. You turn it into a superhero and all of a sudden you're on the side of the superhero.

You're on the good side. Let's take care of the planet.

Joshua Noel: 00:10:37

Yeah, yeah, we. We actually did two years ago. I want to say we did an episode for Earth Day that was just a review of Captain Planet.

And that's the last time I watched the show. I watched all of it for that. So do my 30 seconds. It's a great show. It's a lot of fun. Captain Planet, awesome.

I dressed as him for Halloween once in college actually. And that was a lot of fun making that costume. It's very cheesy. It has a lot of diversity. It's probably really woke.

It also had a really fundamental flawed understanding on how nuclear energy works and showed some stuff that wasn't really true to kids, but also had a lot of really great messages to kids too. So I give it a pass. Reverend Laura. 30 seconds.

Laura Wittman: 00:11:19

Captain Planet, Captain Planet he's our hero Gonna bring pollution down to zero.

Joshua Noel: 00:11:25

That's the hell yeah.

Laura Wittman: 00:11:27

And I just remember singing that on a regular basis until my parents begged me to stop because ADHD kid. And it got stuck in my head all the time. But I loved Captain Planet because I feel like it taught a lot of things that.

What's funny is there's a lot of people who say like, the awareness of the environment is like super woke and like, whatever. But I'm like, but the older generation is the one that gave us this TV show and made us watch it. And that's why I am the way that I am.

So that's my review of Captain Planet. I think it's essential and everyone should watch it.

And also I'm still waiting for the full length feature with Don Cheadle as Captain Planet to be a real thing.

Joshua Noel: 00:12:04

Yeah, I still want that. I really do. I think it would be so great. Also, that was a hilarious. One of my favorite. Just random YouTube.

Laura Wittman: 00:12:12

Yes, fantastic. Everyone should watch it if you don't know what we're talking about.

Joshua Noel: 00:12:17

All right, so what about just in general, other animated things?

So I'm going to shout out a few that are on this slide that I should make slightly bigger for those on YouTube because there's, there's, there's a ton that I could say. I have to also shout out Lil Dicky's music video for Earth Day that he did because that is just hilarious in just a fun song.

The circle of life environmental fable that was once upon a time at Epcot where Simba was telling Timon and Pumbaa about, you know, why you shouldn't just randomly build a dam and turn this oasis into a hotel location. And painted out why humans used to be good and now they're terrible.

But hey, they can still be good if they do these things and really kind of villainize humans. And that's. That's a thing I don't love all the time.

But, you know, it did show some good stuff where just because you want something and because it's nice and you like hotels, you still have to count the cost of what actually is happening to the environment. And I liked that. I want to say the Lilo and Stitch thing that's up there on the slide is like Pluto or Plut or something.

Does anybody know what its name was?

There's an episode of the Lilo and Stitch TV series, and this was one of Stitcher's cousins, one of the other alien experiments who would go around and eat trash and then shoot out slime or environmental hazardous stuff. And it was very on the nose. Released on Earth Day. It was a lot of fun, though.

And eventually, of course, he gets turned into someone that cares and then picks up stuff, trash and things and cleans the environment. Avatar the Last Airbender. There is a ton of stuff of the Fire Nation just exploiting the Earth so that they can have more power.

And it shows a lot about power dynamics, and it's a lot more nuanced than most animated shows, which makes it great. And of course, Phineas and Ferb, once upon a time, have to save summer because Dr.

Doofensmerx made something that was like, I don't like warm Inator or something. So he just moved the Earth away because he had an innator that obviously could do that because he's Dr. Doofensmertz. I'm sure there's plenty others.

I'm not thinking of Laura Herbie. What are just some other random animated features that aren't our main films that talk about environments that you want to maybe want to shout out.

Laura Wittman: 00:14:25

I think that Pokemon Go usually does an Earth Day event every year, which is really exciting, that encourages people to, like, go out and clean up and stuff while they're collecting Pokemon. So there's like a. A get out and walk and do things sort of idea.

And I think they used to call it specifically an Earth Day event, but I think they might have changed it to, like, just a sustainability event that happens in April every year. But that's pretty cool. That's the only thing that's coming to mind right now, too.

Herbie Ramsey: 00:14:54

So to keep on the trend to trend on the video games here, Sonic the Hedgehog actually had a big theme in it dealing with all of the fallout from what Dr. O'Bonnet did. You can see in the very first level of Sonic 3. He's destroying this beautiful tropical island first with fire.

And then you get to the second half of the game in Sonic and Knuckles, and he's completely changing the weather.

You see where he's polluting parts of these water levels and it's like, yeah, you're seeing all these negative things that the only human in the entirety of the game is doing to Sonic's home. And he's also capturing all his friends and making the power the Badniks. So it's one of those things.

It's not in your face, but it's right there the entire game, man.

Joshua Noel: 00:15:39

Yeah, I didn't think about that, but that's. Man, we could probably do a whole video game one as well.

Which for Arbor Day, which is going to be the same week that this releases, our good friends TJ and Christian are doing a special on the Elden Tree from Elden Ring. So if you like your environmental stuff, guys, be looking for that. And check out some of these shorts. Some of these TV shows. I think they're.

Most of them are really good, especially Avatar. If you're just looking for something to watch on Earth Day, why not. Why not make it Avatar the Last Airbender? That's always a good option.

All right, so without further ado, though, we are going to get to our main, main stuff, where we each picked three major animated films that have to do with the environment that we're going to talk about. And let's. Let's make Laura go first. Let's start with your third. We're doing our top three. What comes in at number three for you, Reverend Laura?

Laura Wittman: 00:18:14

So for me, my number three would be. I had to remember what my. My choices were. Land Before Time, I put as one.

And Land Before Time is not specifically about the environment per se, but I remember as a kid loving this movie and sort of watching this struggle that the dinosaurs are going through in this sort of era of extinction and the environment sort of falling apart. And the weirdest thing about that movie to me is if you've ever watched Land Before Time, there's this star leaf that they always go after.

And never in my life has a leaf looked delicious. But something about the way they animate this leaf that all of the dinosaurs are eating that they're looking for.

It's like salad sounds real good right now. But in that, you know, you see them, like, struggling with. With the changing landscape and like, there's earthquakes and all sort of stuff happening.

Like a real revelation story, right? For the dinosaurs at this Sort of transitioning time. And so.

But the real kicker about Land Before Time is not the movie itself, but if you've ever been forced to sit in the child swap area at Universal Studios at the River Ride, the. In the Jurassic park area, I can't talk today, but in the Jurassic park area, there's a child swap area.

If you're a parent who has a kid who's not going to ride the ride and they play this musical Land Before Time, sort of like sing along video. That's horrible. And I've been subjected to it many, many times.

However, they sing a lot of songs about friendship and the environment and taking care of the world. And that's what really triggered the thought about Land Before Time for me.

So anyway, surely, surely someone knows what I'm talking about with this Land Before Time Sing along.

But I've watched hours of it because now my youngest child just wants to sit in the parent swap area because he loves that area of the park and the video.

Joshua Noel: 00:20:13

So I really loved as a kid, I don't remember much of it, so I feel like I need to rewatch it, but I remember loving it.

Laura Wittman: 00:20:18

We just had it. I'm going to date myself. We had it recorded on Betamax and I used to watch it all the time.

And the best thing about it was there was this Pizza Hut commercial that I was really obsessed with. And maybe my love for the Land Before Time was really about the Pizza Hut commercial, but it's hard to diagnose that.

Herbie Ramsey: 00:20:34

The pizza.

Joshua Noel: 00:20:35

Yeah, I had it recorded on my little VHS recorders that I had like a million of when I was a kid. But the. Do you have any, like, favorite character or favorite scene you might want to.

You want to shout out real quick before we move on to the next pick?

Laura Wittman: 00:20:49

I loved Little Foot. He was obviously the best character. I thought Sarah was kind of a jerk, honestly. But, you know, and I. Again, it was the.

The tree star, like the, the leaf. Anytime they showed that leaf, you're like, oh, victory. We're. We're accomplishing something. They're getting food. Life is good salad.

Joshua Noel: 00:21:09

My favorite is definitely Spike, who also just happens to be my dog. That is my dog as a dinosaur. Because, like, every time you look like he's just, he's eating something, it doesn't matter what.

He's going to find something, he's going to eat. It doesn't need a lot of words. He's like, yep, found food. I'm good. Love it. I love it. All right, I'm going to go Ahead.

And I'll do my number three next because I'm trying to remember what it. Oh, I cheated. I cheated because a good friend, Reverend Laura, has enabled me to cheat whether she knew it or not.

Because I had a tie for my third pick and I was like, how am I going to do this? So I'm going to do both of my three and not my number two pick.

So my first, because my number two pick was already chosen by someone else, so it's perfect.

My first number three pick that I am going to shout out is going to be the one and only Fern Gully, which I had to rewatch just so I would remember to talk about it. It is so on the nose and also has that similar complaint I have where it's just like, humans bad.

But the general story, you have fairies and magic in the rainforest. It's cool. They have their own little trees they live in.

One fairy is grown up hearing all these stories about the humans who used to be these protectors of the forest who left and we don't know why, ends up the humans are coming back and she's like, oh, this is great. So she meets Batty, who was experimented on by humans and is like, I actually really just hate all humans.

And he just constantly make jokes about how bad humans are the entire film. And it's actually just really funny because, like, at a viewpoint, he just suggest killing the humans without directly saying, let's just kill them.

And it's just. It's funny stuff.

But the one of the humans ends up getting shrunk to fairy size, which is very tiny, ends up kind of falling in love with a fairy, lies about what the humans are doing there because he, you know, he wants the girl to like him.

Ends up discovering what all does live in the forest and how great the forest actually is and how humans are actually kind of bad for doing what they're doing and, you know, destroying the forest with their monster, which is really just industry. Long story short, he ends up having to confess that he was lying. He helps the fairies and baddies stop the human from destroying the rainforest.

And instead of staying there with a girl he fell in love with, he realizes, I have to go back to be a human and tell them all the bad stuff we're doing and about what he learned can stop it, which is the magic, and that all the magic of the world lives in a single seed. And it's, hey, kids, plant more trees. I also feel like it has a little bit of humans are bad and you should feel bad. For being a human, which is.

I'm like, I don't. I don't love that part, especially for kids as much as I do think we've messed up.

I'm like, I don't think kids need to feel bad for being human, you know, I'm like, I don't love that baddie. Makes a lot of funny jokes and really good points, too.

It's incredibly on the nose, like I said, but it also kind of reminds me of like how Tolkien thought about fantasy. If you, like, really read Lord of the Rings and, like, read, like what Tolkien thought about stuff, he was like, yeah, industry is bad.

We should go back to the simple life. We should go back to being in one with nature.

That's where you have, you know, in Lord of the Rings, like the ants and the protectors of the trees, the shepherd of the trees, all that kind of stuff. It's very similar kind of vibe just for kids here with fairies, and it's honestly just a lot of fun. My biggest complaint is it makes humans bad.

And there's too much musicals. Like, I love musicals, but there's just too many songs in this. But they are bangers. They're great. There's just a lot of them.

Got to shout out a favorite character. I'd probably shout out Baddy. I liked him a lot. I thought he was just.

He was really witty and I could see where, like, as a kid, I just thought he was fun because he's a bat and he kind of sounds a. A little bit like Genie mannerism wise from Aladdin, which came out the same year. So it's kind of interesting. But, you know, he's just fun.

He makes random jokes where they're like, oh, no, if we do that, the human will die. And he's like, maybe we should do that. It's just like, I don't know, he made me laugh. The film's just a lot of fun.

And I think that's all I got for my number three, but so I'm just sticking with Ferngoli. It's great. Not perfect, but I do love it. All right, Herbie, what is your number three pick for best environmentally conscious anime development?

Herbie Ramsey: 00:25:18

All right, so I believe one of the ones that sent you was Girderon and the Verdius Planet. It's a. It's actually an anime series. I didn't really stick to just movies here, but it's. It semi obscure, but it has a lot of these.

Take care of the Earth. Be mindful of what's going on around you. Elements throughout the very beginning.

The anime is about a boy who's part of a futuristic human race that have left Earth. They pretty much had to leave Earth because the Earth got basically polluted, destroyed to the point where it was not habitable by humans.

And in that, if I remember correctly, there were two different pathways that people took. A we're going to leave and we're going to build ships.

And there was a second one that's like we're going to genetically change ourselves to where we can explore space without the spaceships. And I think part of it was idea to continue living on the Earth.

Well, the lead character, I forget his name off the top of my head, but he is a 16 year old boy. He is getting basically earning his merit to be part of society.

He had just finished his I think third battle which gave him the rights to basically mate and have a family.

And at the end of this battle he gets launched away far from the entire like empire that he's a part of and lands on this forgotten planet that happens to be Earth. And they find where there are people who are still living on Earth.

They're on these ships that have been put together to make a city and they're salvaging all these old things. And in the, in the process of salvaging there are these like whale like creatures. They're called whale squid.

His armor finds one and he just attacks it because it is the enemy. It is the same race as the enemy to his empire that he's been fighting his entire life. They've been fighting since they left Earth.

And the second main character who's a girl that he falls in love with that's part of Earth is like don't kill these. It's bad to kill these. And he has to come to terms with this is how it, how it, what it means to live on Earth. You care for what's around you.

You don't just destroy it because you think it's your enemy. You there, you salvage what you can from Earth. You reuse everything that was left from behind. You care for the environment.

You're constantly having to collect rainwater so that you can have water to drink without having to destroy the environment further. And it's all about coming to terms with caring for that environment that humanity has already destroyed.

I guess it's a theme in the things that I like. It's things have already been destroyed and the characters are having to come to terms with dealing with it.

Joshua Noel: 00:28:05

Yeah, I've noticed a couple of themes with, with my picks too. I'm like, that's interesting. I never noticed those until, like, we start doing like a top whatever. And then I'm like, do I have a.

Do I have a theme here with myself? I'm curious just, like, from some of your explanation, does it kind of show how, like, caring for the environment actually helps you too?

Because if you don't, you know, everything is kind of connected.

Herbie Ramsey: 00:28:29

I don't remember having that as a major thing, but I'm sure you'll find it if you look at it.

Joshua Noel: 00:28:34

Okay, yeah, I know I didn't mention it, but that was also part of the circle of life environmental fable at Epcot. They mentioned that too, but I was too distracted by. They really pile on. On how bad humans are. And I'm like, I just.

I don't love making kids feel bad, but I understand at the same time because, you know, we want to do better, but different ways to critique things. I'm going to do my other number three before y'all do two. Since I'm cheating, that's my punishment.

Herbie Ramsey: 00:29:03

I think I only gave you two to begin with, so I think that's okay.

Joshua Noel: 00:29:06

Okay, perfect. Okay. My other number three here is going to be the Lorax. I love the Lorax so much. I enjoy the book. I enjoy just the way he looks.

Like style wise, the Lorax is just fun with a big mustache and he's fluffy, but it's just cute and it's fun and it's just a nice little thing. The. The film. I'm trying to remember who does the film. It's same people who do the Minions.

Anyway, it's all cgi, so the animation isn't as how I prefer animation, you know, I like a lot of hand drawn kind of stuff. I think the 90s did it right. But that's fine. I enjoyed the film a lot, though, because it expands a lot on the book.

So in this, you know, everybody lives in town. That name I forgot because I didn't do my research before coming into this. Why would I do that? All the trees are gone, basically.

And they have to buy air from Guy, whose name I'm forgetting. Somebody help me if you can.

Herbie Ramsey: 00:30:06

I'm horrible with names.

Joshua Noel: 00:30:07

They'll look for me. Guy, who is really funny because in the song near the, you know, they're like, let it grow, let it grow. And they have a tree and in it. He stops.

He's like, wait a minute. What if we let it die? Let it die. And I just. I don't know. Every time I hear the song, I die laughing.

Laura Wittman: 00:30:22

I think my kids sing that song on repeat. And I don't know that they've ever even seen the Lorax, but they just walk around singing it.

Joshua Noel: 00:30:30

Because I did hear the song before I watched the movie and I loved it before I watched the movie. So I understand. But in the film, you know, you live there, they have to get air from that guy.

They end up leaving to try to find, you know, a secret because they're not able to afford air.

So your main crew, they go out, they end up finding the Lorax and being told this whole story of what happened to the trees, which I think is the needs maybe, I don't know, Dr. Seuss words are weird. And basically the tops of the trees were used for clothing and then they were used for all this other kind of industry.

And you see where people found all this cool stuff they could do. So they kept harvesting trees but didn't plant any new trees.

So getting rid of the trees means no more clean air, means they have to buy their air from someone. So the guy went from, hey, I can make this really cool design.

And I think being well intentioned, the Lorex kind of befriending him, but then also trying to stop him from destroying the whole forest, being unsuccessful. I think that guy keep in many more stuff and thinking that he was doing good and eventually got corrupted by his need for money.

Love of money plays a part.

Your love of industry gluttony is what I would kind of call a lot of this of we want more, more, more, more and more and we don't think about the consequences.

And it ends up in a place where they had all the cool stuff and now instead of having all the cool stuff, they're barely scraping by having to pay for air. And it's kind of like maybe a little bit of moderation would have been cool. I love the messaging of it.

I think for myself, my favorite scene is probably when the Lorax is telling your main crew whose names I forget what happened to the trees.

And kind of that little flashback, I don't know, I thought it was really cool how they actually kind of explained that it's not just guy came in there and destroyed the forest. We need to love the forest. But it's like, oh yeah, he was doing stuff and then invented cool things that we like. But we went too far.

So I think there a little bit of nuance in the backdrop was kind of cool. So I enjoyed that as far as that goes. So that's My other number three, since Herbie also only has two. Laura, what is your number two pick?

You're the only one with the number two pick, it turns out. So we both had Fergully and Wally, though, so these seem like the, the, like the go to animated these two.

Obviously I love my number one, but also Herbie's other pick is one I almost chose. So, like, if you guys are looking for movies to watch on Earth Day, we have a lot of similar taste, it turns out.

Reverend Laura, tell me about Wall E. Why you chose it, what happens in the film? Yeah, just whatever.

Laura Wittman: 00:32:53

So I, I chose Wall E.

And I'll be honest, I haven't watched it in a really long time, but I remember when I watched it, loving, sort of the, the message of the visual, of people just sort of this over consumption. Right.

Like in the movie, everybody's sort of just like floating around in these chairs and consuming and not really living in the real world at all in any capacity. The earth is being destroyed. They're looking for, you know, signs of life, et cetera.

And then of course, you have this sort of connection with Wall E and Evie. Is that it? Is that who she is?

Joshua Noel: 00:33:28

Eve?

Laura Wittman: 00:33:29

Anyway, Eva. Eva, that's it. I'm doing a terrible job with this.

I think that you should have a whole series that's Laura giving a synopsis of things that doesn't make sense.

Joshua Noel: 00:33:40

And then you'll be our new short series.

Laura Wittman: 00:33:42

Yeah, there you go. And then. But you know, you see the implications once again of over consumption, of over reliance on technology.

And I think there's a sense in which we see more and more detachment from the real world as a whole nowadays. And I say that as someone who works with college students too.

There's such a heavy reliance on technology and AI and search engines and all sorts of other things that also have an environmental impact. Right. And I think it's affected our ability to have like, social interactions with each other.

It affects our ability to deal with real world problems because we can just easily detach and go to something else. And so that movie sort of prompted some of those thoughts within my head as I watched it.

But I, you know, yeah, anybody who loves that movie is probably like, that's not what it's about at all. Please go back.

Joshua Noel: 00:34:36

I love that movie and I'm with you even. It's fine. You know, getting to it, though.

One of the things I thought was interesting about that movie, and I'm going to connect it to some of the other stuff too. Wally seems to Be more about how, like. Like, in the most literal sense, telling you, hey, we need to touch grass sometimes.

Laura Wittman: 00:34:54

Yeah.

Joshua Noel: 00:34:54

You know, like. Like, touch some grass. Because, like, what happens that I think is really interesting is, like, people don't notice what all they lost.

They don't notice they lost their planet or what used to be there. They don't notice how badly in shape they are because they're so glued to their screens.

So I think there's this, like, dual messaging in the film of, like, hey, kids, there's more to life than your video games and your screens. And at the same time, hey, parents, if you aren't careful, look what we could lose. And it's kind of like a. Like a both.

And there, like, there's this environmental message, but also, hey, guys, life is more than your screens. Which is ironic for people who spend a lot of time on screens doing podcasts.

Herbie Ramsey: 00:35:31

One of my favorite parts of the movie is where they realize they have a pool, and they're just sitting there flapping the water with their feet at each other. And it's like. It's great, like, kids for the first time being at the pool.

Joshua Noel: 00:35:44

Yeah. Like, they literally had no idea they had a pool. It's wild. It does remind me.

So in FernGully, there's another scene that I really liked where the guy's with the fairy after he'd been shrunk, and he's like, what do you fairies do? What do you mean? And he's like, well, you know, like, what do you do for fun?

And he's talking about, like, all the, like, stuff that we do and humans do. And she's like, I just like to listen to the rainforest. It's like. Like, you just listen, like, what's it say? And then they listen, of course.

And there's a little musical, but, like, I love that.

I also have to do the shout out because it reminds me of Pocahontas that does come out after Ferngulli, you know, listen to all the colors of the wind. And I feel like there is something of, like, maybe this isn't about being environmental, but Earth Day is more than that, too, so I think we're fine.

But also, like, sometimes, like, hey, just appreciate nature, like, the beauty of creation that God gave us. You know, It's a gift. It's not just something here that we're burdened with working and trying to do stuff for it.

It's also just nice to appreciate it, you know? Yeah, yeah, sorry. I didn't want to, like, just keep talking about movies.

And let that pass by, because I noticed that and I was like, no, this is important. We need to touch grass in our conversation before we go to our number one picks.

Laura Wittman: 00:36:52

I'm allergic to grass, so I will abstain. But I get the sentiment.

Herbie Ramsey: 00:36:56

Well, in Wally, there is no grass. All they have is just one tree or one sproutling across the entirety of planet Earth.

Joshua Noel: 00:37:02

Touch sprouts, though. You know the funniest thing, we will move on. My dog also has terrible allergies.

Now that he has a fence and stuff, he's decided the most fun thing to do is to run into the yard, especially after people just mowed, and to just roll around in the grass so that he'll be itchy as possible. We have to, like, clean them with the grass. I wish you could just understand that you have allergies. He doesn't seem to get it.

Which, you know, sometimes I wish I was more like that. And instead of being so cautious all the time, like, you know what, I'm just going to go out. Screw the consequence.

I'm going to roll around on the grass, like, whatever. Yeah, honestly, it is fun. Kids and dogs do it and adults are like, we can't do that because it's silly. And I'm like, nah. But you know what?

It honestly is fun to just roll down a hill. Why not?

Laura Wittman: 00:37:48

It's so funny. That was such a thing that we did as kids was just roll down a hill. And now I'm like, that sounds painful.

Joshua Noel: 00:37:54

God. Yeah. Well, I've been. I mean, I wish I could remember who, but I've been reading a lot of, like, the Theology of Play, and I'm like, I.

I need to do better because play is more than my steam deck that I keep talking about. Anyway, we touched a sprout. We're gonna go back into the podcast now, the non real world, for our number one picks.

I'm gonna make Herbie go first because I almost picked this because it's such a great feature here. Herbie, why don't you go ahead and tell us about your number one pick here?

Herbie Ramsey: 00:38:27

I'm gonna say it is Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind. Again, post apocalyptic Earth has been destroyed.

And because of the earth being destroyed, there is this like, poisonous forest that has grown up around and in between all of humanity.

And in a sense, humanity is in a constant battle with this poisonous forest which turns out not to be as poisonous as a thing and is actually taking care of the earth. It's kind of interesting that it just happened to be that these plants come up and start cleaning the earth after humanity has destroyed the earth.

And in the plot of the movie, the Valley of the Wind gets caught between two other warring nations. And these warring nations are disturbing nature.

And this, this environment that's sprouted up to clean the earth and its response is to destroy what is attacking it. And Nausicaa has to act to save the people she loves from both the nations at war.

And these massive bugs that are trying to destroy everything in their path because they've been made angry by one of these warring nations.

Joshua Noel: 00:39:41

Yeah, yeah. It's also the, the castle is just so cool. Like, I know it's not the point. The point is supposed to be yay nature.

But like I said, they'll type they like, I want that castle.

Herbie Ramsey: 00:39:54

I want her little flying device that's like a nuclear powered glider.

Joshua Noel: 00:39:57

Yeah, it's so freaking cool. Like, I hadn't seen Ghibli films until like last year. Y'all mentioned them some. And then my wife really likes one of them.

And I was like, what if we just watched more of these and we went on like a binge last year? And I was like, man, these are awesome. Laura, you have any history with the Ghibli films?

Laura Wittman: 00:40:10

Not at all.

Joshua Noel: 00:40:11

Okay, I'm gonna break, break the wall again and let you guys know Herbie actually did have another pic. It was Captain Planet, and I ruined that for him with how I did this. So, Herbie, you wanna, you wanna do more than 30 seconds?

Just tell us a little bit more about Captain Planet.

Herbie Ramsey: 00:40:28

Maybe Captain was gonna be my number three because I, I really picked it because I'm a 90s kid and you can't talk about anything environmental wise without talking about Captain Planet. It really just, it's one of those things. It was there, whether you agree with it or not.

I think it's funny that I'm probably one of the furthest from woke and I'm the only person who didn't bring in the woke concepts that are in it. Because I don't think that was really the point of the show. I think that was just one of the things that just was going along at the time.

But the show is really just to teach you about the different concepts there are out there to grow up and think that these are things you're going to do that are going to help the planet. This is ways to build your homes. This is ways to look at, look at the economy and how you're producing and consuming your goods.

And the idea is if you see the negative harm that some of these do and then you see the better alternatives, that people will choose to be on the hero side and take the better option.

Joshua Noel: 00:42:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's the Spider man line? With great power comes great responsibility. Humanity as a whole has some great power and great responsibility.

Especially if you believe Genesis. Captain Planet confuses me a little bit. We've talked about this before. I mentioned we have another episode.

I'll drop that link below and maybe we'll do another Captain Planet episode because seems like all of us love Cataplainet. The thing that confuses me. So part of the stuff is just weird. I think it's because it was like late 80s, early 90s maybe, but I'm unsure.

You have one kid from the Soviet Union still, which throws me off. I'm like, what? Huh? All the kids are from different countries because you know, Captain Planet, so it's the whole world. So it's very Earth Day coded.

The stuff that's weird is like the bad guys are like so on the nose and one is like literally just I am nuclear energy guy. You know, Then one is like just sludge and slime and one is, you know, tree fires or something.

And you know, each villain is like reoccurring and they keep coming up with new different ways and like why they're getting power, why are they able to do these things? And so it addresses it really interestingly, even the nuclear ones. Even though, you know, I personally think nuclear energy is an awesome idea.

Turns out that it's actually way cleaner. And we were just lied to about some of that stuff because government bad.

Anyway, the, the things that we're being taught were still really interesting because it wasn't like, hey kids, you should consider different alternatives of energy. It was more of like, you should consider why we're using this energy.

So even though the nuclear guy was the bad guy, I still think that message is good of like, hey, why are we using energy? And is it worth the cost? I'm going to get into more of that later. I need to stop going on rants.

Herbie Ramsey: 00:43:53

I think the issue with nuclear is if it's not done properly, if it's not disposed properly, nuclear can be extremely dangerous and humanity does not actually have a good track record of doing things and storing things long term correctly.

Laura Wittman: 00:44:08

Yeah, yeah, well, and two, you know, we're fresh off of at the time of this show, only a couple years after Chernobyl disaster and some other big things that were fresh on the mind of a lot of people. So. And not really even still yet seeing the full effects.

Herbie Ramsey: 00:44:23

Not to mention Three Mile Island.

Joshua Noel: 00:44:25

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I definitely get it. I'm still very pro nuclear energy. We know how to do it well and right. And TJ could actually tell you a lot more.

He's educated himself more on it than I have. I've learned enough to go. Yeah, that does sound like a good idea.

Herbie Ramsey: 00:44:41

I'm a big fan of nuclear energy, but I also think we need to have a big awareness of where we have as a people have failed. And it is a lot more than you think when it comes to nuclear energy as a whole. Not just nuclear energy for electricity production.

Joshua Noel: 00:44:56

Yeah. I would want better government agencies in place to oversee things before we did it.

Laura Wittman: 00:45:03

Yeah, Accountability and oversight, for sure.

Joshua Noel: 00:45:07

Oh, yeah. Because again, once we start figuring out we can make more energy, we'll just want to do more things.

And then, like a lot of these cartoons are showing us, we get really greedy, and then we take it too far. All right, Laura, who should go first, Me or you with our top pick?

Laura Wittman: 00:45:20

Okay, so I don't mind. I'll. I'll say something. This is my number one movie, and I did not at all change my mind or figure that out in the middle of this, but.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. I love this story. It was a book first, I think, and then they adapted it into a movie.

Joshua Noel: 00:45:41

Yeah, I have a fun story about that, too.

Laura Wittman: 00:45:43

I. I love this story because, you know, we see this whole concept of, like, manipulating the environment to create food.

And suddenly there's, like, weather forecasts and requests for different food and foods falling out of the sky.

But then what we begin to see is something that started out with good intentions develops into over consumption and waste and impacts on other things and disrupted ecosystems and even invasive species. And that becomes a difficult topic, too.

As a side note, I'm a person who loves snakes, and I know that probably freaks some people out, but we have several snakes in our country that have become like, invasive species. Right. And what happens with invasive species, but they change the environment around them.

They eat up food that other things that are indigenous to the area no longer have access to. And so things that don't look on the surface like they would be a problem become big problems.

And I think one of the things that we see between this movie and the Lorax as well is that a lot of times things that. That start with good intentions don't really think about the consequences of what's going to happen. Right.

And that Happens so much in church and with our responsibilities. Like, if we're people of faith, too, Right.

How many times do we go into situations and we're like, this is what needs to happen, and we go in guns blazing and we just do the thing without really thinking about the impacts.

And there's lots of books written about this from the church perspective about, you know, when doing good does harm and all of those things and how things. Things like.

Not to get on a total tangent, but a few years ago, we had this huge mission in the United Methodist Church that I'm part of this huge mission about sending nets to different places that were dealing with malaria. Right. Which sounded great because we could buy them cheap on Amazon and send a hundred, you know, to a small community, and they would be protected.

But then what happened was people who actually knew the art and trade within those communities of making mosquito nets no longer made them. And then the trade died out.

And when it wasn't the trendy thing to send those mosquito nets anymore, people didn't have the resources, and malaria had a resurgence. So I think that was a really deep jump off of what happens when it rains meatballs. But all of that to say you have to think about the consequences.

And what may seem like a good idea can eventually have huge impacts.

Joshua Noel: 00:48:07

Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to figure out how to center this. I'm gonna do a very centered version of this.

Lil Dicky has an act that he does that it's a song about how tragedy can be funny or something like that. And he keeps going on. And eventually, like a lot of his songs, does.

Has, like a realization moment at the end that you're like, oh, wait, this is weird. And it's. I'm gonna call it a danger whistle. You guys can fill in the blank if you are old enough to.

He's like, what happens when you're the guy who created danger whistles with really good intentions? But then you realize the more effective they are, the less danger there is. Then less people need your whistles. And it's like. Like, ooh, ooh.

I hate that. I like that point. And, you know, that's, again, the circle of life environmental fable. You can find that on. On YouTube.

It's like 10 minutes long, people. You should check it out. But it does the same thing.

You know, Timon and Pumbaa are like, oh, we're gonna have this cool hotel, and we're gonna invite everybody here. We're gonna have a party. It's gonna be great. And the first thing they do is build a dam. And Zimbabwe's like, guys, creatures live downstream here.

You can't just build a dam here. And that's kind of the whole point of the fable. You see that There another thing, real life right now. What is it?

Colossal Bio that's creating dire wolves and all this stuff? Yeah, it's a cool concept. It makes me think Jurassic Park. And I'm like, this is cool. But then I'm also like, wait a minute.

A lot of these creatures they're bringing back are ones that went extinct naturally because things that happened to the Earth that didn't really have anything to do with humans. And I'm like, what if instead we brought back stuff that we actually were the ones who killed instead of just things that.

That the environment doesn't exist that they came from. So I'm like, I don't know that that's safe. As much as I love the idea of really cute dire wolf puppies, I.

Herbie Ramsey: 00:49:46

Don'T remain to be paradise forever.

Laura Wittman: 00:49:49

Can we at least just point out how crazy it is that we got dire wolves before we got the next book from Martin?

Joshua Noel: 00:49:54

That's. Yes, that's so funny. But also one of the cool things I've seen, I think it's in the West Coast.

They reintroduced a certain kind of wolf, and they had to do it slowly, but they did it knowing that all these other things that we do eat and things will actually start repopulating quicker if there's a predator that was naturally part of the system and just kind of understanding the system instead of just saying, we want this.

So here it is, you know, and it is hard to contemplate all of the little things that thing that what might be connected to which is going to get me to my number one. I didn't mean to make my number one last and be like, mine is awesome, guys. But it is.

It was, in my humble opinion, the absolute best film to come out last year. And I'm putting it above Deadpool and Wolverine. And that's tough for me. Tough for me to do. But the Wild robot was so freaking good.

Like, even from like. Like an animation nerd, everything.

I'm like, they're out doing Disney, and I hate that because, like, I don't want to say that DreamWorks did something better than Disney, but they did. For those wondering, the guy behind it also is the one who did Aladdin, Lilo and Stitch. Little Mermaid. He was involved with.

He was involved with Shrek, I think. Brilliant mind behind this film. The animation is really cool because it's 3D, but it's also watercoloring with some CGI.

One of the things you'll notice the main character, the robot starts off all cgi, and the more that they progress through the film, stuff gets, you know, grows on her, whatever. And it's all watercolor stuff on her, so it kind of matches the art a little bit better.

So even the way they tell the message through animation is freaking genius. And it might be the most nuanced environmental film I've ever seen. Because it starts off, this robot shows up in the nature.

It's AI and it's like, oh, hey, I need someone to give me command so I know what to do. And nothing there. Speaks English. It couldn't figure out what to do. It kept going to thing after thing after thing.

Nature is rebelling against it because what is this freaky thing in the woods?

It tries to send an emergency signal out, it gets taken away, ends up finding a baby duckling and basically learns, because it's AI it learns animal language. And also because this is a cartoon and is basically told, okay, this is your assignment. You have to raise baby duck.

It has to be able to fly, swim, eat. And it learns how to interact with nature.

And it does all the stuff in AI this robot learns how to be more human from the animals, which is kind of weird, but also it learns how nature works. It learns how the environment works. It tries to teach the duck how to go away to accomplish its mission because it is a robot.

Throughout the film, you end up seeing what bad stuff humans are doing to destroy things and all this stuff, but also how technology is being used for good to help the environment.

And the film really asks us to contemplate, which is what I love, not are humans bad destroying nature, but more, is our technology more helpful or harmful? And it's showing places where it is helpful and also places where it's harmful. And what do we want to prioritize?

And the idea, the concept that AI could actually be used to learn about nature and to make it better. I love that. I love that this wasn't a hey, stop, stop building stuff. Industry bad. As much as I love Tolkien, I feel like that's too black and white.

I love that this instead was, what if our technology was actually used to better the environment?

And what if we didn't get rid of the stuff that makes our life better, but instead we found ways to still make our life better and contribute to the world around us? It's just such a freaking good film. Very kid friendly, very deep the animation is great.

Like if you're an animation nerd like me, you have to watch it just because of how well done it is. It takes some of that like 3D mapping that happens in like the animated Spider man films and the Ninja Turtles that made it look comic booky.

It uses that, but with like water coloring and some beautiful backdrops and cgi and it's just. I would do a whole episode about this, but I don't know if anybody else is as passionate as I am. So I'm just going on a rant here instead.

As far as favorite scene, I'm going to cheat. Do like favorite character and scene together. This fox starts off trying to tell the robot how to help the duckling.

And because it's a fox, it's deceiving it, right? It's going well. The ducklings really want cooked scallops. If you could just go in that water and cook some, that's what the duck wants.

And then obviously he just starts eating the oyster scalps or whatever. And then he's like, oh wait, and he just gives the worms to the duck because that's literally all it needed.

It starts off as like just very selfish, very like self minded. And then like it sees all these things where like AI doesn't understand nature, right? And it's just messing up. And he's like that, let me help you.

Like he starts to feel bad and you learn to kind of feel sympathy for the fox because everybody's treated him like an outsider because how deceptful he is, but that's just who he is by nature. And then you learn that you see where he starts to develop a care for the duckling and the robot and like his character progression is insane.

And I just love the scenes where like you kind of see where the fox is trying to teach the robot how to care for the duckling with its own interest in mind at the same time. And it's like a. This was good, very good film. Very enjoyable, funny, thoughtful. I couldn't say enough great things about it.

There are very few things I would give a 10 out of 10. This is one. For those who know we've done a Disney era series on here going through like 22 Disney movies. I've given 12 attend of Disney films.

So it's a big deal for me to give an animated film A10. This is one. It's so freaking good.

Laura Wittman: 00:55:17

I actually haven't seen it, but it is on my list of movies to watch.

Herbie Ramsey: 00:55:21

I have not seen it and this is my first time hearing about it.

Joshua Noel: 00:55:24

It's so good. What I'm trying to remember what it's on. It's not. I don't think it's Pluto. It might be Pluto.

It's one of the weird ones that it's exclusively on, which I was upset about because I'm like, this should be available for everybody because it's so good.

Like, I cannot stress how good it is because even when I went into it, it was because I had to wait on an airplane and I was with a friend and we were like, we should just watch literally anything to kill the time. And I was like, sure, this.

And I went into it thinking it was going to be one of those annoying, here's how robots are bad and we're killing the forest. And instead it was like, hey, some robots are bad, but also they could be good.

And I'm like, oh, I didn't think I was going to have to think this hard about a cartoon. It was good. Yeah. So that's my number one. I probably ranted too long about that. Sorry.

But since I know we're getting ready to get near the end here, as far as things go, just in general, do you guys think it's more impactful?

Not whether it should be done, but is it more impactful for these kind of ideas to be portrayed through film and story rather than just being taught to kids or to just people in general?

Herbie Ramsey: 00:56:28

Definitely it is. It is definitely going to be more impactful. We do learn more from stories as humanity than we do from basic facts being presented to us.

The story and film nature gives you the ability to show the unintended consequences or the effects of doing certain actions and the better responses that you get out of doing different types of actions. So it's definitely going to be a lot more effective than your educators and your politicians.

Joshua Noel: 00:56:57

Yeah. Yeah. As far as just getting the message out, I think so. Reverend Laura, you're the only one of us who does teach.

Laura Wittman: 00:57:07

I actually think that it depends, you know, like, there are ways that politicians, if they connect properly to young people and connect to the world around them and actually engage with the world around them, can be impactful. But I also think even our concept of how media reaches kids nowadays is different. Like, the attention span is really short.

And honestly, if we have to advocate through TikTok, advocate through TikTok. And maybe that really is truly the medium. I mean, I think about that even with my classes and how I teach things that sound ridiculous to me.

And what. What would be effective in teaching are Things that I have to lean on, you know, to really get through to some of my students with some things.

So, yeah, TikTok. It's all TikTok.

Joshua Noel: 00:57:53

Oh, man. I'm going to go to a C.S. lewis quote, actually, and then throw one other idea out and then we're going to wrap this one up, guys.

My CS Lewis quote, it's not really a quote. It's more of a vague. My understanding of what he said.

He talks a lot, though, about how a lot of us aren't won by logical arguments, like our brains are guarded by these, like, dragons or whatever. And what a story does is sneak past our guard so that we can actually think about the concept.

Because a lot of times if someone just presents you an idea, you're like, oh, wait a minute, that's woke. Or, oh, wait, that's a liberal idea, or that's a conservative idea or whatever.

We put our labels on it and we're like, I'm automatically going to shut that down. But what a story does.

It kind of sneaks past that and you actually have to think about the concept instead of just attacking it or agreeing with it on face value. And that's where I think the power story is impossible to understate. I have mentioned before.

Laura Wittman: 00:58:49

I'm good. I'm good.

Joshua Noel: 00:58:49

One of the things that I've brought out of this that I like to harp on, I'm just going to bring back up is, for me, I think it's more helpful when your story shows nuance or encourages kids to do more rather than making us, not just kids, even adults, feel bad for what we have done. And probably part of that's tied to my concept of time not being real. But maybe not in general, though I think hopefully does more than guilt.

Not that guilt is never appropriate. It's just kind of one of those. I don't know if all we're doing is making ourselves feel bad because humans are bad. I don't quite see the point.

I like stories that enable us to think, to have hope.

I like Wild Robot because it's like, hey, we could be doing things in a way that we're still getting all of this and having technology that helps rather than hurts, rather than as much as I love Fringoli, humans are bad and we should feel bad for being a human and just do something because you should feel guilty. Guilty. That's where I'm like, I like some of the messages, but I'm still like, I don't know about all of that.

That's just something I like to harp on. Do you guys want to respond to that or shout out something else that you're harping on maybe with this stuff?

Laura Wittman: 00:59:55

Yeah, I think, I mean, I, I don't disagree about that. I think though that there's a semantics, because I love semantics. But there's a fine line between guilt and shame. Right.

And so guilt can motivate while shame cripples and leaves us in a place where it's not productive. So I think if it hinges on awareness to the point of guilt, that motivates, it can be a good thing.

But just like how I say in church, like my concept of how to bring people, you know, from a church perspective into faith, that in my understanding, the way that I function best is through a lens of, of grace and hope, as you said. So like giving people a place to find hope and room to hope for something better than what they're experiencing right now.

And I think, I think hope is more effective than anything that leads to shame.

Joshua Noel: 01:00:49

So, Herbie, any responses or other things you would like to harp on from this?

Herbie Ramsey: 01:00:54

I mean, honestly, I agree with you in that it is better when they do focus on the hope side of things.

A lot of times, whether it's a guilt or shame on doesn't help people jump forward because a lot of times it's like, oh no, this has already been done. But if you add, you know, and it's done, the consequences are there and there's nothing you can do.

But when you add the hope to it, hope goes a long way in a very small amount. So when you add a little bit of hope and that there is a way forward, there is a way to at least alleviate the damage that is done.

The hope, the hope that we can do that will actually motivate adults and kids alike to make that change.

Joshua Noel: 01:01:33

Yeah.

And ironically, with yours being like stuff that's happened post apocalypse, a lot of times there is more about hope because everything's already destroyed. What now there's still hope.

And I think that's one thing I like about post apocalyptic stories in general is finding hope where there seems to be no hope. So, yeah, I really appreciate your picks for that reason. All of them. I think we had all good picks.

Anybody want to shout anything else out before we finish up? As far as like, what? Just list of movies that are. I'll do a couple. Moana is awesome. If you want to just learn about why you should love nature.

It's not even really about environment, just about why you should love nature. Pocahontas I mentioned Happy Feet. Fun movie. The animation is really unique because it's the first Australian completely computer generated thing.

Although I think it's a little heavy on the shame stuff as well. But it's still fun. Anybody else want to shout out any last movies by name real quick and we'll finish this up.

Laura Wittman: 01:02:28

The Minecraft movies.

Joshua Noel: 01:02:31

I want to ask more but I can't. That's for my kids to wrap up.

Laura Wittman: 01:02:35

For my kids. I'm just gonna throw it out there.

Joshua Noel: 01:02:37

All right, well with the wrap up, you know, we are gonna do a bonus question. Our bonus at the end for just our sponsors on Patreon Captivator Apple Podcast.

You can hear us answer which animated film has the most appealing wildlife depiction? Not the most environmental friendly or anything. Just like which one. We're like, man, the nature in that movie. That looks really cool. Spoiler.

It's not any of my top three that I'm going to say with that. We usually do recommendations. I'm doing something more unique.

What's a recommendation that people, especially Christians, maybe can and should do that would help the environment in our world today? I'll do mine first, give you guys time to think because you might not have noticed that question snuck in there. Mine is simple.

I mentioned before, I write my representatives, I write my senator, I write literally everybody I can about this because it's a nonpartisan issue that I think we should just to me, common sense. It should be allowed at least in all states. I'm a big fan of compost, just in general, for all things.

I went to a church in Colorado that had recycling trash and compost and I thought that was the coolest thing because compost does more for the environment than recycling does. Because recycling, a lot of times you're still getting this plastics and stuff in the air and not always good.

I mean, it's better, but not always good. Compost is fantastic. In I think two or three states now, it's legal to have your body composted after death.

For those who don't know, getting buried is bad for the environment. So is getting cremated. It's terrible for the environment. Way worse than getting buried. And I would really love it if I could have my body.

And the science behind it is incredible. They can do it really quick and then the soil is so rich.

If I could just be composted after I die and a beautiful tree be planted in the soil, that would be really cool. So I'm writing to everyone to be like, hey, can we just make this legal?

Like I'm not asking you guys to do it, but there's no reason it shouldn't be legal in all states. It's like literally three states that let you do it now. And that's ridiculous. Yeah, that's my perspective. Laura.

Reverend Laura, do you have a recommendation of what can people, or Christians especially do to help the environment?

Laura Wittman: 01:04:35

I love advocacy work and like you said, I think calling representatives, writing letters, being proactive, getting things started in your communities. I mean everybody should have access to basic things like clean water. They should have access to, to food.

And you would be amazed how many places in big cities, communities within big cities that are food deserts and other things and those sorts of things have environmental impacts as well and sometimes intentional environmental impacts. So do your research, know the causes and also know that there is hope.

And I think that's important to leave people with that message that advocacy does make a difference, especially if you do it on small scales within your communities. It doesn't have to be changing the whole world to change parts of the world.

Joshua Noel: 01:05:20

Yeah, yeah. I also learned it's incredibly easy to get community gardens, botanical gardens and stuff set up.

So if your community doesn't have one, you know, ask about it and make sure it's a local pollinator friendly because right now. And that's sad.

Laura Wittman: 01:05:35

And to that use your local home extension offices. Every community has one. Call your extension office, they can help you with those things and the resources are free.

Joshua Noel: 01:05:44

So I am also learning stuff now. Herbie, you got any, any recommendation but people can do to help the environment.

Herbie Ramsey: 01:05:52

So be intentional in like what you consume, what you do with the stuff that you're no longer using. I did grow up in the era where we had the recycle, reduce, reuse thing.

And it goes more than just like having in the back of your mind sometimes it means don't buy the Styrofoam cups. Those are things that just never break down and, and they don't get recycled because they're so lightweight.

The recycling being cost effective by the, by the weight of it's being recycled, it's just not cost effective to replace Styrofoam. So be a little more intentional. Buy the stuff that a will be recycled if it can be recycled.

Remember that everything that you throw away that goes to the dump is just going to sit there in the dump forever for as long as we can see in the future.

Joshua Noel: 01:06:35

Yeah, yeah. And you know, I say I, I might not love paper straws, but I yeah.

If you see the damage that plastic bags have done to turtles especially I love sea turtles. There's near Wilmington, there's a sea turtle place that you can go to. And it's, it's just so sad.

And going to those things and seeing it I also think helps a lot. Again, guys, thank you so much for listening.

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