Sustainable Works

Sustainable Works' Student Sustainability Program combines hands-on and real-world interactive experiences with topic-based workshops to create an all-encompassing educational experience for students. Through the use of sustainable tools and actions that can be applied immediately in students' lives, they are able to quickly change their behavior and reduce the use of the earth's natural resources. The six areas of focus are: Water, Energy, Waste/Shopping, Chemicals, Transportation and Food.

Our idea is to mount the production of Dr. Keeling’s Curve, starring Mike Farrell, in 10 different venues in the greater Los Angeles area, with a focus on reaching underserved communities. Dr. Keeling’s Curve is a play that both entertains and enlightens. It is the story of how one man came to discover the impact of carbon dioxide on our planet’s health and well-being. What he learned of course, is that the rising levels of CO2 are the primary cause of global warming. As a side note, when Al Gore was an undergraduate at Harvard, it was Dr. Keeling’s Curve that inspired his interest in the environment, which of course culminated in the academy award winning film An Inconvenient Truth. Dr. Allen Hershkowitz, the senior scientist as NRDC, said the following in an interview with the New York Times in October 2012: “We are dealing with a gigantic problem and there is no one large undertaking that any individual or business or country can do to solve our ecological problems. It will take billions of people making highly intelligent choices.” So how do you get billions of people to make highly intelligent choices? By educating them; first hundreds, then thousands, than hundreds of thousands, then millions, and eventually those millions add up to billions. The power of live theater, done well, can be transformative. When I attended a performance of Dr. Keeling’s Curve at The Blank Theater, I knew Sustainable Works needed to bring this play to as wide an audience in Los Angeles as possible. By doing so, we would be educating thousands of people on the issue of global warming in a way that would motivate them to do something about the problem.