Video Contest Winners: Eco-Anxiety

Matt: I am from Montréal but have lived in New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Alberta, and now British Columbia, Canada. My personal philosophy on storytelling is a bit of a long story...

Basically I feel that well told told stories can help make sense of a world that would otherwise go unarticulated. Good stories help us to understand better who we are either in contradistinction or in comparison to the characters and the events we read or are told about.

Storytelling is also a part of our history as a self-conscious species. Continuing to share stories, I feel, connects us to a deeper sense of who we are, where we've come from, and indeed where we may go.

Eco-Anxiety was really Chloë's idea. We wanted to do something with a comedic slant but that had a real message to it. Chloë, the eternal journalist and researcher, had heard about psychologists recently starting to deal with patients who suffered from what they called Eco-Anxiety.

We thought that worrying about all the things you're not doing for the environment was amazing. Of course we are not making fun of the condition and sincerely empathize with any who suffers from it, but we wanted to say that even doing the little things really does help the environment.

You don't have to find the solution for global warming or get rid of all your cars (though that would help)... things like recycling and turning off lights and water all combine to make a big difference. So take a deep breath, dim the screen, and encourage others to do the same.

We want people to understand that the little things do count for something (and will probably amass to be one of the greatest contributors to the environmental solution).