Chasing Ice

The second annual Miami and the Beaches Environmental Film Festival (MBEFF) is comin' at ya this week, packed with a crop of absorbing documentaries and films that tackle the most pressing contemporary issues worldwide.

Produced by the Environmental Coalition of Miami and the Beaches (ECOMB), the festival will bring 11 cutting-edge environmental films to MIA, with nightly screenings from Wednesday to Sunday.

We caught up with festival organizers Michael Laas and Miguel Peña to get some of their top picks for MBEFF. After the jump, check out three stand-out docs that shouldn't be missed.

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via Discovery.com

What does a species more than 400 million years old have in common with a pair of espadrilles? Not a whole lot -- until TOMS and University of Miami's RJ Dunlap Marine Conservation Program decided to team up and protect marine life in style and comfort.

Days before the national frenzy over Shark Week, TOMS released its newest design, the Shark Shoe, after more than a year of collaboration between RJD and the popular shoe company.

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Ami Vitale

Fisherman from the Kokhanok village catches salmon on the south shore of Iliamna Lake on the Alaska Peninsula.

Humanity's come a long way since acknowledging the existence of global warming and our selfish, consumptive ways. More and more people are going green, and it doesn't hurt that it's become trendy to do so. Captain Planet would be proud.

The products we use on the daily impact us more than we think, so the Nature Conservancy has decided to address these issues through a unique exhibit, Design for a Living World, set to premiere at the Coral Gables Museum on July 26.

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Sixty-four years! My gosh! Where does the time go?

Seems like the '50s were only yesterday. What an era! So golden. Oh, son. What these fins have seen. Where this blow hole has been. I was so young, hungry and filled with life. Now I'm the oldest manatee in the world, a gosh-dang celebrity, a 1,200-pound sea cow hag. Hooey!

Getting old sucks.

Beh! Things have changed, man.

I remember the Bay so clean and pristine you could spend a whole week basking in its turquoise beauty. You'd catch me gently floating along an interior river canal, sunshine glistening off my wet whiskers. Those days felt like a big band ballad, just swinging, man; beautiful and timeless.

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Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden

Did you know that crows aren't just those birds that dive at your head in parking lots or parks -- they're actually, like, super-genius winged creatures? We didn't either, until we attended the TEDxMIA conference last Friday night at Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden.

You've probably heard about TED Conferences. For the past 25 years, TED has been, according to their mission, "devoted to ideas worth spreading" through gatherings of the world's intellectual, political, and scientific elite. Featuring world leaders like Gordon Brown and Bill Clinton, writers like Isabel Allende, and even Jane Goodall at their world conferences definitely has kept people listening and learning.

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Courtesy of Ben Thacker

Paddle boarding the west coast of Florida.

​You've seen them along South Beach canals like Venetian gondoliers. You've witnessed them in the ocean and Bay, a cross-breed of kayaker and surfer. Yup. The paddle-boarder. But never before have you seen them like this. Two Miami natives are traveling from Tampa Bay to Key Largo. Three-hundred miles. On paddle-boards.

Chip Walter and Ian Wogan are both from the Cutler Bay area. Chip owns a construction firm, Ian is finishing up a degree at FIU in agroecology, both love paddle-boarding. In the hopes of raising funds and awareness for urban gardens, the two are currently partaking in the Everglades Challenge, a grueling, unsupervised cross-state water race, usually reserved for kayaks, canoes, and small boats.More »

Flickr CC Jeremy Burgin

​When the "Scoop on Poop" exhibit drops on Zoo Miami this weekend, number two is number one for fun. That's because this exciting shit is back in our toilet water by poopular demand. The traveling exhibition, based on a hit book by Dr. Wayne Lynch, last hit the 305 in 2006. But, starting this Saturday, you'll again have the chance to dig through dung, participate in a dung beetle race, listen to animal digestive systems, and even learn foreign words for poop. Kids love that kind of shit. We asked Zoo Miami rep Cindy Castelblanco all about the Scoop on Poop. Here's what she had to say.More »

​A few years ago, porn-seeking perverts with colonialist ambitions began stumbling onto the wrong mail-order bride website. Presenting itself as a "source for meeting a nice, subservient Asian bride," BigBadChineseMama.com proceeded to break down sexual politics, racial stereotypes, and power structure via pictures of ass-kicking females above testimonials such as, "I'm learning so much about the Asian culture ever since you mailed me, Janice. Did you know it is customary for the man to cook, clean, and sleep on the living room couch?" After 130,000 hits and a slew of angry emails, Kristina Wong was being summoned for interviews and speaking requests all over the country.

This Thursday at 8 p.m., meet the self-professed "cultural jammer" for her fourth full-length solo comedy show, Going Green the Wong Way, a collaboration with Paul Tei of Miami's irreverent drama company Mad Cat Theatre. Cultist spoke to the satirical comedienne about why going green is goth, how vegetable oil cars can backfire (literally), and whether Miami is anything like that souless L.A.

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Going green with a cricket star.

​The next time you throw a cigarette butt out your car window or leave a Styrofoam cup on the sidewalk, beware. The greenest man in the world lives in South Florida and he could be anywhere. Htesh Mehta, a leading authority, practitioner, and researcher on ecotourism, physical planning, and both the landscape architectural and architectural aspects of ecolodges, comes to Books & Books in Coral Gables Wednesday to promote his latest work of ecotourism, Authentic Ecolodges. The book looks at some of the most forward-thinking ecolodges in the world's most exotic destinations.

A Hall of Fame cricket player and Ft. Lauderdale resident, Mehta was named one of five Sustainable Tourism Pioneers in the world by National Geographic Adventure and one of the 25 Most Powerful People in Adventure by Men's Journal. But New Times wanted to see what was so green about this guy in person. Read on for our Q&A with Hitesh.

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Tony Tango: dangerously dance-y and environmentally conscious

​First, Leonardo DiCaprio started driving a Prius, then M. Night Shyamalan wrote a movie about trees killing people, and now the green movement has finally invaded Miami moviemaking. The cinephiles that founded the Borscht Film Festival are pledging to go green when they start filming their shorts this winter, which should boost their already high cool quotient. It all started when Borscht co-founder Lucas Leyva recently dropped by the set of Tony Tango, an indie Miami comedy produced by Borscht alum Jonathan David Kane. More »