China’s Green Beat: Capturing China’s Environmental Problems and Solutions

Take one American living in China, his Chinese roommate, a keen interest in the environment and a video camera and what you have is the Green Brothers (Creators of China’s Green Beat).

These two young men living in China have created a range of positive, upbeat videos that powerfully show China’s problems and solutions to environmental issues such as global warming.

“Wind energy, hey! Reduce energy, hey! It’s green energy, hey-hey-hey!” raps American born, John Romankiewicz in mandarin as he stands on a Beijing wind farm with his sidekick, Zhao Xiangyu. Apparently, wind energy in China has been growing at 30% per year due to the United Nations’ Clean Development Mechanism.

But it gets better than that. The Green Brother’s expanded their team earlier this year by running a Green Brothers videomaking seminar in Beijing which brought together 30 similar like minded young activists such as the Green Sisters.

The Green Sisters tell us about ‘No car day’ in Kunming (a city in the Southwest of China). In Kunming, people cannot drive a car on the last Saturday of every month from 9am - 5pm. The sisters get out into the Kunming community and ask the locals what they think about the initiative. Many state that less traffic on the roads makes going out much easier.

What I like about all of their videos is they are not depressing. They are fun. They leave you feeling inspired and wanting to make a difference.

One of my favourite videos is called ‘Green dating gone wrong’. A young ambitious Chinese man (who has very little regard for the environment) takes a ‘green’ woman out on a date. He kicks over her bike, orders all the meat dishes on the menu ignoring the fact she is a vegetarian and can’t understand why she has brought her own chopsticks and green bag.

You can check out more of their wonderful videos here.

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