Earth Reporters

I really like the Earth Reporters Initiative, a series of half hour videos that combine old school TV journalism with “first-hand insights.” Basically an environmental crisis is narrated by someone close to it. I was lucky to see the first episode, “My City, Your City,” featuring Cheikh Mamadou Abiboulaye Dieye, the mayor of St Louis in Senegal, “the city most threatened by rising sea levels in the whole of Africa.” I watched it on TV, on BBC World, while in Toronto, which you can’t get on cable in the US–you get the more “entertaining” BBC America. The St Louis episode follow Dieye around the city, among the rubbish dumps and garbage, as he prepares to go to the recent World Mayors Summit in Mexico City. Above is the first 5 minutes.

You can watch all the rest of the episode, and the rest of the series here.