Pretty scary, huh? For more information on this growing debt crisis you can head over to the official movie website or to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation website.

I have two concerns with the documentary and the supporting websites. First, it becomes obvious that the filmmaker has a thing against President Bush and his administration as well as President Ronald Reagan and his trickle-down economics approach to governing the market. Honestly, that’s fine and I don’t really care about those concerns. People will always go after President Reagan since he was the beginning of modern conservatism and I think it’s obvious that President Bush will continue to be castrated in the popular (and independent) media for the rest of our lifetimes.

My second issue, though, is that when you look through the supporting websites there are no concrete examples of how to fix this massive debt problem. Sure, the Peterson Foundation website has a 10 point “what you can do” list, but it boils down to being engaged in local, state, and national government and keeping better financial controls in your personal life. Well, those are things that we should all be doing anyway!

I encourage you to watch the documentary when you have the opportunity. But I wish that there were better examples of how concerned citizens could help to alleviate this problem.

Plus, as someone who works in a twelve person organization where there are two Prius owners, I can tell you that there is no eco-snobbery going on in my office. My company, however, is moving aggressively into the sustainable energy, eco-friendly market. One of the start-ups that we met with last week is an “upcycling” company called TerraCycle. You may have seen their products at Home Depot, Office Depot, Walgreens, or at Wal-Mart or you may have seen their logo stamped on the back of Oreo or Capri Sun packages (among other places). This is a company based out of Trenton, New Jersey and they are doing some of the best adaptive reuse of garbage that I’ve ever seen.

Their legacy product – worm poop – is bottled in pre-used soda bottles. Their spray caps are models that companies like Windex no longer use that would have otherwise wound up in landfills. Their offices are stocked with used goods from tables to chairs to couches (I can vouch for this as I’ve walked through the place). I encourage you to click on the link above (or the one that is now a permanent part of this blog’s sidebar) to learn more about this amazing company! Click here if you want a review of their bathroom cleaner product.

But to get back on topic – I don’t see any eco-snobbery going on in my part of New Jersey. I think this is because in this state we’re all too busy to have our heads up our asses!