Tag Archives: environmental

Disney Scientists Learn the Language of Elephants

I expect a lot of things from Disney, but science isn’t one of them. Well, I should amend that statement. Disney’s known for innovation in artistic fields, and sometimes that bleeds into the sciences with the architectural and other advances made by the Imagineers or at Pixar/the Animation Studio. But I never expect to hear of new scientific discoveries made, and published in professional scientific journals, by Disney employees. That’s just what happened this past year, however, as scientists from Disney’s Animal Kingdom teamed up with Oxford University and the zoological group Save the Elephants to study a herd of … Continue reading →

Snow White’s Secret Green Streak

For my wrap-up to environmental week, I’m going to explore whether or not Walt Disney was, in part, responsible for the modern environmental movement. According to a book by a Cambridge University scholar, Disney films, particularly those produced between 1937 and 1967 and 1984 and 2005, are responsible for making viewers respond to and care more for the natural world. “The Idea of Nature in Disney Animation” by Dr. David Whitley, an English literature professor, argues that the eras of Walt Disney and Michael Eisner produced films which made young viewers in particular aware of nature and the issues surrounding … Continue reading →

Disney’s Project Green

This Thursday, April 22, is the fortieth anniversary of Earth Day. In honor of that I’m making it Earth Week on the Disney blog, and I’m going to explore ways in which the Walt Disney Corporation contributes to ecological causes. Now that green is hip and mega global conglomerates like Disney are getting in on the environmental action, I start to wonder if the trendiness of green initiatives doesn’t sometimes overshadow or outweigh actual conservation efforts. Take Disney’s Project Green, for example. The House of Mouse throws together a splashy website, herds Joe Jonas and Demi Lovato out of the … Continue reading →