Movies, like music (see Songs of Change blog) have a great capacity to inspire people to create beauty in their own lives or change behaviours that do not serve themselves and the whole.

The environmental film festival, Cinemambiente, (which is actually in its eleventh year) sets out to highlight the best eco movies going around. If you'd rather be updating yourself about what's happening to our environment through the medium of film rather than the newspapers, here's a few of the best you might like to get out next time you're up for confronting civilizations impact on the earth or the effects of climate change:

• A Crude Awakening: the Oil Crash by Irish director by Ray McCormack
• The Nuclear Comeback by New Zealand filmmaker Justin Pemberton
• Koyaanisqatsi by director Godfrey Reggio
• When Clouds Clear
• An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore
• Erin Brockovich
• Born Free
• The Emerald Forest
• Silkwood

Warning: after watching just a few of these films you'll probably feel like putting your eco warrior boots on and a splash of organic lippy. So be prepared to be inspired to make a few changes.

MUSE stands for Musicians Unite to Save the Earth.

Cool Our Planet is the organisation trying to create a new POP culture (that's Preserve Our Planet culture) by way of musical and artistic expression in the MUSE campaign. They encourage music fans, artists, poets and filmmakers to create a piece or write a song about protecting our rainforests and oceans to help fight climate change by inviting people to upload their stuff onto their website.

It's not a bad campaign to be reaching people of all ages, cultures and musical tastes. Just about every genre of music is covered already on the green front - you may just not have heard all the songs yet.

Thom York of Radiohead released his track A Clock which features lyrics ‘time is running out for us, but you just move the hands upon the clock, you throw coins in the wishing well' is a stab at big business and the political powers that be to address the issues head on and move a little faster. Elizabeth Meacham's Ecologos tune touches on a similar vain ‘if I made a story, I would lay bare our fantasies of grandeur and ease.'

For the teenage rockers Miley Cyrus's Wake Up America and Bad Religion's Kyoto Now both punch out powerful climate change lyrics. Canadian folk singer Andy Vine's Excuse Me Your Planet Is Burning is straight to the point.

There's also the earth mother Martha Tilston with her song Good World and the enchanting Tina Malia's Heal This Land. Caribou by Ellen Francis is another inspiring tune. On the quirky end of the spectrum there's Olivia Chrestomanci's eerie song Encounters at the End of the World and Vermillion Lies circus-esque melody Global Warming.

Of course Michael Jackson's been singing it mainstream for years. We Are The World, Heal the World and Earth Song were written long before this eco craze kick-started when An Inconvenient Truth spread across the world. The lyrics from Earth Song in particular were an obvious forewarning: ‘what have we done to the world, what about all the peace you pledged, what about all the green that you said was yours and mine, did you ever stop to notice this crying earth'.

And then there are the parodies. Peggy Seeger's Bush Went To Kyoto and Erica Rowell and James Wang's My Favourite Things reach those who figure they may as well have a laugh when you give an eco sermon.

From Sonny Rollins (think Miles Davis) who brought out a solely instrumental piece called Global Warming to social-activist/meditator/hip-hop-artist Ashel Seasunz's Sunshine rap song - all genres are covered but there's always room for more.

Song is but another way to be part of the solution - if you don't think you can write a tune, sing a tune. If only one other hears your hum, you're helping to spread the good green eco message.

I was thinking when I returned from my one venture (to get chocolate supplies for the snow in) into the blizzard of white that was yesterday - how green is snow?

When I say green, I really mean eco-friendly. Here's the thing... I live on a very busy road and I have a A106 fly-over virtually in my backyard. Needless to say it's a pretty noisy place to live with all that traffic bumbling about outside the lounge room. But when the snow blew in on Sunday afternoon... well... the motor grumbling buzz of cars, buses and motorbikes softened. Partly because there was less traffic on the road, partly because the snow absorbed some of the vibrational noise. The less people on the roads - the less CO2 released into the atmosphere. So the way I see it snow's kind of green.

I wonder if that polar bear they found floating in the Thames last week is feeling at home in this icy weather. In case you missed it - the global warming art was created to launch the new natural history based TV channel Eden TV. The 16 foot high sculpture, which took fifteen artists two months to make, floated all the way from Greenwich to Tower Bridge in the hope it would raise awareness on the plight of the endangered bear and it's dwindling habitat due to climate change.

Let's hope the snow and the polar bears save our earth climatic catastrophe.

Seabuckthorn is one of those lesser known though often used plants found in natural cosmetic products because of the brilliant healing and skin softening properties it contains.

It is the high saturated and polyunsaturated fats in the seabuckthorn that enable it to be used in skin creams and liniments. Also high in antioxidants it can be used in cosmetic formulations to help inflammatory disorders, cell anti-ageing, to enhancing microcirculation, epidermal regeneration and is a natural UV blocker.

The seabuckthorn is a dioceious plant, which means it has separate male and female plants. The male produces brown flowers that produce the pollen and the female produces orange berries, rich in oil, which is the part that is used in cosmetics. The kinds of products you may find it in moisturisers, soaps, sun lotions and perfumes.

Though it can grow all over the world - from Sweden to Mongolia, Pakistan to Nepal, even here in the UK, 90% of seabuckthorn is found in China where the shrub is used for soil and conservation purposes. Its basal shoot system makes this plant a good wind break. It also helps to stabilize riverbanks and steep slopes.

The seabuckthorn is edible and quite nutritious though does have quite an acidic, astringent taste. One of the greatest sources of Vitamin C, it has about twelve times the amount found in oranges! You can use it to make pies, juices, liqures and in Finland it's even used as a nutritional ingredient in baby food.

It has been used by herbalists over the centuries to relieve coughs, aid digestion, help blood circulation, treat gastritis and diarrhea, eczema, conjunctivitis, metabolic disorders and rheumatoid arthritis.

We're certainly on a good way toward greening our lives these days. We think of good ideas in all areas of our lives - house, the office, the wardrobe, the kitchen pantry, the beauty regime - to become more eco-friendly for the sake of a cleaner planet. The most hopeful and persistent of us try to sweep up our partners, children and workmates up in our enthusiasm. But our about our loyal pets - the best friends who seek our affections for the sake of a little comfort, a good feed and to pleasing us? They too deserve a bit of the eco action.

These days you can get everything from compostable doggie poop bags, natural shampoos, natural pet bedding and organic pet food. A study by Mintel found that 22 million dog and cat owners spend £1.6 billion on food each year. That is quite a sum and a sum that could include a larger organic slice of the green pie if the rising trend in eco-pets continues to rise.

Some eco-pet favourites of ours are the 100% biodegradable and compostable Dump It Onya doggy poop bags, the dog shampoo by John Masters and the hand made organic hemp bed by Mango Mutt.