Open Planet Lets You Download & Use 4,500 Free Videos That Document Nature & Climate Change

Plas­tic pol­lu­tion in the Red Sea…

A melt­ing glac­i­er in Ice­land…

Trees scorched by a wild­fire in Aus­tralia…

As the effects of cli­mate change become increas­ing­ly dire, we’ve grown accus­tomed to such grim­ly sober­ing visions.

Some look away.

Oth­ers work to height­en aware­ness of these clear and present envi­ron­men­tal dan­gers.

And some strive to imple­ment inno­v­a­tive solu­tions before it’s too late:

Solar pan­els in Cos­ta Rica

Bub­ble bar­ri­ers fil­ter­ing plas­tic refuse from Amsterdam’s canals…

Sus­tain­able agro­forestry in the Ama­zon.

A class­room full of desks con­struct­ed from recy­cled one-time use plas­tics in India…

The cre­ators of Open Plan­et, a soon-to-launch free footage library, hope to sup­port change-mak­ing orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als by sup­ply­ing video that can be edit­ed togeth­er into nar­ra­tives to “inspire opti­mism and action in this deci­sive decade for our plan­et.”

Car­o­line Petit, who pri­or­i­tizes edu­ca­tion and aware­ness in her posi­tion as Deputy Direc­tor for the Unit­ed Nations Region­al Infor­ma­tion Cen­tre for Europe, hails Open Plan­et for sup­ply­ing world­wide free access to high-qual­i­ty, accu­rate footage:

At this halfway point of the Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals, it is cru­cial to pro­vide all pos­si­ble tools to super­charge the break­throughs need­ed to achieve them. Cap­tur­ing hearts and minds to moti­vate action is one pow­er­ful way to do so.

Enlist­ing some non-humans play­ers to help achieve that end is a sound idea.

Behold a Nepal Gray Lan­gur moth­er and baby hang­ing out in the tree­tops…

Chee­tah cubs play­ful­ly spar­ring with each oth­er in Kenya’s Masai Mara Nation­al Reserve…

A group of Pash­mi­na goats peace­ful­ly graz­ing on wild sea buck­thorn berries on the high plateaus of Ladakh.

Open Plan­et’s 4,500 clip strong col­lec­tion also teems with pho­to­genic birds, insects, and marine life, with more being added all the time.

Stu­dio Sil­ver­back, which is col­lab­o­rat­ing with Carnegie Mel­lon University’s CREATE Lab on this project, cre­at­ed some of the footage specif­i­cal­ly for the plat­form.

The remain­der has been donat­ed by out­side film­mak­ers, broad­cast­ers, and pro­duc­tion com­pa­nies who are cred­it­ed in their clips’ con­tent details.

In advance of its 2024 glob­al launch, Open Plan­et has released a most­ly uplift­ing 74-clip spot­light col­lec­tion drawn from over 2000 pieces of footage filmed in India

A look at the plat­for­m’s search­able fil­ter themes reminds us that the pic­ture is not so over­whelm­ing­ly rosy, but also makes a strong case that change is pos­si­ble:

Bio­di­ver­si­ty

Cli­mate

Con­sump­tion

Defor­esta­tion

Ener­gy

Extreme Weath­er

Food

Human Health

Land Man­age­ment

Nat­ur­al Dis­as­ters

Nature-only

Pol­lu­tion

Waste

Water

Sus­tain­able Future

Tech­nol­o­gy

Explore Open Planet’s footage library and cre­ate a free account to down­load the clips of your choice here. The videos are free to use for edu­ca­tion­al, envi­ron­men­tal and impact sto­ry­telling.

via Colos­sal

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Watch 50 Hours of Nature Sound­scapes from the BBC: Sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly Proven to Ease Stress and Pro­mote Hap­pi­ness & Awe

Carl Sagan Warns Con­gress about Cli­mate Change (1985)

Frank Capra’s Sci­ence Film The Unchained God­dess Warns of Cli­mate Change in 1958

– Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo and Cre­ative, Not Famous Activ­i­ty Book. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.