Water may cover four fifths of the globe, or less (I actually have no idea how much of the globe water covers), but the stark reality is that fresh water scarcity is becoming a major environmental challenge for communities worldwide. Populations in both developed and developing nations are being affected. Effectively addressing the looming challenges requires hundreds if not thousands of strategies, some that can be coordinated on a global scale and others that can be implemented locally. Fortunately, those solutions are already underway.

Check out this sneak preview clip of “Big Ideas for a Small Planet: Water” airing tomorrow night on the Sundance Channel, and tune in to see what activists and visionaries are doing to provide for the long-term abundance of this vital resource.

Have you ever been dragged to a documentary by a friend, when you wanted to see the new Steve Carrell flick, but ended up enjoying the film in spite of yourself? The reason you finally gave into liking it could be any of the following reasons: the filmmaker is hot and goes shirtless 75% of the time, there is a mafia component, there are sharks everywhere, it is starring Leo DiCaprio. Sharkwater, has all but one of these. Now here is a freaking cool film that rocks the eco-documentary genre.

October 19-21st was the annual Santa Barbara Ocean Film Festival. Our favorite Canadian and ultimate shark guy, Rob Stewart, won Best Picture Award for his documentary, Sharkwater. Back in May, we had the shark master on the show to chat about the Taiwanese mafia, Shark Fin Soup (although The Lazy E did partake in this delicacy while in China, he promises to never eat it again), Costa Rican prisons, speedos, and the precarious balance of the earth’s oceans. With the shark population rapidly decreasing, the entire food chain is thrown out of whack. And when the sharks go, the plankton goes too and that’s a big problem because plankton supply about 3/4 of the oxygen that we all need to survive.

But this film is important not only because of the whole plankton aspect. Instead, the cinematography is exceptional, (Rob is a National Geographic photographer); it’s exciting to watch him elude international poachers; and it stars the sea animal most logically compared to a Harley Davidson. Put these together and you have Sharkwater, a smash hit.