Celebrities such as Julia Roberts, Harrison Ford and Kevin Spacey are literally giving Mother Nature a voice, highlighting some of Earth's biggest environmental problems as part of a clever new video campaign that launched Monday.
Should humanity cease to exist on this beautiful planet one day, Mother Nature, as Julia Roberts tells it, won't really care.
"I've been here for eons," she says in the 2-minute-long video. "I've fed species greater than you. And I've starved greater species than you. My oceans, my soil, my flowing streams, my forests: They all can take you - or leave you... Your actions will determine your fate. Not mine."
Roberts' brief monologue is just one of several videos recently released by Washington, D.C.-based Conservation International (CI) and co-created with Lee Clow, the ad legend responsible for Apple's Think Different campaign, according to CI's blog.
In this series of 10 short films, collectively called "Nature Is Speaking," other Hollywood A-listers besides Roberts join in giving nature a voice. Harrison Ford lends his distinctive tone to a frustrated ocean tired of humans taking "more than their share," Kevin Spacey plays a smug rainforest, while Edward Norton as The Soil, reminiscent of his role in "Fight Club," has some anger issues.
And who wouldn't want to listen to Penelope Cruz's enchanting voice speak for fresh water, or Robert Redford play a wise and fatherly Redwood tree.
These mini movies, not quite commercials but not exactly public service announcements, are more than just pretty voices and beautiful landscapes. Rather, "Nature Is Speaking" serves as a wake-up call for the human race, which continues to abuse the world's natural resources.
According to Dr. M. Sanjayan, EVP and senior scientist at CI, the campaign was designed to rebrand the conservation debate and do a better job at showing people why treating nature better is important.
"We thought the idea of giving nature a voice, nature having been around billions of years longer than humans, might make it clear to all of us that the planet will evolve with or without humans. It's our choice," Clow said in a press release.
"By making it clear that people need nature to survive," Sanjayan added, "we are turning the conversation around and making the movement relevant to entirely new audiences."
The films debuted Monday night at SXSW Eco in Austin, Texas, and can be found at www.natureisspeaking.org.