SustainLane UnsustainablesAnimation works wonders at getting messages across. You may have watched Sam Suds search out the dangers of PVC. Or maybe you've seen the little globe caricature employed by Environmental Defense for (most recently) their Globie Awards. Or their partnership with Disney to enlist The Little Mermaid in spreading the word about the importance of clean oceans. SustainLane has created a whole series of animated shorts featuring the Unsustainables.

Five episodes featuring an animated cast of good intentioned folks who are "stumbling towards the future." An over eager hummer driver who idles while waiting for his fair trade coffee on "spare the air day"; a man who plants trees to hang his hammock; and a fountain statue who keeps herself clean with a toxic scrub to the dismay of park goers. They don't quite get their environmental impacts, but they're trying.

Even Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, utilized an animated sequence by Simpson's creator Matt Groening. And ask anyone who has seen that film if they recall the computer generated polar bear drowing on a dwindling patch of ice.

These cartoons make environmental issues more accessible and perhaps a little easier to digest. The creators of enviro comic strip, Rustle the Leaf, say on their site that: "Rustle and his pals may seem like simple cartoons, but we know they are far more… They are engaging, memorable, straight-talking abassadors for our cause… and our future."

Know of other animated environmental messages? Tell us about them.