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China, eco-cities, Arup. Er, Arup?

So it's Sunday night and I'm browsing through Slashdot, when this Guardian article caught my eye: British to help China build 'eco-cities'

The eco-cities are intended to be self-sufficient in energy, water and most food products, with the aim of zero emissions of greenhouse gases in transport systems.

Sounds fairly encouraging. Oh, and as is always the case with these type of deals, there is a press release from Arup, the company hired for the job. Check for an Arup office near you!

Video previews, an Earth pod and more

Being the young and growing organization that it is, Current TV seems to be constantly tweaking its website -- for the better. Me, being the Current TV fan that can't actually watch it, I get a little frustrated. But luckily, they've thrown me a bone in the form of video previews. And I like what I see.

Another change is that one can now browse what is airing by "pod" category. Low and behold, there is an Earth pod just for us. Yippee! In it we find a clip on saving gorilla and rhino habitat, two (!) on climate change in Alaska, another on hurricanes, and one animated short on Bush and his love for oil.

Those of you who have been keeping up with my Current TV posts might notice a few clips missing from the Earth pod. You'll find them categorized elsewhere: "A Visit with Cody" (Current Casa) and "From the Fry Daddy to Your Car" (Current Ride).

And there is a new clip awaiting the greenlight in the Current studio on the Solar Decathlon that was recently featured in our own Grist List. IMHO, this one definitely deserves to be on air and is example of the type of video I'd like to see on Grist. If you agree, submit your greenlight vote.

Renewable energy investments booming

Joel Makower brings word of a very encouraging report on global investment in renewable energy. The picture is the same as always -- renewables are a tiny sliver of the total energy-investment picture, but growing rapidly -- but exciting in that the sliver is larger than you thought and growing faster than you thought. Give it a look.

It’s easy if you try

As I was walking my two-month-old (already!) son around the neighborhood the other day, I started daydreaming. It was silly, and I wasn't going to bother writing about it, but then I saw a post on eliminating the private automobile (hat tip: Jeff) and thought, hell, my daydream is only a little kookier than that, so why not?

My dream started this way: What if we didn't need roads? What if we just ripped them all out?

How enviros can tap the video game market

I'll echo Dave's sentiment that he expressed in his post "Reaching the hipsters":

What about the hipsters? What about the semi-affluent, college-educated, tech-savvy, media-saturated twenty-somethings with artfully disheveled hair? They are, like it or not, apt to be central players in our culture in coming years ("the next generation," blah blah).

They have no tolerance whatsoever for the kind of earnest, soft-focus appeals most enviro-groups pitch. They are, let's face it, a tad self-absorbed, but they are attracted to all that is innovative, cool, and cutting-edge. Cool hunting is practically a genre unto itself on the net these days. And lots of stuff that's going on in the green world these days fits the bill.

As I've written before, enviro groups might want to consider how they can introduce green themes into television shows and film, as well as develop campaigns to cultivate the emerging phenomenon of participatory journalism. One other unlikely medium that has significant potential is the world of video games.

Reaching the hipsters

So I went to a show this weekend. (A band called My Morning Jacket, whose recorded output, though excellent, scarcely hints at the head-exploding, ball-rocking, thunder-f**king awesomeness of their live performance. I would recommend their latest album, Z, but every copy of the CD is crippled by Sony's absurd digital-rights-management software, and buying that kind of product is as contemptible as selling it. Don't blame the band, though -- they had no idea, they opposed the move when they found out about it, and their label even tells consumers how to circumvent the DRM. In the meantime, just buy It Still Moves or At Dawn from your local music store. Wait, where was I ...)

Anyhoo, I went to this show, and as I checked out the merch table, I wondered why you never see environmental materials at venues like this small club. You see them at, say, Bonnaroo, or a Phish show (back where there were Phish shows), or a Dave Matthews Band show maybe. But they only seem to crop up around bands that are from the hippie-tinged jam-band scene -- i.e., precisely the shows where the attendees are likely already on board with the eco-program. See, for instance, this InterActivist we had, who runs an outfit called Rock the Earth. He works primarily with a band called the String Cheese Incident, and, you know ... god love 'em, but SCI fans are already down with nature. They even smell like it.

What about the hipsters? What about the semi-affluent, college-educated, tech-savvy, media-saturated twenty-somethings with artfully disheveled hair? They are, like it or not, apt to be central players in our culture in coming years ("the next generation," blah blah).

They have no tolerance whatsoever for the kind of earnest, soft-focus appeals most enviro-groups pitch. They are, let's face it, a tad self-absorbed, but they are attracted to all that is innovative, cool, and cutting-edge. Coolhunting is practically a genre unto itself on the net these days. And lots of stuff that's going on in the green world these days fits the bill.

Is anyone trying to snag this crowd? Is anyone tailoring a message to them? Is there anything I could imagine seeing on that merch table that wouldn't make me cringe, that might actually turn some heads?

I got no answers, only this persistent ringing in my ears. Any ideas?

Wise-use movement gaining political strength from fundamentalist Christians

Or so argues a new book by Stephenie Hendricks -- Divine Destruction: Wise Use, Dominion Theology, and the Making of American Environmental Policy, excerpted in the latest Seattle Weekly.

Nut 'graph from the excerpt:

[T]he widespread acceptance of anti-environmental thinking in the guise of Wise Use is made more troubling in that there are increasingly close ties between those who subscribe to the ideas of Wise Use and members of fundamentalist Christian churches and organizations. The Wise Use movement's influence over religious conservatives thus mirrors the traditional relationship between religious and political conservatives in that Wise Use advocates are increasingly adapting their own agenda to include the concerns of religious voters. In so doing, they have gained an army of God to promote their own agenda.

RenewAmerica columnist claims

I have three things to say about this "issues analysis" from RenewAmerica columnist Fred Hutchison, who claims global warming is a crock:

First of all, does this strike anyone else as a bit too coincidental?

Readers who wish to try the smell test might go to any Environmentalist or Global Warming interactive web site with an intelligent criticism and see if they can get an intelligent answer. If the Global Warming advocates flunk the smell test, should one join with Horatio and say "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark"? Not at all. If we jump to hasty conclusions, we become just as bad as the partisans of junk science.

Environmentalist or Global Warming interactive web site? "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark"? This is obviously a direct attack on Grist!

Poll on impeachment comes up with strong results

Twelve hundred voters voted in a new poll,  and the results are in: 53 percent of Americans want to impeach Prez Bush, and 42 percent don't. That'd be 76 percent of Democrats, 29 percent of Republicans, and 100 percent of environmentalists. Ha, just kidding about the environmentalists part.

Hm. Interesting. I'm skeptical, to be honest. I know Bush's approval rating has dropped, but come on -- almost 1 in 3 Republicans want to impeach him?

Also, the question on the poll was very awkwardly worded: Do you agree or disagree that if President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment?

Um?

There's a 2.9 percent margin of error, too, which, if I remember my Sociology minor correctly, is somewhat hefty.

AND if the sample is adjusted from "Adults" (PDF) to "Likely Voters" (PDF), the numbers become 51 percent support, 45 percent don't.

What do you think, oh politically knowledgeable Grist readers? Let the picketing begin, or just more liberal propaganda?

Climate heroes

Congrats to Amanda for her work on the big new Salon/Rolling Stone package on "Climate Warriors and Heroes." It's pretty great -- a nice overview of the many approaches to fighting the fight of our time. And I quite enjoyed Al Gore's essay as well. He's doing an adept job framing the issue not as scientific or political but moral: What kind of people do we want to be? Powerful stuff. Give it a read.