Video

Green mideast peace

Cool video from Current about a nonprofit in Israel that brings kids together across borders to work on water problems:

Digital TV delay could be win for environment

Anyone with a working TV set has likely seen the ubiquitous ads educating the public about the Feb. 17 switch to all-digital broadcasting. But millions of Americans still aren't prepared and could miss out on important news and emergency broadcasts -- a fact that has led President-elect Barack Obama to urge a delay in the transition.

Such a delay could be a perfect opportunity for manufacturers to improve their recycling programs, say activists from the Electronics TakeBack Coalition. The ETBC recently put together a report card ranking the major TV companies on their take-back policies. Highest-ranked Sony got a B- for leading the pack with the first national take-back program, but more than half of the 17 companies got failing grades for having no programs in place at all.

This week, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, ETBC has been calling attention to the lack of take-back programs -- and the electronic waste that will be created when a "tsunami" of analog TVs hit the landfill -- with a cadre of TV zombies (see video below). [Note to ETBC: Didn't you get the memo about vampires being the undead of the hour?]

Lou Dobbs leaves CNN viewers dumber about climate change

"Yes," you say, "I know Lou Dobbs is a knuckle-dragger when it comes to immigration and Latinos. But is he similarly idiotic when it comes to climate change?"

Here's your answer:

Goodbye to the clamshell?

I rarely buy be-clamshelled merchandise any more, but I remember it with horror, so this seems like excellent news:

Reality Coalition releases new ad spoofing coal industry

The Reality Coalition has another installment of its campaign pointing out that “clean coal” doesn’t really exist. This one, “COALergy: Leave Climate Change to Us,” spoofs coal-industry advertising:

A new video from Green Gorilla, on MTR

The new episode from Green Gorilla, on mountaintop removal mining:

Friday music blogging: Stephen Colbert

In an age of commodified holidays, only irony can protect that small core of genuine feeling from the depredations of a culture that seeks at every turn to exploit it. Holiday spirit is only possible through irony. With that, I give you “Another Christmas Song” from Stephen Colbert’s excellent Christmas Special:

Attempting to un-vex the vexing subject of cap-and-dividend

I was on a conference call earlier this week focused on cap-and-dividend. (You can download the MP3.) C&D, if you don’t recall, is a kind of hybrid cap-and-trade/carbon tax developed by Peter Barnes. A fee would be levied on fossil fuels; the revenue would be refunded to citizens on an equal per capita basis. (Imagine […]

Create a ‘Why I heart Grist’ video for Project for Awesome

Do you love Grist? How about making videos? And it’s probably safe to assume you’re OK with awesome-ness, right? Yeah? Well, you’re in luck. Here’s your chance to tell the world why you think Grist is so “intelligent,” “relevant,” and “downright funny” (as it’s been said before). In partnership with YouTube, Hank and John Green […]