messaging

Amanda Lumry, children’s book author, answers questions

Amanda Lumry. What work do you do? I am an author and photographer for the Adventures of Riley children’s book series, which educates children about the environment and entertains them at the same time. I am also the cofounder of Eaglemont Press, based in Bellevue, Wash. How does it relate to the environment? The Adventures […]

Could TV and film be the key to the renewable energy revolution?

On several occasions I have written about television shows and movies. In doing so, I've tried (albeit unsuccessfully) to start a discussion about the impact they have on audiences when they address environmental issues and/or feature eco-friendly products (hybrids, windmills, etc).

Recently, I issued a call asking (and paraphrasing Bill McKibben): "Where are the movies? The TV shows? The comics? The bleeping video games?"

I believe exposure to such content will help introduce enviro concepts to consumers of pop culture, create awareness (you mean windmills aren't only a Dutch thing?), educate (hey, I didn't realize you could fit two dead bodies in the back of a Toyota Prius!), and start a conversation (do you think Julia Roberts drinks organic soy milk in real life?).

That said, I direct you to a recent piece (based on a true story) by our friend Joel Makower. Our story begins:

(Fade in: two small children running around in a playground. Pan right: A hybrid car slowly drives by while the blades of huge windmills rotate in the background. Narrator's voice begins ... )

If you could pay an extra five or ten bucks a month to help reduce global warming, childhood asthma, rolling brownouts, the national debt, and the threats of Al-Qaeda, would you bother? I'm guessing you'd think that a no-brainer.

So, why aren't you buying clean energy?

The question has been befuddling everyone from environmental activists to utility executives. Nearly every American, it seems, understands that generating electricity from the sun, the wind, the earth's heat, or gases generated by rotting waste is good news for everyone -- the planet, people's health, national security, and the economy.

So, what's the problem? They just don't think clean energy works.

Ad features naked men and phallic-shaped sustainable lumber

Imagine my delight at seeing this on the side of my bus: "Choose your wood responsibly," beckons the ad for Seattle's Environmental Home Center, a mecca for green home improvement. (See the full ad in PDF form here.)

Planting the seeds of sustainability in pop culture.

Okay. It is Friday and the last day of Grist's summer publishing break -- which means a little diversion from the more serious posts.

Now, the images below are not conceptual renderings of DestiNY part deux, but pics of Olympus, a fictional "utopian" city featured in the anime movie Appleseed. While I won't go on and rave about this movie as I did with Sky Blue, I did want to mention that Olympus had a few interesting qualities.

One, a million solar roofs that would make Arnold envious. (Okay, so I'm not sure how many there were, but it seemed like a million).

Two, green roofs.

Three, Olympus seemed to be an efficiently dense city.

Four, it is run by Gaia! (So what if this Gaia is actually a self evolving computer network -- they used the term Gaia!)

Environmentalism and liberalism shouldn’t be joined at the hip.

A couple of quick prefatory remarks -- several readers interpreted my earlier posting as an attack on liberalism. That was not my intent at all: While I am not a liberal, as the saying goes, "Some/most of my best friends are liberals." The only goal of the previous posting, and the one that follows, is to suggest the harm that comes from automatically coupling liberalism with environmentalism.

In my previous post, I discussed our movement's international problems. But back in America, we're not doing much better. When the American environmental movement began, Lake Erie was on fire, the bald eagle was on the verge of extinction, and L.A. was choking on its own smog. When environmental regulations seemed to reduce these problems, the public was all for them. But as regulations multiplied, environmentalism became associated in many minds with costly regulatory expenditures, failed Superfund clean-ups, and lots of bureaucratic red tape. Big government enviroliberalism took over a grassroots movement.

Why should liberalism be the Siamese twin of environmentalism? If I am pro-life, against affirmative action, or for private accounts in Social Security, does that mean I don't care about protecting forest ecosystems or saving blue whales?

Will KIA’s ads give car sharing a boost?

Last night, mindless TV called. An ad came on that I've seen before, but never focused on. It's for the KIA Sportage (which I really want to pronounce with a lovely French accent), and shows a series of people driving the same car, tossing the keys to each other as they go. Wow: car sharing hits prime time! This is almost as good as hybrids on Alias.

I know, I know, I'm being too literal. KIA's point is simply that this vehicle works for all kinds of different people. But along the way, the company makes sharing a car look pretty darn zippy. Maybe it'll get viewers thinking ... (naw -- see first line).

Even more Verdopolis

The very bestest Verdopolis coverage in the whole galaxy is, of course, ours. However, should you want to sample what else the web has to offer, there's more over on Treehugger, covering a speech (delivered via DVD!?) by the justly legendary Bill McDonough.

An elevator pitch for environmentalism

Update [2005-3-14 9:31:34 by Dave Roberts]: The Elevator Pitch contest is over! (You can continue suggesting ideas, but they won't be entered in the contest.)

The American Prospect is running a contest: develop an "elevator pitch" for liberalism. An elevator pitch -- familiar to folks desperate to raise money (hi) -- refers to a short, pithy summary of the benefits of one's project. Conservatives, the Prospectors say, have a familiar elevator pitch (strong defense, lower taxes, fewer gay people, etc.), but people are constantly baffled as to what liberalism "stands for." (You can read a few Prospect readers' attempts here.)

"Hm," I thought. "What does environmentalism stand for? Aside from this or that piece of legislation, what is environmentalism's elevator pitch?"

So, with apologies/thanks to the Prospect, I'm ripping off their idea and starting a contest of my own.

Submit an elevator pitch for environmentalism in comments. It must be no more than 30 words. Pitches longer than that will be disqualified. Imagine yourself in an elevator with a skeptical but open-minded Average Citizen. You have seven floors to make your pitch. What does environmentalism offer them? What does it ask of them? What are its core values, its core vision?  Try to limit your comment to a pitch -- if you want to discourse on the larger issue of environmentalism's future, you can do so over on this post.

The winner -- as determined by the Contest Dictator, i.e., me -- will win a highly coveted, fashion-forward, limited-edition, organic-cotton, still-have-a-few-lying-around-the-office, Very First Official Grist T-shirt (VGOFT) (this is on the front; this is on the back).

I'll announce the winner in a couple of weeks. Go to it!

An excerpt from The War Against the Greens takes a hard look at the Wise Use movement

In 1988, the Wise Use movement was founded out of fear that George Bush Sr. was going to live up to his campaign pledge to be "the environmental president." This cabal of anti-environmental activists, organized by federally subsidized industries dependent on public lands, issued a natal document, the Wise Use Agenda. It called for, among other things: drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, logging Alaska's Tongass National Forest, opening wilderness to energy development, gutting the Endangered Species Act, and privatizing national parks. Today, the reactionary Wise Use Agenda has become the environmental policy of the administration of George Bush Jr.