TV

Pat Michaels slanders Al Gore on Fox’s Hannity & Colmes

I just sent the following email to Fox News and Pat Michaels:

The CEI ads

OMFG, so, I finally went and watched the TV ads to be aired by the Competitive Enterprise Institute a week before An Inconvenient Truth is released.

I'm not sure what I expected, but these things are genuinely funny. They look like nothing so much as a parody produced by Saturday Night Live. The tag line -- the last line of the ad, read dramatically as a little girl blows a dandelion -- is: "Carbon dioxide. They call it pollution. We call it life."

It's a pro-CO2 ad. Seriously. It turns out, we breathe CO2 out. And plants absorb it. It comes from animals! And oceans! Who could hate it?

As though there were a huge cabal of people out there who viewed this particular molecule as intrinsically evil.

Obviously, I'm not in the target audience. But I can't imagine anyone being persuaded by something so self-evidently absurd. I guess we'll see, though.

(One thing to note: It's "some politicians" and "global warming alarmists" making these claims about global warming. Not, say, scientists.)

Update [2006-5-17 15:48:57 by David Roberts]: Oh, I also meant to draw attention to a classic interview with CEI founder Fred Smith, from which this amazing passage is drawn:

President Al Gore’s SOTU

Somewhere, in an alternate reality ...

Thanks SNL!

Update [2006-5-15 11:10:13 by David Roberts]: It appears the video was yanked off YouTube. For now, at least, it's still available on Crooks & Liars.

Update [2006-5-16 15:11:25 by David Roberts]: It's also available on iFilm.

Media Shower: Al over the place

On Thursday, Dave attended a press screening of An Inconvenient Truth, so expect a review of it soon. And on Tuesday, May 2nd, he'll be chatting with the star of the film, Al Gore. If you have any burning questions, just let Dave know.

In related news, David Remnick of the The New Yorker published a glowing review of his own, in which he writes: "An Inconvenient Truth is not the most entertaining film of the year. But it might be the most important." Word.

Summer Rayne Oakes hosts new television show

Back in February, I mentioned that Summer Rayne Oakes was filming a "new, entertaining, environmentally-charged show." After contacting the eco-fashionista's PR firm, I was told I would be among the first to get more details. "Yeah, right," is what I thought to myself. Yet, months later, what do I find in my inbox but a press release:

Media Shower: The MTV generation

A lot of media companies have been jumping on the stop-global-warming bandwagon lately, but few are as influential with the kids as MTV:

Following President Bush's State of the Union declaration earlier this year that "America is addicted to oil," MTV announced today the network's latest pro-social initiative, BREAK THE ADDICTION, a year-long campaign to engage, educate and empower young people to take simple, daily actions that can have a measurable impact in the fight against global warming. The campaign will launch with a channel takeover on Earth Day, Saturday, April 22, including an on-air, online and wireless messaging campaign about how to help stop global warming, break-ins to regularly scheduled programming that offer environmental lessons, multiple public service announcements (PSAs), and an MTV News package introducing BREAK THE ADDICTION, featuring a leading young environmental activist.

BREAK THE ADDICTION is MTV's year-long recovery program aimed at mobilizing a new generation of environmental activists. On-air, online and on wireless, the initiative will connect the audience to simple, daily tips, as well as in-depth resources, to help them recognize and change habits that harm the environment. Viewers will be directed online to think.mtv.com to quantify and track their efforts by the amount of carbon dioxide emissions and dollars saved due to changes they commit to making throughout the year. Supplemental MTV programming - both long-form and news packages - will air throughout the year and the tips will be revealed in daily PSAs on air on MTV, MTV2, and mtvU as well as online and delivered to cell phones. Additional PSAs will appear on mtv.com, mtv2.com, mtvU.com, MTV Overdrive and mtvU Über. Through partnerships with StopGlobalWarming.org, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Grist.org, World Resources Institute, Student PIRGs, Campus Climate Challenge, and Clean Air-Cool Planet, MTV will go beyond the broadcasts to create online and wireless resources, as well as opportunities for grassroots organizing and outreach.

And as part of our partnership with MTV, we will be providing MTV with select Grist content over the next 12 months. Check it out.

Props to our marketing manager, Brendon Smyth, for making this happen.

Earth Day Network TV

Today, the Earth Day Network launched Earth Day Network TV (currently streaming: a live panel discussion on matters earthly, accompanied by a live chat).

You'll also find a variety of videos submitted from different groups, on subjects ranging from renewable energy to climate change to trailers for environmental-media projects.

Here is some info included in an email that I received back in March:

[The network] will include hours of interviews, documentaries, film clips and compelling visual and interactive information on climate change from leading independent films such as "Nobelity" and "The Great Warming", cable television networks such as Lime, public and broadcast television networks and leading television production groups. The Earth Day TV Network will be available worldwide to anyone with high speed internet, and will look much like a regular television broadcast. EDN is partnering with Google Video as part of this IPTV launch.

For more info on today's live chat, go here.

NYT on environmental programming

Tonight, PBS will be airing "Nova: Dimming the Sun" and "Journey to Planet Earth: The State of the Planet's Wildlife." (Check local listings.)

Over in the television section of The New York Times you'll find a review of these two shows, as well as HBO's "Too Hot Not to Handle" that Dave wrote about here.

When television is such a mathematical word problem, it hurts the idle brain. But idling is exactly the problem, and three nationwide Cassandra cries dominate this week's public-affairs programming, with urgent calls for action. "Journey to Planet Earth: The State of the Planet's Wildlife," being shown tonight on PBS, explains the increasingly inhospitable outlook for all earthly creatures. The "Nova" report "Dimming the Sun," also on PBS tonight, complicates matters with the latest findings about how pollution has masked the effects of global warming. And on Saturday HBO declares the whole climate-change crisis "Too Hot Not to Handle."

If you watch any of these, feel free to write your own review here.

A broadband TV channel for environmental films

Environmental media is blooming on the internets these days. The folks over at Treehugger are keeping on schedule by pumping out a new video each week. The latest piece is on organic and biodynamic wines.

Along the same lines, I discovered that Daryl Hannah has launched a weekly video blog called dh love life, where she'll cover issues like biodiesel to green building.

And late this week I got word of green.tv (a domain I wish I grabbed myself):