the greener side

Al Gore talks clean tech, Copenhagen

Shortly after President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this morning, fellow laureate Al Gore spoke about the triple threats of climate change, an unraveled economy and global (in)security.

I shoved my point-and-shoot Canon at him--well, from a polite distance--in the second row of a packed crowd at the Society of Environmental Journalists conference in Madison, Wis.

I wanted to ask him, "Hey, where are all the green jobs?! Where's our green WPA? What would you do as president here?" Alas, other folks beat me to the microphone. (Is it worth noting that some of their questions were inane to the point of eliciting jeers from the audience? One fellow had the mic turned off and yanked from his face.)

I was hoping that Gore or some other journalist would read my mind and bring up the subject of all those green jobs that are supposed to glow on the happy horizon, but the answers to my questions remain up in the air.

Some 15 million Americans remain unemployed, among them (perhaps scores of) laid-off journalists in the room. It's been sobering during the SEJ conference to run across some of the nation's finest environmental reporters living on unemployment benefits.

Which clean technologies does the former vice president think hold the most promise? Is Gore a bore or are we a society of ADHD-riddled bimbos who fail to pay attention to well-reasoned warnings at our peril?

Check out my post at CleanTechies for more or view the videos below.

Al Gore: Clean energy to solve triple threats

Al Gore: Supergrid, energy storage to boost economy

Al Gore: Look for wave of efficiency

Al Gore: Supergrid will enhance wind power 

Al Gore: China gets urgency of climate crisis

A view from the road in Rwanda

Will is gonna die of embarrassment, but check out this video of his trip to a pygmy village with New York Times reporter Nick Kristof. We talk about green building in North America in terms of wheatboard cabinets and $40,000 solar panels, but look where this woman and her family live.

When Jessamay and I went to Brazil with Will a few years ago, all the ladies called him "Brad Peet" since Brad and Jennifer Aniston happened to be visiting Rio. Will was down with camping out in hostel bunkbeds, but being cultural imperialists,credit card owners (who are stil paying off the trip today, ahem), Jessamay and I carted the three of us to a suite in Ipanema and spent a day in salons. Poor Will found a way to do his own thing.

Will's an incredible photographer and teacher who's been documenting the wild

West Side of Chicago for years. He refuses to sell out--er, sell his work. Instead, he gives the pictures back to the people who are in them. If you're jealous that he won the NYT trip, just remember karma: some cretin recently stole his computer, camera equipment and digital photographs from his and Naomi's apartment.

The New Orleans you might miss

Hasn't New Orleans dried out and begun resprouting as a green, sustainable city? Sure, much of it stewed for weeks in water teeming with 45,000 the amount of bacteria safe for swimming (not to mention those pesky heavy metals, organochlorines and stuff). But the EPA recently gave the environmental conditions down there a green light anyway. Can't we just load up some barges with mushrooms to float down the Mississippi and deep clean the Gulf Coast upon arrival?

New Orleans' woes may be forgotten in the headlines, but they're not gone. It's a mess and much of it is far from habitable. What's taking so long to get this place back on its feet? Brad Pitt can only do so much. So who's rebuilding the city without gloves, face masks, or goggles?
To find out, watch New Orleans' secret history in the making in this 11-minute movie. It airs Thursday on Current TV ("Al Gore's station" is channel 107 in SF)--or at any time right here.

About a year after Katrina, Miguel flew down to New Orleans from SF on a whim. Armed with Gregory's camera, yet without knowing a soul in the city or a lick about making a documentary, Miguel chatted up strangers over the course of a week and wrapped up the editing in less than a month. Check out his raw footage of the ongoing dirty work in what some might call Nueva Orleans.

Said Miguel on location in September:"Why aren't there tons of trucks over here cleaning up? You'd think you were at the end of the world, and the center of the world is here...It's really twisted. It's so f***ing heartbreaking. This place will change your life, it's unreal. This isn't reality. What the hell, I don't know what to say about it."

Rest, post-Green Fest

Everything's coming up way too green this month, and I can't keep up. There were round-the-block lines outside the Grist party Friday night, then so many organic raspberry vodkas leading to logorrhea--and then spotting Siel (aka GreenLAGirl), David (Grist), and other nice sustainadrinkers.

I shared a taxi to the Common Vision party at Cellspace, partied up by an old school crowd--the type deemed too dredful by hesitant, would-be environmentalists these days. It was a pretty hardcore bunch, and I belonged to the combed-hair minority. Ah, ultragreen sights and scents (someone has to keep incense vendors fed). But I admit, even in my double-breasted jacket, I got into it during the nonprofit's film about its biofuel bus tour. They planted 1,000 trees in 20 cities with helping hands from schoolchildren more eager than most of us to let loose with the big drums. Imagine looking left to right and seeing reverential gazes all down the line. Been there, done...time to go.

Next, the d7tv launch party (go watch Yoga Girl, Raw pumpkin slaw, and web 2.0 party crashing) kept me from sleeping much. Saturday and Sunday were merciless--blame the Green Festival. Saturday night, the Sustainlane party at the W Hotel mixed bare feet and strappy heels, tie-dyes and neckties. Watch above (or click here) for one man's blissful toe-jamming session.

The Raging Grannies rocked the Green Fest on Sunday. Their getup is equal parts Susan B. Anthony and Medea Benjamin, bridging the centuries with a lady punk flair: straw hats brimming with flowers and political buttons, magenta and cotton-candy hues, yellow police caution strips too. They held those MOMS (Make our Milk Safe) "Target: Phase Out PVC" signs. Looks like rocket fuel and toxic flame retardants are tasteless in breast milk. I was prepping my camera when a 50something man next to me wondered aloud about filming them: "Is it worth it? Is it worth it?" Judge yourself--here's my micro-movie (or below).

As we were rushed out of the exhibition hall to return our Zipcar in time, blurring past the LED lightbulbs, chopstick colanders, Bidematic, and Oeko-Tek-certified latex beds, I said hey to Summer of BTC Elements--who was still selling a cute cashmere sweater and was one of the few, unwilting souls still holding down a booth past 6pm. 

It's Monday Tuesday already and my solar cells are sapped, so I couldn't hang around after work to hear Darryl Hannah talk about food at the Commonwealth Club or to crash the Zipcar party down the street at 111 Minna (same watering hole for Grist, il y a 3 nights). Good night~

Crowd catches Clinton's clean tech bug

A crowd of a few thousand San Franciscans held its collective breath for a few hours outside City Hall last night to hear Bill Clinton pump a California ballot measure that would make oil companies pay higher taxes per barrel to fund cleaner fuels.

California voters will approve or nix Proposition 87 next week. Behind the event stood the Apollo Alliance, a bunch of big progressive groups pushing for green tech to create jobs, address climate change, and wean the U.S. off of foreign oil.

In the pre-Clinton hours, a dude from Third Eye Blind sang, then Bonnie Raitt did too. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom introduced District Attorney Kamala Harris basically by calling her a hottie. Desperate housewife Eva Longoria lauded Clinton bilingually, and the 42nd president's victory song burst from the speakers as he took the stage.

Do we really have to nerve to let Fleetwood Mac turn us on these days? You can take those lyrics with equal fatalism and optimism: "Don't stop thinking about tomorrow...Yesterday's gone." Which yesterday is that: that buried era this man ushered in circa 1992, or the future's yesterday that we're surviving now, from 2000 until--?

"I am so tired of America being the caboose on the world's train to the future," Clinton said.

Clean tech dealmakers like Vinod Khosla want Prop 87 to "create a new Cleantech Silicon Valley." Already, more venture capital is funneling into clean tech than all those wiggy new Web 2.0 startups. But to prevent Proposition 87 from passing, big oil interests have spent some $90 million. Lots of the state's editorial pages have sided with the oil industry, saying that the devil of the well-intentioned proposition is in the details that require setting up a brand new state agency.

So does Clinton still ooze infectious sexual isotopes? Miguel shook Clinton's hand twice in the front row, and barely escaped suffocation by panting high-school girls in the process. After most of the crowd ambled home, breathless clusters of hangers-on waved their camera phones in the air, calling for their tow-headed saint to grant a gaze in their direction.

On this same patch of land less than two months ago, another lovefest turned Civic Center and City Hall into a post-pacifier-sucking, neo-psychedelic, electro-yogi-pirate, urban black rock-lite, benevolent-psycho-digital-steampunk, rainbow-glitterati dance orgy. Last night, too, all genders swooned, hip grinding ensued, and the past decade never happened.  I was up on a platform in back and so none of that fairy dust fell on me, but I managed to take these low quality micro movies. Go watch the local evening news if you really want to see it.

Gambling on a green future

Eyeing a sustainable future and willing to bet on it? If green mutual funds aren't slow enough for you, then dig up $200 and place a Long Bet. This project of the Long Now Foundation, makers of the 10,000 year clock, lets you gamble online with noted geniuses and famous futurists.

On the dim side, today's featured wager, placed by knighted astrophysicist Martin Rees, foresees that one event of bioterror or bioerror (rising "from inadvertance rather than evil intent") will wipe out a million souls by 2020. So far the odds are 50/50--the same odds Rees gives our species for lasting another century.

Other predictions are on the brighter side: Also within 14 years, could solar energy be as cheap as fossil fuels? Will the average household keep a room to make a self-sustaining water supply? Will we make huge strides toward clean energy within a decade? And when will people stop denying global warming? To add your wager to the public debate, just don't expect to get your money back; all proceeds will go to charity.

Greener credit: priceless

Plastic is poison in so many ways. Take credit cards; it's not that they'd suddenly be eco-friendly if they were made of kenaf. Instead, credit cards seduce us to live unsustainably. One day you're signing up on campus to get a free teddy bear (ugh--mine wears a bomber jacket and goggles), the next thing you know you're swimming with dolphins in Cancun on a trip that you'll be paying off as a grandparent--if you can afford to have a family in the first place.

Your fault for spending as if MTV cared to film your life. Yet creditors sneer, gladly handing you a fatter line of borrowed money than you can possibly snort. They like you cracked out on consumer debt better than when you soberly pay them back. That's just their business, sort of like the paparazzi and Whitney Houston.

On top of that, your personally unsustainable lifestyle has global ramifications. The road to easy credit is littered with landfills. When you instantly gratify a whim by charging the latest, most incredibly shrinking iPod or whatever, you feed the myth that newness is better than something borrowed or mended. The annoying cycle of mass consumption that we all bitch about but participate in keeps spinning like some fractal screensaver in a stoner's dorm room.

You spend more because you can, you save less because you can't imagine the future, and soon there's less cash in your kitty. You may no longer use credit cards just to keep up with the Joneses; falling incomes and rising debt mean that you're charging basics like gas, health care, and groceries. Creditors often gouge the neediest consumers with outlandish interest rates, trapping them in this cycle.

The more debt you hold onto, the more that Visa, Mastercard, and friends profit. The stronger creditors are, the more power they have to push people around. After decades of handshaking in D.C., creditors uncorked the Veuve last October when a bankruptcy law started making it harder for you to get a clean slate if your finances fall apart (that law might be backfiring on them). And credit card companies generally support politicians with an atrocious disregard for ecological and social woes.

What's my point? What can you do to escape consumer madness, beyond joining the Compact, observing Buy Nothing Day, or following tips from blogs such Frugal for Life? To start, ignore the zero-percent bait and just say no if you're about to get a new credit card--even one that donates to a needy cause. If you're already hooked, take out a more sustainable loan and pay it off. I don't mean a credit card, line of credit, mortgage, or family handout. Instead, consider Prosper or Zopa--peer-to-peer credit services that take banks out of the picture. You already use the web to trade music and movies, so it naturally follows that someone would turn the net into a P2P lending system.

The concept is sort of like Modest Needs, which lets you donate to or receive life-saving cash from willing strangers. Prosper and Zopa are even more like Kiva--which lets you lend to microbusinesses in the developing world--except that they serve the "first world." Zopa is U.K.-only but plans to come to the U.S. too.
Lots of Prosper borrowers are looking for help in paying off high interest rate credit cards. Others want to finance big expenses such as yanking 21 bad teeth, weight loss surgery, or a small business upgrade. These aren't shameless beggars like Save Karyn; Prosper borrowers join for free but must pay back lenders with interest. Feeling generous? You can loan to people in $50 increments; the more small loans you make, the more likely you are to get the money back.

Prosper encourages borrowers to join one of its groups, which can add street cred to a credit score. You can start your own group or join one of the nearly 600 clusters already created by veterans, doctors, college alumni, green-minded people, etc. Prosper and Zopa provide a democratic, off-the-grid alternative to the consumer credit matrix, and have the potential to change the way people borrow and dole out dollars. I'm curious to see how these services will develop, and if imitators will crop up. Maybe social networking sites will build a microlending feature into their community networks.

technorati tags: money credit sustainability environment finance green

Out of ice

Global warming is melting polar ice caps so fast that in a few centuries sea levels might rise by 20 feet, drastically redrawing the world's maps. This next decade is our last chance to cool down. If we don't, our grandkids might say bye to the Bahamas, New Orleans (again), Miami, even San Francisco. That's what big-time studies in Science (oddly, not noted in most big-time papers today) are warning. Compare the map at left (via Christian Science Monitor) with what famous psychics have predicted. Fun!

Media get greener

Was that signature chartreuse hue emanating from the eerie walls of Prada stores a Gilded 90's warning of the haute greenness set to overwhelm popular culture? Mass marketing and media outlets are glowing green, striving for a rosy ecological outlook. Even Superbowl ads were "super green" this year. Is this cooling trend sustainable, or another bubble set to culture-pop?

Working behind the scenes in Hollywood, the Environmental Media Association gets star power to spotlight ecological issues. You'll soon see green beaming from checkout lines when Vanity Fair focuses on sustainability (and shoots green bloggers) for Earth Day, and a recycled-paper Elle features ecologically correct products when its May issue hits the stands in April. 

As for the paperless world, if you associate Steve Case only with the lame, CD-wasting AOL.com, you might rub your eyes at  his Revolution venture, which declares, "Change will come, and we aim to accelerate it." Revolution is behind the Lime network, a window to a green world on the web, TV, and radio.  The website features terrific wordsmiths like Amanda Griscom Little. Sirius satellite plays Lime content on radio channel 114, such as Danny Seo's "Simply Green," Josh Dorfman's "Lazy Environmentalist", and a plethora of self-helpy shows involving psychic/angel/miracle elements.

Efforts to make the idiot box less moronic include Lime content via the Dish network, such as the "Orgasmic Organic" cooking show and documentaries including "The Next Industrial Revolution." Then there's the monthly "Sierra Club Chronicles" on progressive satellite Link TV. Dish TV features Current TV, Al Gore's hard-to-locate DIY network offering some green content, as Sustainablog explains. "Building Green," a "This Old House" for the global warming century, is coming to PBS this summer. Canadians are getting the Code Green reality show this spring, following 12 homeowners racing to spend $15,000 each to reduce their use of energy and natural resources. Mr. "Super Size Me" Morgan Spurlock tried living off the grid on FX's "30 Days," which is gearing up for its second season. Alas, as Exuberant Pantaphobia points out, a producer behind many ecological shows on the Discovery Channel is leaving, and as far as I can tell, the BBC green makeover show "No Waste Like Home," loved by City Hippy, doesn't have another season.

Update, 3/6: As for truly grassroots media, don't forget the Internet. Treehugger TV just debuted on Google Video and Youtube. You can use these and other sites to seek and find oodles of eco-related shorts, shows, and home movies. Google Video has way more content with the keywords such as "environment" or "recycling" than "offroading" or "nuclear," but guess where the action is?

On the big screen, Sundance featured "Who Killed the Electric Car?" and Al Gore's global warming opus, "An Inconvenient Truth." Check out more than two dozen movies, most traditional nature documentaries, at the DC Environmental Film Festival next month. Santa Monica hosts the Inspiration Film Festival in Santa Monica in April.  What new green media things am I missing?

Watching Katrina's aftermath

Don't forget about Katrina already; the Gulf Coast has really just begun to pick up the pieces. Track the latest news with the hundreds of stories tracked by Katrina Watch: to date, 34 articles on the environment, 28 on health care, 120 on cronyism, 121 on reconstruction. Should we forget about environmental laws to clean up New Orleans? Did termites weaken the levees? Should a refinery pay for the million gallons of oil that leaked after the storm? Bookmark this site.