the greener side

Update: Where's the new news?

I just updated this map of emerging online news sources that I made earlier this year for the Community Media Workshop. Now it includes environmental news sites such as InvestigateWest, Great Lakes Echo and Facing South.

As struggling local newspapers continue to abandon the printed page, foundations, entrepreneurs and journalists are launching "hyperlocal" and watchdog news Web sites. Where and who are they? What do they tell us about the new media landscape?

Check out the panel about nonprofit news at last weekend's conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists.

Please comment with new additions and subtractions to the international map!  

View Where's the new news? in a larger map

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

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."

Chew on green, gritty reporting

Who said reporters just sit at their desks rewording press releases? Check out the finalists in the Society of Environmental Journalists 5th annual awards.

Oops, I forgot; "mainstream media" I mean like, MSM, is so 1972. Isn't it our duty to cheer up? It's the dawn of the postpostmodern, postindustrial, post-oil century, which is a new beginning, which must be positive! We wouldn't want to turn off any jetsetting ecorazzi with ugh, more unglossy headlines about the downtrodden state of nature. C'mon, let's say Yippie (no Hoffman/Rubin overtones, for Gwyneth's sake) for our bright, clean, green energy future--for amber waves of organic quinoa, for fleets of veggie oil Mercedes road-tripping from sea to sea, for backyard wind turbines rustling the leaves of native prairie plants that we put up where parking lots used to be!

Y'all couldn't feel any more numb being reminded about the toxic stew that sank the third-world, subtropical boot-toe of this number-one nation, could you? Say one more word about how our citizens stewed and stank and starved last year because of criminal ecological neglect or whatever, and it'll spoil my salad. Who wants to lose an appetite about how many other waters flow with poisons, and why "wars over wetlands" has such a nice ring to it? Can't we go without the gloomcasts about how shifting weather patterns will doom our shivering offspring to relentless wars over resources? So what if there aren't any fish left in the sea, or if teflon and flame retardants float in baby's bloodstream. Wouldn't you rather subscribe to happygrams about shopping in an ecologically-correct fashion, so you can make those little green choices mean a lot, day after day?

If so, nevertheless, let's salute those scandalously underfunded investigative journalists who chase the depressing subjects. Without them, we'd have no motivation to shop at Whole Foods or to rendezvous over fair trade coffee with with fellow "conscious" souls.

Sustainability, classified

Some accuse Craigslist of wiping out the income for struggling independent newspapers. But Craigslist's free classified ads have more fans than haters. Where else can you find a sweet apartment and furnish it for free in an afternoon? Apartment listings and recycled furniture are merely the point of entry for the no-frills, freaks-friendly community site. Craigslist has become a global phenomenon--hooked people up with homes, husbands, and heartbreaks; and inspired a movie that will show you so I don't have to describe what may be your own lifestyle, especially if you're a green-minded city-dweller.

Maybe you tap into Craigslist to find raw foodists to cart off your dusty food dehydrator, or to locate a stuck-in-the-90s taker for those shameful Girbauds, without lumping your junk into landfills. You might rely on the site to trade up, like founder Craig himself did, from some old Saturn to an eco-friendlier Prius. Of course it's where I met and then parted with a biodiesel 1981 Mercedes 300D (RIP).

Like eBay or the newer Freecycle, Craigslist can help you live a less wasteful lifestyle outside of the mall matrix. Not only that, but as an empire of 21 employees, Craigslist itself is a sustainable enterprise.  Craig expresses no desire to cash in on the multimillions he could earn in days by popping up a few text ads and he seems driven by altriusm, according to this News.com interview.

tags: craigslist

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.

No dead-cat power in biodiesel

A German newspaper incorrectly reported this week that an inventor made biodiesel fuel from dead cats. Alphakat is the name of the guy's company, but no cats went into his green fuel. "At most the odd toad may have jumped in," fuelmaker Christian Koch told Reuters.

Flacks luring would-be hacks

As much as Americans gripe about the media, we love to blast corporate public relations as a force for evil, as a ruthless machine that prettifies a company's image to prop up profits no matter what the human cost. PR's how companies "greenwash"  to make believe that "Toxic Sludge is good for you"--such as toxic pesticide maker ChemLawn dubbing itself TruGreen. Slick PR is how Big Tobacco king Philip Morris changes its name to Altria to evoke helping others. Wannabe journalists vow never to join the "dark side" of PR--at least as long as they can afford student loan payments. But one journalism professor notices that driven by a sense of ethics, would-be reporters are increasingly hopping the fence. Edward Wasserman explains their new motivation to work in PR:

Not only should PR people be telling the truth; they should be telling their clients not to do things they'd be unwilling to tell the truth about…The PR professional is proposed as a senior counselor not just on what is persuasive and effective, but on what is right -- as chief integrity officer.

What, you can't be all style and no substance? It's the opposite lesson being learned by many nonprofit groups, who struggle on a shoestring to mimic big-money media campaigns to get reporters to pay attention to their good works.

Days numbered for ad-free digital news

You relish the grace of reading a personal, ad-free news service if you subscribe to free digital news via RSS (Really Simple Syndication). Syndicated newsfeeds have been a best-kept secret of savvy Web surfers and bloggers, but they're getting more popular. Maybe you've dreaded the day that ads crept into the RSS space, and that time is on the horizon. The Washington Post is among the news bigwigs about to serve ads through its syndicated newsfeeds. Marketers are pondering how digital publishers can turn their RSS channels into revenue streams. But news junkies can take heart that most online content providers are still scrambling to get ads on their Web pages and have barely woken up to profiting from RSS.

Blending pro and amateur journalists

How are traditional journalists and citizen reporters collaborating? Check out Poynter.org's 11 Layers of Citizen Journalism.

Why aren't more nonprofits waking up to cheap tech tools that help them get their message out? Overworked and underpaid, or oversighted?