blog.green.tv

Greening festivals

Posted by mlamond in Clean up the World, Glastonbury, climate change, festivals, greenblogs, greenpeace, young on 28. Jun, 2010 | 2 Comments

For the past four years Green.TV has been sending a team down to the Glastonbury festival to film short stories about the numerous ‘green’ activities that go on during the festival’s 5 days. (You can watch these at – http://www.green.tv/glastonbury)

Festivals have always struck me as a great place to raise awareness and possibly change people’s attitudes. Certainly, Glastonbury’s organiser, Michael Eavis, has used the festival to support numerous worthy causes and over the past few years these have included two of Green.TV’s partners, Greenpeace (http://www.green.tv/greenpeace) and Oxfam (http://www.green.tv/oxfam).

Green Balls – a ‘greener’ world cup?

Posted by mlamond in Clean up the World, FoE, Green News, UNEP, climate change, green media on 10. Jun, 2010 | 4 Comments

The 2006 World Cup was carbon-neutral with host nation Germany, FIFA and, Green.TV partner, UNEP working together – there’s an interesting article on the Friends of the Earth website, look at http://www.foe.co.uk/living/articles/world_cup.html.

This year tournament organisers seem to have been a little more reluctant to shout about their environmental commitment. According to The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/green-living-blog/2010/jun/10/carbon-footprint-world-cup) the carbon footprint for the 2010 World Cup will be a staggering 2.8 million tonnes CO2e. This does sound absolutely massive and the author, Mike Berners-Lee offers the perspective that this is the equivalent of 6,000 space shuttle fights or 1,400,000,000 cheeseburgers (all those zeros somehow make it even more frightening).

However, the intention of this piece is not to beat up the football authorities for their lack of environmental thought more its to highlight some interesting films on Green.TV that suggest ways football can be made more sustainable or used to promote positive activities. Have a look at the following and let me know what you think:

Homeless World Cup was set up to use football, street soccer, as a catalyst for social change – http://www.green.tv/homeless_world_cup.

Eco Football – ideas to make football greener including motion sensor lighting, ceedum roofs and clothing designed to mimic plants that repel mud and water.
http://www.green.tv/eco_football

Ocean’s World Cup – a Greenpeace film calling on Government’s to stop fouling the oceans.
http://www.green.tv/oceans_world_cup_whose_side_are_you_on

Nature and Sports Camp – a UNEP initiative offering children sport and environment training.
http://www.green.tv/nature_and_sports_camp

Where is the Eagle? – a film from WWF featuring Portugal’s top football team Benfica and their beloved mascot, Victory the Eagle, and the threats to endangered species.
http://www.green.tv/wwf_eagle

Green Porn

Posted by mlamond in Clean up the World, Uncategorized, green media, greenblogs on 26. May, 2010 | 2 Comments

Yes its a cheap subject line for a blog and we’re bound to attract several viewers who will no doubt be disappointed by my witterings – however, there is a serious point to be made here.

Type ‘Green Porn’ into Google and you’ll be amazed by what comes up (stop it!). While I was expecting to be inundated with a list of smutty sites that would require me to explain my site visit history to my partner as being for ‘research purposes’ – the reality was surprising.

There certainly appear to be plenty of sites that do indeed offer ‘Green Porn’, usually based around sex outdoors (or so I suppose, honest!) but top of the search and dominating the listings was ‘Green Porno’ a series of short films written and directed by Isabella Rossellini.

The series began in 2008 and currently airs on the Sundance Channel – http://www.sundancechannel.com. Each film looks at animal sexual behaviour and Rossellini enacts the mating rituals of various insects and animals with cardboard cut-outs and foam-rubber sculptures. Some of them are pretty funny and hats off to Ms Rossellini for having the kahunas to embark on such an exercise.

My search also threw up links to two very interesting and different blogs. The first was from Trewin Restorick, CEO of NGO Global Action Plan (http://www.globalactionplan.org.uk/green-porn-how-do-you-make-low-carbon-economy-sexy-150210).

Trewin commands a considerable amount of respect in UK sustainability circles and his blog was based around a meeting he attended which had posed the rather hackneyed but worthy question of ‘how can you make a low carbon economy sexy?’ He’d suggested turning the question on its head and asking – ‘how can you make sex low carbon?’ As he goes onto say a project measuring the carbon footprint of the adult industry would be extremely interesting, particularly given the profusion of server space it must now swallow.

The second blog was written by Liz Langley. I know nothing about Ms Langley but was impressed with the directness of her piece – ‘Why Using Sex Toys, Watching Porn, and Going Green Is an Easy Fit’!

Her discussion was based on the increasing adoption of porn into the mainstream and the fact that such acceptance was allowing the industry to become greener. Its quite a graphic piece in places and readers of a sensitive disposition might be offended but its a good argument (Though to be honest her tale of hair bands made from re-cycled condoms had me thinking of ‘There’s Something About Mary’). Anyway you can read her piece at – http://www.alternet.org/sex/126664/why_using_sex_toys,_watching_porn,_and_going_green_is_an_easy_fit/?page=entire

So this being the Green TV blog was this really just an excuse to ‘do research’?

Well – yes and no! Two years ago Green TV launched a sub-channel called ‘Green Sauce’ of video content that we thought was ‘Adult’ in nature – you can watch it here:

http://www.green.tv/greensauce

Some of the films in the channel have proved to be perennial favourites with viewers and also with our syndication partners.

However, we haven’t received any films that we deem suitable for ‘Green Sauce’ for over six-months and we’re starting to worry that credit crunch and recession may have discouraged filmmakers from producing films with green themes that are sexy (I’ve had to phrase that very carefully!).

Is this the case? Let me know!

UK Election – first Green MP

Posted by mlamond in Clean up the World, Green News, Uncategorized, campaign, green media on 10. May, 2010 | 9 Comments

Well the UK election has officially been over for 4 days and we still don’t know exactly who is in charge (some might say no change there, then!).

One interesting possibility is that the UK’s first Green Party MP, Caroline Lucas, could hold the decisive vote – that is if Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats, decides that he’d rather work with the Labour Party rather than the Conservatives.

Whatever happens, it’s right that we give Caroline Lucas due recognition for her remarkable achievement in getting elected – she engineered an 8.4% swing in her favour. While for many ‘minority’ parties this would be seen as a crowning achievement I suspect that for Ms Lucas and the UK Green Party this is just the start.

The Green Party has done well in local and European elections in the past and polled 1% of the total vote in the General Election. While this is slightly down on their share in the 2005 election if Nick Clegg negotiates the introduction of some form of proportional representation then the Greens could, in theory, have 6 seats at the next election.

UK Election

Posted by mlamond in Clean up the World, Green News, Uncategorized, green media, greentv news on 29. Apr, 2010 | 1 Comment

May 6th is the UK’s election day and the leaders of the country’s largest three political parties – Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg and David Cameron have released video statements about their commitment to taking action on the environment. You can watch all three statements on Green TV at the following:

Gordon Brown – http://www.green.tv/asktheclimatequestion_gordon_brown

Nick Clegg – http://www.green.tv/asktheclimatequestion_nick_clegg

David Cameron – http://www.green.tv/asktheclimatequestion_david_cameron

Green TV would also like to remind UK voters that other parties and candidates are available – and that the opinions expressed in these videos are not necessarily ours!

That’s our disclaimer over…..

I’d also like to draw your attention to a film produced by think tank The Green Alliance. Called The Last Parliament, it features the dulcet tones of Sir Trevor Macdonald and highlights what should be the top priorities for the UK’s next parliament.

Watch it at – http://www.green.tv/ga_last_parliament

We’ll await the results next Friday.

Green.TV relaunched Blog: Top 5- Funny Environmental Videos – Which is your favourite?

Posted by mlamond in Uncategorized on 09. Apr, 2010 | 6 Comments

Green.TV relaunched Blog:
Top 5- Funny Environmental Videos – Which is your favourite?
Welcome back to Green.TV’s Blog. We’ve been away for a while but now we’re back.
To celebrate our return we’ve put together a short list of what we think are the funniest films you can watch on Green TV.
Environmentalists aren’t [...]

Why Motors Cars and Women Matter

Posted by annied in greentech on 12. Nov, 2009 | Comments Off

By Chris Milton

Last month I was invited to the IAA Frankfurt Motor Show. Renault was launching a complete range of electric cars and they were gathering various journalists to their bosom to help spread the message.

So I went and wandered around, picking up all sorts of bumpf on the Renault cars and various other eco and green transportation solutions.

Some were good. Renault’s in particular was impressive , and I’m not just saying that because they fed me free coffee and chocolate cheesecake.

Biochar: How to make the market work

Posted by annied in Cantos, green business, greentech on 09. Nov, 2009 | Comments Off

“Biochar Will Save the World!” proclaims a group page on Facebook. Popular mechanics writes of an “ancient charcoal” that can “put the brakes on global warming.” More than its prospects as a carbon sink or a fuel, it has massive prospects for development (the economic kind) for developing countries and emerging markets. But is it really that simple? A very wise Finance professor* once told me, “Anytime anybody tells you they have a market for that, be very suspicious.” It’s not that biochar couldn’t work, but that the market to make it work would have to be nuanced and highly regulated.