Whether you're grooving at an outdoor concert or listening to tunes on your iPod, our tips this week will help you express your environmentalism through music.
Tip #1: Support Green Musicians
Singer-songwriter Jack Johnson is known for his efforts to reduce the environmental impact of his tours by traveling in biofuel buses, purchasing carbon offsets, selling ecofriendly merchandise, and using his celebrity status to promote green causes. Johnson isn't the only musician looking out for the earth: Check out Sierra magazine to find a list of new musicians with eco-cred. Visit Climate Crossroads to get free downloads from Missy Higgins, The Giving Tree Band, and Minus Ted.
With traditional entertainment inaccessible at the University of Alaska Fairbanks’s remote Toolik Field Station, researchers got creative with theirtribute to the late Michael Jackson. Shod in knee-high wading boots, standard mosquito face masks, and left-handed lab gloves, they demonstrated to the world (at least the portion of it that avidly searches YouTube) just how thrilled they are to be on Alaska's Brooks Range.
With a dance that demonstrates a level of coordination that'll make scientists everywhere proud, the group put on the northernmost known performance of "Thriller." The swarm of mosquitoes caught on the video makes the arctic version all the more endearing to fans of both nature and Michael Jackson. --Sarah F. Kessler
Singer-songwriter Alyssa released a soulful new album, Within, in 2008, whose folksy tracks express reverence and worry for the natural world. Her CD’s jacket is recycled and plastic-free.
Feliciano dos Santos, the front man of Mozambique’s Massukos, sings lively Afro-pop in a language called Nyanja. He won the 2008 Goldman Environmental Prize in recognition of his advocacy for clean water.
Jenny Morgan’s album of children’s music, Nature Needs Kids and Kids Need Nature, includes songs with lyrics extolling the joys of being outdoors; one upbeat tune is called “Leave No Child Inside.”
While recently deceased pop star Michael Jackson may be best remembered for hits like "Thriller," "Billie Jean," and "Beat It," we'd like to call attention to Jackson's 1995 environmentally themed tune, "Earth Song." From the album HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I, "Earth Song" was the singer's top-selling single in the United Kingdom and a top-five hit in many European countries (the song wasn't released as a single in the United States). The video, below, was one of the most expensive ever made.
Daryl Hannah, NASA scientist James Hansen, and dozens of others were arrested Tuesday for impeding traffic during a civil-disobedience protest against mountaintop-removal mining in West Virginia.
Fast-forward to 1:25 on the YouTube video above to hear the anti-coal statement Hannah made while being arrested. Then keep watching as the beaming actress gets loaded into the front seat of a police car while the surrounding crowd cheers loudly.
The latest trends in pop culture? They're all green, baby. Here are some of the most recent tabloid items:
Teen Idols for Change: Disney Channelstars are promoting the company's new "Friends for Change: Project Green" initiative. “I say you do have the power change the world – because you have friends,” says Miley Cyrus, encouraging youngsters to check out the new websitededicated to helping kids save the planet. Online, kids can pledge to green their lives by making bite-sized changes. Plus, they can vote for which environmental causes in which they want Disney to invest $1 million.
Eco-Cola: Coca-Cola recently announced "PlantBottle," a new type of soda container that is totally recyclable and made in part from sugar cane and molasses. While bottles will still be composed mainly of petroleum, the company says it's looking into making future PlantBottles more sustainable yet. Coca-Cola plans to launch the product soon – Dasani drinkers can expect to buy their water in ecofriendlier containers later this year.
Supershopper: A new mobile-phone application, called Ecohero, will allow consumers to gauge a product’s eco-friendliness by scanning in its barcode – an idea inspired by the price-comparing application ShopSavvy. HBO’s Entourage star Adrian Grenier conceptualized the idea and is developing it with Big in Japan, the same firm that produced ShopSavvy. If funding comes through, the app will launch this August for Apple’s iPhoneand Google’s Androidplatform.
Ever wonder whether celebs who claim to be ecofriendly really walk the walk when fans aren't watching? We got the inside scoop on Adrian Grenier (who plays Vincent Chase on HBO's Entourage and hosts Planet Green's Alter Eco) from Grenier's Entourage costar Kevin Connolly:
"Adrian's really done his best to make Entourage as green a set as possible. For example, I'm a big hand-washer. I like to wash my hands all day, so when we go to the makeup trailer, Adrian makes me use one paper towel the whole day to dry my hands. After I dry my hands, I have to hang my paper towel, and I make sure he's watching! I'm like, 'Adrian, do you see this?' It's great! But really, at the end of the day, it's simple things. Like, I'll finish the water bottle and he'll just say, 'Refill it. What's the point of getting another one?'"
MORE GOOD LINES
"I'm hoping to get a greenish car. A green or a blue car at least, not just a normal car. And I'm a maniac about recycling. I'll pluck things out of the trash that have been erroneously thrown there that could be recycled." --Mira Sorvino
"It's not that the world's gonna die -- we just might not survive it. It might just shrug us off. So we need to be a lot more present... and responsible for ourselves." --Rosario Dawson
"I think the environment should be put in the category of our national security. Defense of our resources is just as important as defense abroad. Otherwise, what is there to defend?" --Robert Redford
"One thing that is missing from the environment is laughter. All of these environmental problems, you feel totally overwhelmed...I do everything for laughs. I thought that my Green Porno should make green fun and so maybe convert more people to it, because part of me is also turned off by the green speech because it's always so negative and it always fills me with great guilt." --Isabella Rossellini
Name Change: Even though the World Health Organization has switched from using the term "swine flu" to calling the virus "H1N1 influenza A," the pork industry is still feeling the economic ramifications of the old name. CNN
Groovy: Humans aren't the only ones who feel the beat. Two recent studies show that many parrot species have the ability to "dance" in time with music. Science News
Rebranding Petroleum: BP has replaced its pledge to be a "green" company with a pledge to be a "responsible" company. BBC
Germ Alert: Worried about the flu? Find tips to help you avoid catching the virus that everybody's talking about at Scientific American.
Family Planning? Nadya Suleman, the California woman who recently gave birth to octuplets (she has a total of 14 children), announced plans to add a pet to her household. Baltimore Sun
"Cool the Earth is a school-to-home program that helps educate kids and then their parents by engaging them to take carbon-saving actions both at home and in their communities," said Program Director Sarah Starbird. Founded in 2007 in Marin County, California, Cool the Earth works with more than 150 schools and youth groups throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, and is quickly expanding to other regions and states.
"We're really excited about this partnership," said Cool the Earth spokesperson Jenny Jedeikin. "Our program is specifically about taking action -- what you can do to lower your carbon footprint right now -- and we get results immediately. Kids come back to school and tell us what they did, and pretty soon their parents are taking action as well."
Escape to the movies with one of our Movie Review Friday selections. Each week we review a film with an environmental theme that’s currently in theaters or available on DVD. Seen a good eco-flick lately? Send us a short review and look for it in the next Movie Review Friday.
Watchmenhas been a favorite graphic novel of many, and the movie remains remarkably faithful to the printed version, preserving the era in which the story was written and set, the mid-1980s.
It's well worth seeing if you like a good action film, but some of the film's characters reveal a distressing attitude toward cities, as did the subject of my last movie review, Varmints -- albeit from a slightly different perspective.
Most representative of this negative view of urban life is Rorschach, a violent, somewhat psychotic vigilante who would have been great pals with De Niro's Taxi Driver. His view of New York (and of cities in general) is Gotham-like: a grimy, crime-filled place of corruption.
In Watchmen, it's clear that vigilantism does not make the city a better place. The film doesn't answer the question of what does, but perhaps the answers are already out there... New York has certainly changed since the era in which Watchmen depicts it.
