Here’s an old GE Video I recently stumbled upon.

It’s a 2005 recipe to sell “clean coal” from General Electric’s “Eco-magination.”

1. Dress some super-models up like coal miners

2. Oil their bodies up and set them loose in an underground mine

3. Co-opt a traditional anti-corporate anti-mining folksong, Sixteen Tons.

4. Throw in some lines like: “Now, thanks to emissions-reducing technologies from GE Energy, harnessing the power of coal is looking more beautiful, every day.”

And viola, you get this General Electric “clean coal” video:

Eco-magination, my ass!

I like Google. No, wait… I love Google.

The folks in Mountain View have changed my life for the better, several times. Google Search did it the first time, then Google Image Search, then Google News, Google Maps… Really, almost every project they come up with has improved the quality of my life, not just give me something fancy to play with.

I have a number of friends that work at Google. All great people, really smart and with their heart in the right place. They know the power that Google wields and endeavor to wield it in a way that’s good for the planet and her people. Yeah, China’s tricky but they’re working to figure it out. Not only do I love Google, I trust Google.

But even after all that, yesterday’s announcement that Google will make renewable energy cheaper than coal makes me really sad.

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Today, the Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize to Al Gore (and the IPCC). No one deserves it more than he does. We’re very happy for him. And we think he should go to jail.

Specifically, he should go to jail on RAN’s November 16-17 Day of Action Against Coal Finance. As reported in Nicholas Kristof’s NYT column on August 16, Al is on record as saying:

“I can’t understand why there aren’t rings of young people blocking bulldozers … and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power plants.”

Well, Al, it’s because by the time they’ve rolled out the bulldozers, it’s already too late. That’s why Rainforest Action Network, Coal River Mountain Watch, Appalachian Voices and thousands of supporters are mobilizing to stop Bank of America and Citi from financing coal extraction and the construction of those coal-fired power plants. We at RAN would really like you to come along.

If you, too, think Al should be arrested, go ahead and sign our petition asking him to be arrested with us. I will personally guarantee you that if Al is going in the slammer, I’m coming with him. How about you?

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of representing RAN at the Animal Rights 2007 conference in Los Angeles. RAN was the only non-AR environmental organization represented at the conference, which is a real shame, because there’s so much overlap between our movements in terms of our goals, strategies, and the issues we deal with. More »

Eric Holt-Giménez, executive director of Food First, was recently in RAN’s offices to talk to our staff about biofuels. You can hear him talk about the issue in this interview from KPFA radio in Berkley:

“How did such a bad idea gain such incredible currency?” Listen and find out.

Also in the interview was Joe Brewer, a fellow at the Rockridge Institute, whose work I’ve mentioned before. Both of them have recently authored some pretty illuminating articles on the state of the biofuels debate in the US:

The Great Biofuel Hoax: Holt-Giménez discusses some of the myths surrounding biofuels.

The Coming Biofuels Disaster: Brewer explains how a re-framing of biofuels from the perspective of creating livable communities makes it clear that they aren’t a good idea.

Slate sums up the general public reaction to the Live Earth concerts this past weekend: Lame Earth. Both the event itself and the criticism of it seemed off the mark to me. From the little bit I saw and what I’ve read in the coverage, the actual environmental movement seemed largely absent from the consciousness-raising event. Organizing for collective action is by far the most effective way for people to make a difference—yes, even more so than changing out those incandescent bulbs. But although there are plenty of grassroots organizations out there that can help people make a difference, there didn’t seem to be much of a presence.

Rather than focusing on that angle, of course, the mainstream media seemed much more interested in the amount of electricity and number of paper plates consumed during the event. Our own Mike Brune appeared on CNN today on the Glenn Beck Program—the host was more apparently more interested in bovine flatulence (and the fact that Live Earth organizers didn’t exhort the audience to become vegetarians) than in why we should stop the construction of new coal-fired power plants.

Both of the things that bother me about the whole affair—the lack of real grassroots organizing at the event and the media focus on the resources consumed during the event itself—stem from the same problem in popular environmental consciousness; namely, that many people equate the environmental movement with the movement toward “green” consumerism. More »

Joe Brewer at the Rockridge Institute just posted an interesting analysis of the energy debate in this country. Even though one finds a lot of rhetorical similarities between conservative and progressive approaches the problem of energy, the underlaying frames — their hidden assumptions and values — differ greatly. The post correctly identifies biofuels as an extremely revealing issue in the debate: blanket support for them indicates a lack of concern for the long-term livability of the planet. More »

Corporate ethics activists “The Yes Men” crashed the Gas and Oil Exposition 2007 in Calgary yesterday. Their presentation on “Vivoleum,” a new fuel source derived from the bodies of people killed by climate change, was going over pretty well until they showed this video. In it, former Exxon janitor Reggie Watts expresses his dying wish to be made into the candles that were passed out to oil executives at the event.

I think I speak for everyone here at RAN when I say this: Yes Men, you rock.

Via Boing Boing, Wired News.