Elisa's Green Scene

Awesome Heirlooms on Martha Stewart

Martha Stewart had a segment this week on the Heirloom Expo and expressly advised her audience to look for organic, and if you can't get organic get foods that say they do not include GMO seeds. She featured folks who were clearly slamming Monsanto and the other Big Ag companies who are more and more controlling our food supply.

She also had a vegan episode featuring +Biz Stone earlier this year.

The current BlogHer Book Club book is Lunch Wars around the school lunch issue (http://www.blogher.com/bookclub/now-reading-lunch-wars). 

There are now so many mainstream trendsetters who care about these issues...people you know by first name only: Oprah, Ellen, Martha. Not to mention best-selling authors and personalities like Jamie Oliver, Kathy Freston and Terry Walter. There is so much mainstream interest in changing the way food is produced and brought to market in this country. And what we enable people across ages, geography and income levels to eat.

What will it take to see policy change? Because it's government policy that's behind much of the food injustice in the U.S.

Will you be watching Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution?

I missed the opening episodes, but I've rectified that with a Season Pass to Jamie Oliver's new show, Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution.

I think now is an interesting time in our history where we are open to hearing the message about how our ways have become unsustainable. it's not just about green; it's not just about the planet; it's not just about animals; it's not just about personal health; it's not just about the children; it's not just about underlying classism.

It's about all of these things together...it's about the entire Earth as a system that is being, systematically, destroyed...and we humans are regrettably driving that.

We all must eat, and how we eat is fundamental to a lot of our problems today..environmental problems, health problems, ethical problems.

There are some folks who seem to be able to get the message across. Folks like Jonathan Safran Foer, Robert Kenner and Eric Schlosser (the guys behind Food Inc), Alicia Silverstone, even Michelle Obama.

After watching his TedTalk, I think Jamie Oliver is another such voice.

I remember back at BlogHer '06. Shuna Fish Lydon stood up and talked about how food was a class issue...that everyone needs to eat, but how government policy basically ensures that only higher-income people get to eat well. Four years on, this is still basically the case.

I'm hoping that with these new voices being raised, we may finally get it, and we may finally take concrete action.

Yes, personal action is awesome. But we need to act as a community, and as a government.

Maybe I'm putting to big a burden on little Jamie Oliver and his show. But I'm going to atch, and I'm going to hope.

Are you? (Watching? Hoping? Changing?)

The Green Inaugural Balls

There are going to be not one, but two "green" inaugural balls this coming Tuesday night. And like Siel from BlogHer: I'm not going to either one :)

Siel has great tips on greening your inauguration parties...starting with the very idea of inviting a crowd to watch together, so you save energy vs. watching individually, of course.

In addition, you can actually watch one of the green balls online, in streaming HD no less. Just go to http://www.greenball2009.org/. (This is the one chaired by Al Gore.)

The Ball also has its own blog (not too bloggy yet, I must say) and you'll be able to follow the Ball live on Twitter. (Yeah, I followed, what the heck?!)

Personally, I'm TiVo'ing the inauguration itself, and a friend is coming over to watch it that evening after work (after we go on a nice, brisk walk.) Of course I'll be serving vegan food.

So, it's a pretty green evening I have planned myself!

What are you doing for Inauguration Day?

Waah about my Wii

Well, it was no fun for me to read on EcoSalon that the WiiFit is environmentally unfriendly :(

This unwanted info (picture me with fingers in my ears singing "la la la") comes courtesy of Greenpeace and their Clash of the Consoles site.

Of course, it's not just the Wii...XBox and Playstation don't fare too well either.

So, looks like the cabinet in our living room that holds a Wii, XBox AND a PS2 is a toxic wasteland. Good thing the cabinet is enclosed by glass doors. What? You say those glass doors won't protect us from squat? La la la.

The Tennessee Coal Ash Spill: Biggest, under-the-radar story that bloggers helped elevate?

Here's what happened on Monday 12/22, very succinctly described by BlogHer's Kim Pearson:

Early Monday morning, a dam containing tons of coal ash burst  in Harriman, Tennessee, burying an estimated 400-acre area in a 6-foot pile of toxic sludge. The dam belonged to the Kingston Fossil plant operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority. It produced fly ash, a byproduct of coal burning that contains troubling levels of lead, mercury and other heavy metals. That's in addition to being "100 times more radioactive than nuclear waste" according to Scientific American magazine and Dr. Steven Chu -- the man that Pres. Elect Barack Obama has tapped to run his Department of Energy.

Seeing no coverage of this in the mainstream media (gee, could that be related to the fact CNN cut its science and environmental staff to cut expenses?), bloggers and twitterers stepped in to fill the gap. Amy Gahran wrote about it over at Poynter, and she created the #coalash hash tag on Twitter.

It was more than a couple days before, finally, the mainstream started to catch up...with CNN and the New York Times finally getting in on the action on Christmas Day and following up yesterday.

Considering the buzz word "clean coal" was in heavy use throughout the presidential campaign, it's clear that this little spill throws a wrench in any thinking that we had a simple solution just waiting in the wing, and that a buzz word would be sufficient to address safety and environmental concerns.

What went wrong? How do we prevent a similar accident in the future? How long will it take to clean this up? And what are the long-term ramifications, for wildlife and for humans?

Some big questions need answering soon. Let's hope that they'll get to work on the answers now that everyone' paying attention...and kudos to those social media types who kept this story alive...or really, made it come alive to begin with. It ain't all navel-gazing, folks!

Oprah alert: She covers factory farming tomorrow

Factory farming is an ethical issue, a health issue and most definitely an environmental issue...which makes it a green issue, don't you think?

Tomorrow, according to Vegan.com and Vegan Soapbox, Oprah is covering how we treat animals being raised for food.

I'm not a regular Oprah viewer, but when she covers something, it has impact. I have no doubt she will create some vegetarians and vegans tomorrow.

Will you watch?

What kind of Green Porno star are you?

Yes, I've fallen for a green meme, based on the Sundance Channel's Green Porno series, from Isabella Rossellini: What kind of Green Porno star am I?

I find it a little interesting that description seems to be focus more on the praying mantis male, not the female.

As Siel at BlogHer points out, they don't exactly provide thorough instructions on what to do once you arrive at the afore-linked Quiz page. To help save you some time and frustration: click on each of the 24 little thumbnail pictures to be asked a question. At the end you'll find out what mating bug you most resemble. Looks like I'm the mantis. And perhaps a male mantis at that.

How about you?

This month's Silicon Veggie

This month's Silicon Veggie takes a look at a recent, strange phenomenon: Oprah and Ellen checking out veganism at the same time.

What does it mean?

(Hint: Probably not as much as I'D like it to mean!)

CNN/Anderson Cooper/Planet in Peril: Looks compelling

I'm immune to most pitches from PR folks to blog about something, but every now and then they get you with one that's simply too relevant and interesting to ignore.

According to the publicist:

"Planet in Peril uses first-hand investigative reporting to provide a better understanding of the environment’s present state. Bringing viewers the stories behind the statistics, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Animal Planet host and wildlife biologist Jeff Corwin will focus on four main issues that threaten the planet and its inhabitants: climate change, deforestation, species loss and overpopulation. Planet in Peril, filmed across four continents and 13 countries, airs over two nights on CNN/U.S. on Tuesday, Oct. 23, and Wednesday, Oct. 24, from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. (ET/PT) and globally on CNN International."

To get a sense of it, you're better off watching this:
Video Clip for Planet in Peril (Yes, you have to watch a 15 second ad first, suck it up!)

The UK really gets into exploring the green lifestyle

So, first BBC launches a show, The Ethical Man, that focuses on one bloke's attempt to reduce his footprint on the planet. Now they have introduced a new show: It's Not Easy Being Green, about a family trying to create an entirely sustainable lifestyle out on a farm.

HippyShopper has reviews of the first two episodes.

Sounds completely fascinating.

Lilke "Survivor" only about saving the planet insted of winning money.

Wow, that's TV that's good and good for you! I'll be keeping my eye on HippyShopper to see how the family fares as they continue their attempts to live green.