Are you a creative type with a hankering for 15 minutes of fame? Would you settle for 15 seconds? Enter this new eco-video contest and you could win public acclaim -- and a Toyota hybrid. Cameron tells you how:
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Current TV and the Alliance for Climate Protection (both Gore-driven projects) have teamed up to promote :60 Seconds to Save the Earth, a contest soliciting video public service announcements about climate change. They're looking for 15-, 30-, or 60-second video spots that will showcase green action and spur public change.
A panel of celebrity judges (including Cameron Diaz, Orlando Bloom, Rihanna, and George Clooney) will whittle the entries down to 20 semi-finalists, and the cream of the crop will then be determined by Current's online community. The best ones will be aired internationally on Current TV and on MySpace's Impact channel, and the top 20 submissions will bring home some cool loot: T-Mobile Sidekicks, a Sony entertainment system, or, for the grand-prize winner, a Toyota Highlander hybrid. The deadline for entries is September 12, so get that camera rolling.
Not a budding videographer? You can still play along by answering the Current Question on the Ecospot Contest page, the first of the series of climate-centric questions for site visitors: The climate crisis: When did you first "get it"?
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Comments
View as Flat
farnishk Posted 7:34 pm
10 Jul 2007
Toyota
Toyota are offering a Prius as a prize. But they're not really, because they have a new "Hybrid-Lite" to sell, called the Highlander, and that is what the winner in the USA will get. A car that gets half the mileage of the Prius, because it's a big sedan.
Sony
There are all sorts of consumer gadgets on offer as prizes in the competition. Sony likes a high profile, hence the large branding on their products, and on the competition web site. Fancy a 46" plasma screen? That's good for the planet, isn't it.
T-Mobile
Another commercial sponsor. Another new gadget that needs promoting. Hey! Let's offer it as a prize in a competition to help save the planet.
By the way, Current TV have been kind enough to link straight to the manufacturers' web sites, in case you want some stuff now.
So who is behind this?
Al Gore is the big cheese of The Alliance For Climate Protection, but he surely doesn't have time to micromanage things like this competition. I wonder if the Board of Directors has any influence on the organization's policies:
Theodore Roosevelt IV : Managing Director, Lehman Brothers - one of the largest capital management and financial dealing companies in the world. They don't want the system to change.
Carol M. Browner : Principal, The Albright Group, LLC - A political lobbying firm.
Brent Scowcroft : President, The Scowcroft Group; National Security Advisor to President Gerald R. Ford and President George H.W. Bush - Now here's one guy who has no vested interests at all (joke). He is a military man and apparently coined the term "New World Order". Nice.
Lee Thomas :Retired President and COO, Georgia-Pacific Corp - This is getting really silly now. GP received record fines for environmental damage in the USA while on Lee Thomas' watch, and were one of the pioneers in opening up the Borneo rain forest for industrial deforestation.
Orin S. Kramer :General Partner, Boston Provident, L.P - Another financial firm, another dollar.
Where exactly are the environmental experts, the objective scientists, the people who actually want things to change, on this Board?
Oh yes...
Larry J. Schweiger : President & CEO, National Wildlife Federation - Could be worse, although Larry is a dyed-in-the-wool Live Earth person now. The NWF don't do activism though - you won't find any tree-sitters or eco-warriors on their books - they want change so long as it doesn't spoil anyone's party.
So there you go.
Enter the competition if you like, but don't expect anything to change because of it. And don't say I didn't warn you.
Keith Farnish
www.theearthblog.org
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A Siegel Posted 12:30 am
11 Jul 2007
Now, to modify this a little bit:
Carol Browning was EPA Administrator in Clinton Administrator, not 'just' lobbyist. Not also: Albright Group, e.g. Madeline Albright. Browning is engaged in many environmental related activities / organizations.
Gore is striving to make dealing with Global Warming / the Climate Crisis bi-partisan, to enlist Corporations and 'non-traditional' Greens.
A real question is, always, where does purity conflict with achieving change.
In addition, just as a note that is worthy of being in the post, Cameron Diaz is a Climate Project trainee.
Blogging regularly at Ecotality for a Sustainable Future.
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green8659 Posted 3:01 am
27 Aug 2008
Green | Bowtrol Cleanse | Web Design Indiana
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