Hmmmm. I'll start on a tangent. To be honest, while I think that Al Gore has been a good ambassador for environmental issues, his movie (and his talk, which I saw in Portland) was over the top. It was slick, it was delivered well ... and it seemed contrived to me. I didn't have the sense that I was discovering something or learning something, I felt like I was being sold something.

Back to Rupert Murdoch: it's got to be good to start conveying a meaningful message on TV, right? But how do you make global warming "fun" without trivializing it? Will it be like product placement, with global warming instead of Coke? How can we possibly integrate responsible behavior with perpetual economic growth? Isn't there an inherent contradiction between the profit-making beast of NewsCorp and responsible, sustainable behavior?

I don't know how to get people to change their behavior. But I'm pretty sure we can't buy our way out of this. And I have never seen a TV program (at least on Murdoch's stations) that isn't selling something.

Why aren't firms drilling for oil in the islands off the Carribeans are the Pacific for that matter? Is there not more oil under the ocean than under the land?

I predicted this would happen.

The "green" movement has become this slicked packaged thing...Yes Blueberrysushi I do feel as if I was trying to be sold something with Gore...it just wasn't right, sort of like this other person that I won't name right now who is famous and no longer has a job...

I wrote a little piece on it (not this very thing, but just my feelings about some things) on my blog...

Here's just a snippet of the funny part of the future of the green movement if we don't figure out that is truly is the economy and consumerism that's killing the planet not the wrong light bulb.

"...Conde Nast will snort up the ashes and create a magazine called simply, Green.

Each month a very thin vegan model dressed in Green will be on the cover and try to sell us various hemp made products, because by then hemp will be legal (and taxed).

Marlboro will own the marijuana market.

Heal the Bay will become a government agency run by the post office. You'll have to stand in line for hours simply to get the 20 page document to get permission to have a clean-up. You'll have to do it six months in advance or risk large fines. Doing a clean-up will be like paying your taxes. Cleaning up the planet will actually become mandatory, but for some reason it will be a lot less fun and you'll have to pay for the privilege to do it..."

Will Fox stop peddling junk science and featuring Skeptics?

Will Fox no longer favor politicians who embrace skeptics?

Will Fox challenge the Administration's denial of Global Warming's impacts and the need to take serious action?

Will Fox execute a 180 on the politics it has been supporting since its inception?

i'm just throwing that out there with nothing else.

i'm too scared to type the rest.

I`m sure that most people who know the science will be pleased with this.

However, the fact that one man has so much power is not something that we should be content with.

Untill the media has been fundementally reformed, and the majority of the public woken up, society will continue to be in the hands of an elite few moneyd people...this will ocassionally be positive as in this case, but overwhelmingly the interests of the wealthy buisness class and not the average american will be promoted.

Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky (wake up people)

Murdoch isn't doing this to do anything, but to control the coverage.

As with Myspace, MTV and all of the other initially very good ideas that turned into what they are now.

Murdoch doesn't care abut the environment just like Bush doesn't care about the environment when he supports ethanol.

Murdoch sees people who are writing about the environment (the new media) as a threat.

A threat that can take away money going to his advertisers and him, so what he is going to do is round up all the environmental writers and activists (that are marketable and have a wide range appeal,) throw some money at them (just a little) and they'll start writing about things like.

Greeing your wedding.
Greening your car.
Greening everything buy.
Keep buying things as long as it's green.

The environmental section will become like the calendar section. It will become like the Village Voice.

Remember the Village Voice, remember when the LA Weekly and the NY Village Voice was alternative and not a bunch of rich kids covering their friends bands and covering the same thing that is in the mainstream press but using the word dude and the f*** word to make it more approachable?

That's what's going to happen to the "green" movement when Murdoch gets his little grubby hands on it.

One guy owning everything is always, always a bad idea.

Fox may end up trivializing the green movement, but will the public?  Murdoch doesn't package and sell ideologies and in doing so make them cheap, he packages and sells ideologies that already have a firm base of support, and that continue to thrive after he's promoted them.  Though he may have simplified it, he certainly didn't trivialize the conservative movement.  And I happen to have a lot more faith in the American public: this movement is not going to explode and then disappear.  With more exposure, people are going to start thinking more critically about the issues, and I think we'll see a generation of younger folks that really do want to change the world.

That said, I agree that Murdoch's only motivation is green... that is: green bills... money.  dough.  cash.  bucks.  dinero.  moolah.  blingy bling.  oh yeah, and power too.  

Sorry, it is already mentioned in the prevoius comment.

Given the scale of the Murdoch businesses' Carbon Debt from their decades of trading,
and from the further decades of trading of the many companies that have been ingested,
the claim that by 2010 the entire debt will be neutralized is not even funny -
it's just embarrassing for Grist's reputation that such nonsense should be posted here.

That this fraudulent claim by Murdoch bots rests on the purchase of Indian Windmills only compounds the absurdity -
in reality, their output will marginally lower the price of coal power, thus making it accessible to poorer buyers.
There is no economic case for the claim of "renewables" displacing fossil energy,
unless and until there is a global treaty by which all nations' fossil fuel usage is constrained by binding, enforced, limits.

By contrast, planting trees does physically mop up measurable amounts of carbon.

So which well funded NGO is going to take Murdoch to court for trading under false pretenses ?

Regards,

Bill