Green Options

Nearly three years ago, I took note of Bill McKibben’s Grist essay calling for more artistic expression about climate change, and lamented the most popular offerings on the subject at the time: the movie The Day After Tomorrow, and Michael Crichton’s global warming conspiracy novel State of Fear. This past weekend, I had the opportunity to read one of the latest efforts to address climate change within the framework of popular fiction, Marvin L. Zimmerman’s The Ovum Factor. This “eco-thriller” is the author’s first novel, and he demonstrates a real talent for spinning a page-turning yarn: I read the book in two sittings. Despite the story’s fast pace, though, Zimmerman succeeds in creating a work that a reader may finish quickly, but won’t simply put down afterwards. The thoughts that reader may have upon finishing The Ovum Factor, though, often won’t necessarily coincide with the author’s intentions..

Zimmerman’s protagonist, investment banker David Rose, isn’t particularly unique: like a number of John Grisham main characters, he’s successful, but unfulfilled. He’s looking for meaning in work driven almost solely by profit margins. Ironically, it’s the head of the firm for which David works that provides him an opportunity to find such meaning: billionaire Isidore Steinmartz sends the junior associate to Southern California to assess a project underway by Cal Tech professor and Nobel prize-winner Charles MacMillan. The project is titled PANDA, an acronym for Project for Accelerated Neural Development in Anthropoids. In short, MacMillan is studying how to increase the brain’s development during gestation, and produce super-intelligent children. Steinmartz, a member of an elite secret society charged with watching for, and heading off, the extinction of the human race, believes a generation of such beings will be needed to tackle the massive ecological challenges facing the planet and humanity.

Just like The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming, A Hot Planet Needs Cool Kids is a book explaining climate change and what children can do about it. It is exciting to see children’s authors addressing the topic in an accessible, age-appropriate manner. It is also encouraging to see the information about climate change presented along with inspiration for change, hopefully preventing children from experiencing the environmental depression I sometimes feel.

One difference between these books is the publishers. The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming is published by Scholastic, a major publisher of children’s books whom I have criticized in the past. In contrast, A Hot Planet Needs Cool Kids is the first publication of the independent company Green Goat Books. According to Green Goat Books,

We strive through planet friendly, progressive, and challenging books to support the development of progressive kids, so that the next generation will be prepared and motivated to care for our planet and the many forms of life that live on it.

Tomorrow is the release date for a movie on climate change called Everything’s Cool, an official selection from the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. This documentary examines the chasm that has developed between scientific knowledge about climate change and the lack of political action on the part of the US government. Featuring renowned scientists and journalists, Everything’s Cool is directed by Daniel B. Gold and Judith Helfand. This film has not been rated, but it would be an excellent catalyst for discussion with junior high and high school students, as well as adults who still do not recognize the need for immediate action to curb the effects of global warming.

Everything’s Cool has been called “A Profile in Courage” by the Ashland Daily Tidings, as the film features activists including Step It Up’s Bill McKibben, Pulitzer Prize winner Ross Gelbspan, The Weather Channel’s Dr. Heidi Cullen, the “bad boys of environmentalism” Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, and White House whistleblower Rick Piltz. Bill McKibben and Ross Gelbspan are two of my personal heroes, and I think that exposing young adults to such role models is important. Everything’s Cool makes these activists accessible by revealing their human feelings and showing how individuals can have an impact beyond “changing a light bulb.”

On April 14, 2007, Step it Up 2007 facilitated over 1400 different rallies in all 50 states urging Congress to cut carbon emissions 80% by 2050. It was the largest day of citizen actions on global warming in history, and it truly was citizen action. Although Step It Up 2007 was the brainchild of Bill McKibben and several former Middlebury College students, the success of the event was contingent on

[...]

Sustainability is making its way into mainstream periodicals. It seems like almost every magazine in the past year has featured a "green" issue, some credible, some not. My friend just gave me the green issue of a magazine targeted at the marketing industry. So it’s no surprise that Edutopia, an education magazine for teachers and administrators published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, used sustainability as a theme for their

[...]

When I talk to people about thinking sustainably, they inevitably ask for books to read, and although there are several books I love about sustainability, they’re all very specific to one area of sustainability. Want to read about food? Try Michael Pollan, Peter Singer, or the new Barbara Kingsolver book. Climate Change? How about The Weather Makers