Frida Pinto and Rubina Ali from the movie “Slumdog Millionaire” greet each other at the Governor’s Ball following the 81st Academy Awards Sunday, Feb. 22, 2009, in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta)

And the Oscar goes to…..Slumdog Millionaire!

Every so often a wonderful movie about India wins a series of Oscars promising to finally put the face of this massive culture on the map. Gandhi, A Passage to India, Slumdog Millionaire.  But after the initial euphoria, the world eventually goes back to life as they know it. This time, after sweeping the Oscars with eight awards, India’s slumdogs are headed back to the slums.

The movie has reached massive acclaim in a very short span of time. Americans love it as it offers the romance of a rags- to-riches story artfully crafted by the creative hand of Danny Boyle, a proven talent in film-making. Indians on the other hand have had mixed responses about what the movie portrayed and the fact that its producers have exploited those who live in abject poverty.

So the question is did India actually win? Or was it simply a convenient subject for Hollywood?

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Think of Björk and the Icelandic musician’s bizarre videos, eccentric clothing and eclectic music might spring to mind. Now she’s bringing a new theme to her persona: money.

Reykjavik, Iceland-based Audur Capital is raising money for its second venture-capital fund, named Björk, focused on greentech startups (via Earth2Tech and The New York Times). The singer and Audur jointly established the fund to help turn around Iceland’s economy, which was crushed by the country’s banking collapse in the fall. Audur seeded the fund, expected to close in March, with an investment of 100 million Icelandic kronur (about $816,330).

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Despite this year’s shortened Hollywood award season and last minute preparations, organizers managed to up the green cred for entertainment’s premier event, the Oscars®.

During the telecast, host Jon Stewart mentioned that the Oscars® had gone green, but didn’t go into any details…I was left wondering, “How green?” A quick trip to the Oscars website revealed a lot of detail. Some initiatives were simple prerequisites for any greening program, such as:

• Recycling collection for glass, paper, metal and plastics
• Use of low-VOC paints in the green room
• Reuse of anything and everything possible after the show, including plants, furniture, and set pieces
• Purchase of paper products containing post-consumer content

Other elements were a bit more interesting:

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To capitalize on the event, Global Green is hosting a pre-Oscar party. To be held on Wednesday, February 20th at super-club Avalon in Hollywood, the event just might provide celebrity gawkers with their fill of ogling…the Los Angeles committee includes such A-listers as Orlando Bloom, Penelope Cruz, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Charlize Theron.

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What a week we’ve had in green gossip, from the Oscars with our dear celebrities drenched in green, to Al Gore being thrown under the bus, to Indian celebrities dressed in scallion skirts. In terms of the Oscars, I know you’ve heard — it was an eco-friendly, tree-hugging love fest. The king of the festivities, Al Gore, became the bull’s eye by morning. The Tennessee Center for Policy Research (Publisher's FYI: The TCPR is a "rightwing attack hack") decided to release Gore’s utility bills, that proved to be rather vast, in hopes of knocking him off his throne.

According to the article,

The Gores used about 191,000 kilowatt hours in 2006, according to bills reviewed by The Associated Press. The typical Nashville household uses about 15,600 kilowatt-hours per year. The group said that Gore used nearly 221,000 kilowatt hours last year and that his average monthly electric bill was $1,359. Johnson said his group got its figures from Nashville Electric Service. But company spokeswoman Laurie Parker said the utility never got a request from the policy center and never gave it any information.

So perhaps the Tenessee Center decided to exaggerate slightly in the name of politics, but in the end, there’s a clear message: Al, turn off the lights! Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider said: "Sometimes when people don't like the message, in this case that global warming is real, it's convenient to attack the messenger." Indeed it is.

In other news, Prince Charles isn’t happy about Happy Meals. He has long been an advocate of a balanced diet, especially in children to support healthy habits in the future.

The article states,

The prince, who owns the organic food company Duchy Originals, told an expert nutritionist what he thought of the famous fast food chain during a visit to the Imperial College London Diabetes Center in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday. Speaking to Nadine Tayara, he said, "Have you gotten anywhere with McDonald's, have you tried getting it banned? That's the key.

Is organic fast food next — or is this the end of fast? Next week is sure to be an interesting one – will Al Gore run for President, will ‘do you want fries with that,’ be banned from the UK? And about those scallion skirts, check out Ecorrazi for a photo!

Allow me to begin by saying that the Oscars are a bloated display of lopsided wealth and navel gazing. But I love fashion. There’s nothing that makes me feel as good as donning a well-cut hemp pinafore over a clean, crisp unbleached organic cotton tee, my long kitty-cat earrings just brushing the tops of my shoulders. Which is why I read with interest the Oscar red carpet round-up Monday in someone else’s copy of the local paper. Once that person threw the paper down and ran away, I could really delve into the sartorial splendor that is Hollywood’s biggest event.

And I was not disappointed. Well, I was disappointed in the sheer waste of silk. And the fabrics that were obviously chemically processed. But I was not disappointed in the wealth of things to shake my head at. And believe me, I shook my head long and hard (not too hard; that’s a carbon suck) when I learned that An Inconvenient Truth won an Academy Award® for best documentary.

That movie puts me off my tempeh, with its hopeful ending and upbeat can-do message. I haven’t seen it, but I know enough about it to condemn it outright. It’s a salve for people who want to believe they can alter the history of our ecosphere by driving a Prius and reusing paper bags. They can’t. Their mere existence all but guarantees the doom of carbon-negative earth lovers like myself.

Here we are, drowning our glorious eco-orb with globo-refuse, and Al Gore’s mincing around about how we might all get our feet a little wet if we don’t consider driving smaller cars and turning off the occasional light. He had a real opportunity to frighten the living crap out of everyone in the Western World, and he let it go. What a wuss. Give me an Orson Welles, who didn’t bat an eye when the American public wet its collective pants at his War of the Worlds broadcast.

Even the title leaves untapped fear and misery on the table. An Inconvenient Truth, indeed. How about ‘We’re All Going to Die And It’s Your Fault (I’m Talking To You, China)’? Imagine that coming out of Jerry Seinfeld’s mouth as he read the list of nominees.

But no, Al Gore chose to add to the atmosphere of waste at this year’s Oscars. Wasted resources, wasted fabric, wasted opportunities for worldwide guilt and abject fear. But I have to admit I liked Reese Witherspoon’s dress.

Obviously, everyone this morning on the green scene is excited that Al Gore and Co. came away with the Oscar for Best Documentary. In many ways, the Academy allowed Gore a generous amount of exposure throughout the evening — from jokes to walking the stage with Leonardo DiCaprio to announce that the Oscars had 'gone green.' If you visit the Academy's page on the subject however, there is a lot more type spent on 'How You Can Help The Environment' rather than on what the Oscars did specifically to change things. The only thing I could find online was a reference to the fact that the Oscar program was printed on environmentally-friendly paper. According to E!, "A note from Oscar producer Laura Ziskin, on page 35, points out that tonight's paper products were selected "with a sensitivity toward reducing the threats we face from global warming." Hooray. Only, the program apparently also wasted 50% of the paper it used. "The official Oscar program is, in a word, odd. It's this big long rectangular thing that you don't open, but rather flip through at the corners, thereby wasting about 50 percent of the dedicated paper." Bummer.

Still, the arrivals should have been a little greener this year, right? Well, to a degree, yes, I did spot several hybrids (have not yet managed to determine who arrived in the Tesla Roadster) but anything eco-friendly was again dwarfted by the usual suspects of black limos, SUVs and Lincoln Town Cars.

The Gore camp's acceptance speech was light and to the point. I especially like that it wasn't too preachy or political. Al's been doing a great job lately of blending party lines and attempting to stay (carbon) neutral on the subject. You can view the acceptance speech here thanks to the guys and gals over at Thinkprogress and their quick uploading.

Additional exposure for Inconvenient Truth came from Melissa Etheridge winning Best Song for "I Need To Wake Up". Her performance was only second to the DreamGirls number (I have to give vocal accolades to Beyonce there) and featured the eco-friendly tips from the movie's credits behind her. It was a nice addition and wasn't a distraction to the music. Her quote from the night (in relation to why she should win) was great. "I managed to rhyme An Inconvenient Truth with youth."

Beyond the above, there wasn't much else to celebrate on the environmental front. (Though more information on how green the event was may trickle down over the next couple days) It would be great if next year, the entire event could go carbon neutral with efficient lighting, massive recycling, a committment to offering alternative-fuel vehicles as a free option for the red carpet, and more celebs wearing sustainable fashion. We need to get some more Stella McCartney designs out there! Overall, however, it was a step in the right direction and I'm hopeful that a 'greening of the Oscars' will become a yearly tradition and not some one-time trend to soak up the hype. Congrats to Gore and company on their win. Let's hope his own rising star continues to influence others to make a difference for the world.