Revolution of the Nerds: WIRED’s NextFest

Normally composed of gadget obsessed, glasses-clad Gamers, the color of geek has suddenly gone green. This would account for the fact that this year’s Wired NextFest, the Future of Technologies Fair held at the Los Angeles convention center, devoted 18 of its 165 exhibits to "CleanTech." In fact, tucked in right next to booths on…

In the Valley of Elah

In the Valley of Elah is a new film from Paul Haggis (director and writer of Crash, writer of Million Dollar Baby, among others). I should say at outset I am ambivalent about Haggis’s work. In previous films, he tends to write “on the nose,” choppy, emotionally overwrought scenes that shove their message directly at…

Carbon and “The Good Life”

As a symbol of our cultural moment, the MTV Video Music Awards program Sunday September 10 was unexpectedly complex. I tuned in mid-Sarah Silverman, who was already deconstructing Britney 2.0, who had just gotten offstage. MTV (VIA), where the target demographic has drifted down to tween girls (largely because of the influence of Britney 1.0)…

Construction, Pricing and Lazy Consumers

Photo:peterandringa, Creative Commons, Flickr I come from a family of construction and real estate gurus, so naturally the panel on green buildings at the AlwaysOn GoingGreen conference not only intrigued me, I even knew a little bit about the subject. Luckily it took place on the first morning of the event. The take-away is simple.…

Just the Beginning

Most presenters at AlwaysOn’s GoingGreen conference agreed that we are just beginning to scratch the surface of green opportunities out there, whether referring to distributed power generation or water innovation. And there are many, many smart people scratching, scraping and digging away at the opportunities. While many of the presented ideas were longer term solutions…

The Corporation

If a single entertainment item could defibrillate our socially ambivalent culture into taking action against the corrupt state of the corporate world, The Corporation (2004) might be it. In this fast-paced and thorough documentary, filmmakers Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott cross-examine the management of corporate America, as well as its victims and critics, and leave…

Bright Leaves

Photo:Amareschal, Creative Commons, Flickr Bright Leaves, a documentary of North Carolina’s tobacco legacy, is a personal project of filmmaker Ross McElwee. As such, it is part documentary, part home video, part miscellaneous. One’s enjoyment of the film depends largely on the one’s tolerance of McElwee himself, who ranges from moderately funny to distractedly self-absorbed.

Green Backlash

The backlash on the green trend has finally arrived, and the question now is if the current wave of environmentalism has staying power. The people at Spiked see environmentalism fundamentally as an emotional spasm, a twitch of guilt and angst, which dresses itself in "frightfully dry statistics" to look grown up. Greenormal argues that "the…

Live Earth – 07/07/2007

Live Earth is a music event taking place across 7 continents on July 7, 2007 to make Al Gore look cool and to combat the climate crisis. The event marks the beginning of a multi-year call to action for individuals, corporations and governments, with the goal of driving a critical mass of people to stand…

Bloomberg at DMI

Mayor Michael Bloomberg was honored at a benefit for The Drum Major Institute (DMI) on Thursday evening. DMI, a progressive organization that backed Fernando Ferrer for mayor in 2005, recently issued a detailed analysis of congestion pricing in support of Mayor Bloomberg's PlaNYC program. Bloomberg is currently pushing the state to allow an early test…

The BerkShares

I love currency. I think currency is one of those things, like wristwatches, that will get phased out in time, but for now serve as a reminder that attention to detail is an end in itself. It is with empathy, then, that I read about the town in western Massachusetts that adopted its own currency,…

GE Almighty

Universal and its parent company, GE, announced this week that they are committing $25 million in environmentally conscious marketing funds to promote the June 22 release of the sequel Evan Almighty (the sequel to the smash hit Bruce Almighty, starring Steve Carell and Morgan Freeman). The marketing plan includes an eco-awareness campaign, which gives audiences…

Gore on Reason

Previous Photo:World Resources Institute Staff, Creative Commons, Flickr A day after finishing Al Gore’s new book, "The Assault on Reason," an image flashed before me: Gore is like a bookend to William Jennings Bryan, another interesting American who never got to be president. I think Bryan may be best known to people with a Northeastern…

Blue State

Blue State is a movie about a guy who so completely devotes himself to John Kerry’s 2004 campaign because of his hatred of George W. Bush, that he swears to move to Canada if Bush is reelected.

PBS’s “Hot Politics”

On Tuesday, April 24, I went to a screening of a PBS Frontline episode on global warming at Goldcrest Post Screening Room. The title of the show was “Hot Politics,” and the show examined why the US government has failed to take appropriate measures to combat the issue of global warming.

Owning a Pro Sports Franchise

Remember when you used to dream about taking the field for your favorite professional sports team?  You spent hours in the backyard rehearsing how you'd come through in clutch situations, neglecting the homework you'd never need to do anyway once you signed your first big contract.  Unfortunately for most of us, the dream faded relatively…

The Imus Effect

Unless you've turned off your TV or sworn off the Internet for the past couple of weeks, you probably know about the recent Don Imus controversy.  If you haven't heard about it, the long-time radio shock jock made an off-hand comment on the air about the Rutgers women's basketball team, referring to the predominantly African-American…

Michelle Dow Bio

Michelle Dow: Director, The Corporate Citizenship Company Inc. Michelle leads the US operations of The Corporate Citizenship Company, a specialist management consultancy helping companies to succeed as good citizens worldwide. She leads client relationships across services including: corporate social and environmental strategy, reporting and benchmarking; social and economic impact assessment; stakeholder engagement; and communications.  Recent…