WTF: The Tapeworm Diet

“Darling, you look fabulous! What’s your secret?””

“Well, I’ll tell you… I swallowed a tapeworm and I’ve never been thinner!”

Allowing a disgusting parasite that can reach up to 25 feet long to grow inside your intestines isn’t exactly a reasonable way to lose weight. Yet, the Tapeworm Diet exists, and who else but Tyra Banks featured it on her circus of a talk show on Monday, exposing this vomitous idea to millions of people across the country.

From Ecorazzi:

According to Diet Review, “[The Tapeworm] secretes proteins in our intestinal tract that make our digestion of food much less efficient. A less efficient digestive systems means that you can consume more calories through your food since your “body guest” is also noshing on them for his own growth purposes. Some scientists estimate that those infected with a single tapeworm can lose up to one or two pounds each week.”

Healthy eating? Blah. Exercise? Who needs it! Just swallow a parasite and continue hitting KFC for lunch and dinner. Tyra even had a guy on that sells the worms over the Internet; despite an FDA ban on the practice. Said one woman on Twitter, “I’m still undecided on Tyra Banks’ Tapeworm diet. I don’t know if its a great or just plain ridiculous.” Undecided? What the hell is wrong with people?

And Tyra actually found two women who said they were willing to ingest a tapeworm to lose weight, despite the risks. You might ask, “Who are these people?” But, hey, this is America.

It might sound like some kind of hoax, but it’s for real – check out the comments at Diets in Review. Some of them are clearly tongue-in-cheek (and the diet has an unlikely 52% approval rating), but there are also commenters asking for information on where to get a tapeworm they can swallow. Amazing.

Link [Ecorazzi]

Matt Damon’s Clean Water PSA Freakout

Does Matt Damon secretly have a wicked temper? The Bostonite has been captured on camera giving a verbal ass-kicking to environmentalist and actor Adrian Grenier while filming a PSA for clean water organization OneXOne as Grenier’s fellow Entourage star Jeremy Pervert Piven looks on.

Damon is set to appear in a cameo on Entourage next week promoting OneXOne, which is his real-life charity. Here’s the scoop, from US Magazine via Ecorazzi:

“The joke is that Matt is very passionate about his charity — almost in a stalkerish kind of way,” Adrian Grenier, who plays movie star Vince, said. “Vince becomes intimated by his intensity. He ends up bullying Vince into giving much more than he should.”

Costar Emmanuelle Chriqui, who plays Sloan, added: “Matt gets Vince to make a massive donation. He’s like, ‘Bro – whip out your checkbook!’”

So, of course it’s just promotional for Damon’s appearance on Entourage. But, it’s still funny to see this notorious ‘nice guy’ drop the F-bomb a dozen times in a two-minute clip!

Link [Ecorazzi]

Jay Leno Show to Feature Green Celebrity Car Races

A new time slot isn’t the only change coming this fall as Jay Leno takes the helm of his own late night show after leaving The Tonight Show. MNN spoke to Leno, who’s a major car buff, about one cool (and somewhat strange) addition to his new show: an eco racetrack, where celebrity guests will face off a couple times a week in the Green Car Challenge.

From MNN:

Ford is supplying electric Focus models outfitted with in-car cameras and microphones.

“All celebrities talk about being green. We want to see who is green and fast,” Leno tells MNN. He got the idea from the attention he’d get — especially from women — whenever he drove one of his electric or hydrogen-cell vehicles (which he parks in a solar-paneled garage) to work.

“It’ll be fun to see if Shaquille O’Neal is faster than Cameron Diaz,” says Leno, noting that Tom Cruise requested a practice run — and was denied. “Nobody gets to practice,” he warns. Drew Barrymore has already accepted the challenge, and Leno would love to get race enthusiast Patrick Dempsey. No word yet on whether first guest Jerry Seinfeld will get behind the wheel.

Hey, it’s a slight deviation from the standard late night older-white-dude-behind-a-desk schtick, so it just might draw in some extra viewers. And Leno knows a thing or two about green cars. Though his huge car collection may not exactly qualify as eco-friendly, a number of those vehicles are ultra-efficient and/or powered with renewable energy. He also co-designed the EcoJet concept, which runs on biodiesel.

“The Jay Leno Show” debuts tonight, September 14th, at 10pm EST on NBC.

Link [MNN]
Photo credit: GM

Green Porno 3 Highlights Seafood Sustainability (and Sex)

If you just can’t get enough of watching bizarre animal sex behaviors acted out by a beautiful Italian actress, we’ve got good news. Season three of Green Porno is coming, and this time, it’ll focus on undersea shenanigans.

Isabella Rossellini spent previous seasons of Green Porno bringing the sex lives of creatures like earthworms and snails to life in vivid detail, donning weird animal costumes, moaning and rubbing against props.

Though we’ve been under the water with Isabella before, exploring the sexuality of whales, anglerfish and starfish, the new season will feature sea creatures that tend to end up in our kitchens.

From the release, via Ecorazzi:

“Green Porno 3″ introduces several new elements to the series as Isabella examines the routines of sea animals popular in human kitchens in the first three films of the series: “Bon Appetit: Shrimp,” “Bon Appetit: Squid” and “Bon Appetit: Anchovy.” The films also feature biologist Claudio Campagna, who talks about what we can do to keep our plates in balance with the sea. In the fourth film, “Harem on the Beach: Elephant Seal,” Isabella explores the curious ways of the elephant seal and journeys to Argentinean Patagonia to see the animals in action. Here, too, she is joined by Campagna, who has studied elephant seals for 30 years.

Check out the starfish episode from season 2:

The season premiere debuts on September 11th at the Toronto Film Festival, and will come to your television on Monday, September 21st at 8pm ET/PT only on the Sundance Channel. It’ll also be available for free viewing online starting September 14th at SundanceChannel.com/GreenPorno.

Link [Green Porno] + [Ecorazzi]

Futurama’s Leela is an EcoFeminist Hero, Sort of

Ecofeminism, civil disobedience for environmental causes, galactic golf and species extinction: all of this and more is featured on ‘Into the Wild Green Yonder’, the last of a series of straight-to-DVD Futurama movies.

Central to the story is a group of pink-wearing eco-feminists riding around in a ‘Vagiroscope’ battling to save an asteroid of primitive life forms from destruction by a businessman who has created the biggest game of (supremely environmentally unfriendly) miniature golf ever played.

Here’s a quick clip:

Futurama	Weeknights, 9p/8c
Into the Wild Green Yonder – Eco-Feminists
www.comedycentral.com
Joke of the Day Stand-Up Comedy Free Online Games

If you missed ‘Into the Wild Green Yonder’ when it played on Sunday night and you’re too lazy to Netflix it, it’ll be replaying this Wednesday, September 2nd, at 7pm EST on Comedy Central.

But wait, there’s more! Previous green-themed Futurama episodes include ‘The Problem with Popplers’, ‘A Taste of Freedom’     and ‘The Birdbot of Ice-Catraz’, and they even covered poo power.

Link [Comedy Central]

Overfishing Not Fishermen’s Fault, Say ‘Deadliest Catch’ Seamen

Overfishing is a huge environmental problem – the world’s oceans are losing their stocks of fish at a dramatic pace. Almost 80% of fish stock is fully- to over-exploited, depleted or in a state of collapse, which means bad news for the entire ocean ecosystem and the humans that depend upon fish for survival. Schools of fish are no match for the fishing industry’s modern technology, and many blame fishermen for unsustainable fishing practices.

Not so fast, say the stars of The Discovery Channel’s reality series ‘Deadliest Catch’. In a Reuters report, several of the show’s boat captains assert that small commercial fishermen shouldn’t take the fall for the problem.

Several fishing boat captains from the Emmy-nominated cable TV show say government bodies and fisheries need to set wiser fishing quotas to ensure healthy fish populations and a balanced food chain. The show’s fifth season finale airs on Tuesday on the Discovery Channel cable television network.

“When things go wrong, the fishermen get blamed, but the truth is we are only fishing what they tell us we can fish,” captain Phil Harris told Reuters, referring to the quotas that Alaskan crab fisherman like him are given at the beginning of each season setting limits to how much they can catch.

“It makes me so angry when people talk about overfishing. We have never overfished, they give us a quota and we catch it,” said captain Andy Hillstrand, who heads his family-owned vessel the “Time Bandit.” “People call fishermen greedy, but it is not their job to regulate it.”

For years, the fishing industry has rewarded large-scale operations for capturing vast quantities of fish – so they worked on methods and technology that would help them catch the largest amounts possible.

When the European Union put strict fishing quotas in place, unscrupulous fishermen responded by catching as many as they could and then dumping the less valuable species and smaller fish – which were dead by this point – back into the ocean to avoid fines.  Fishermen claimed it was the only way they could make a living with such “ridiculously low quotas”.

Scientists, environmentalists and the commercial fishing industry have been unable to agree on a solution that works for everyone.

Link [Reuters]

Hell Freezes Over, Pigs Fly and Bill O’Reilly Argues that Global Warming is Real

In what can only be a new episode of the Twilight Zone, Bill O’Reilly was actually the rational voice in an argument with conservative radio host Laura Ingraham about whether global warming is real. After you take a moment to process that statement, take a look at the video below.

O’Reilly: “Do you believe in global warming, by the way, Ingraham?”
Ingraham: “Ah, no, I’m not a big global warming champion.”
O’Reilly: “See, I do, I believe in it.”
Ingraham: “Bill, I’m stockpiling SUVs, okay, you’re barking up the wrong tree. I’m buying as many as I can. I think we’re getting cooler, not warmer.”
O’Reilly: “Well, that’s not what the temperature says.”

As far as I can tell, the sky’s not falling, nor are there pigs circling overhead. It’s hard not to wonder whether the world as we know it is about to end when someone like Bill O’Reilly argues on our side against one of his fellow right-wing half-wits.

Link [Media Matters] via [The Huffington Post]

Who’s Who in Green: Dr. Heidi Cullen

“If a meteorologist can’t speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS (American Meteorological Society) shouldn’t give them a Seal of Approval.” That’s the statement that climate scientist Dr. Heidi Cullen dared to make on her Weather Channel blog in December of 2006 that stirred up a firestorm over global warming science vs. politics.

It sounds like common sense to most, but Cullen – former host of Forecast Earth – quickly became a punching bag for angry conservatives who felt that she was disseminating liberal propaganda from what they said should be a politically neutral platform. However, Cullen feels strongly that global warming isn’t a political issue, it’s a scientific one. She was just doing her job.

Cullen, who was a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado before joining The Weather Channel in 2003 as a climate expert, is also a scientist with the Climate Central at Princeton University.

Cullen explained the controversy in a 2007 interview with The New York Times:

Last December, I wrote a blog about how reticent some broadcast meteorologists are about reporting on climate change. Meteorologists — they are the forecasters — have training in atmospheric science. Many are certified by the American Meteorological Society. I suggested there’s a disconnect when they use their A.M.S. seal for on-camera credibility and refuse to give viewers accurate information on climate. The society has a very clear statement saying that global warming is largely due to the burning of fossil fuels.

The next thing I knew, I was being denounced on the Web sites of Senator James Inhofe, Matt Drudge and Rush Limbaugh. The Weather Channel’s own Web site got about 4,000 e-mails in one day, mostly angry. Some went, ‘Listen here, weather girl, just give me my five-day forecast and shut up.’

Dr. Cullen’s stance took bravery and dedication, and we applaud her for standing her ground. This climate scientist knows her stuff, and she has certainly made an impact on the discussion about global warming’s role in our world.

Link [The New York Times]

Planet Green Going Blue This August

Planet Green, the television channel devoted to all things sustainable, is going blue this August with programming dedicated to the beauty and mystery of the aquatic. Water and ocean-themed television shows and documentaries will play all August long, including the network premiere of the ‘Blue Planet’ series, new episodes of ‘Focus Earth with Bob Woodruff’ and the world premiere of NRDC’s documentary about ocean acidification.

Here’s a sneak peek at the details:

Hosts Philippe and Alexandra Cousteau draw on the half-century legacy of their legendary family of explorers. These dynamic siblings have dedicated their life’s work to advocacy on behalf of the oceans, conservation and clean water, undoubtedly one of the most daunting and important challenges of our time. Philippe and Alexandra bring their engaging personalities, individual expertise and experience to Blue August through short-form content and entertaining hosted segments throughout the month

Poignant and vivid programming including the network premiere of the award-winning series Blue Planet, a special oceans-themed episode of Focus Earth with Bob Woodruff and the world premiere of Acid Test: The Challenge of Ocean Acidification, an original, groundbreaking documentary by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) featuring Sigourney Weaver. View the trailer for Acid Test at (http://planetgreen.discovery.com/tv/blue-august.html) and find out more about the film and ocean acidification at www.nrdc.org

All month long on planetgreen.com, readers can engage with a broad range of original content from viewing slideshows of jaw-dropping waves to voting for your favorite sea creature to Beach Tips 101. Get involved with volunteer activities, get informed with buying guides and get started using everyday actions with big impact

TreeHugger.com goes deep with a comprehensive look at the state of our oceans and clean water, with the latest politics, opinion, and news. Interviews and special features with thought leaders and experts explore the present challenges and future solutions for a healthy blue planet

Get more info over at PlanetGreen.com!

Link [Planet Green]

Oprah Pimps KFC After Running Special on ‘Dark Side’ of Chicken Factory Farming

Barely six months after running a special about the ‘dark side of chicken factory farming’, Oprah has teamed with KFC to give a free two-piece grilled chicken meal to every family in America. Lucky us. The free meal coupons were offered at Oprah.com yesterday.

The October 2008 show focused on contrasting the practices at conventional factory farms with those at organic, free-range farms – and earned her PETA’s 2008 ‘Person of the Year’.

From Ecorazzi:

Obviously, this is going to come as a shock to PETA — who is in the middle of a renewed campaign urging KFC to change the way its suppliers treat their chickens. Famous folks like Pamela Anderson, Sir Paul McCartney, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, The Rev. Al Sharpton, and countless others have signed on to boycott KFC.

Some will argue that this is a free meal — and in a time of economic hell, any food is good food. It just bothers me that with everything Oprah has done to bring attention to the plight of chickens and animals in factory farms, that she would approach a chain like KFC to give people a free meal. Why not give something relatively healthy like a free salad instead?

So, how does Oprah reconcile using her enormous powers of influence over the American people to educate them about the realities of dirty, inhumane practices at factory farming, and then turning around and supporting those same practices?

As we’ve said many times here, whether you love PETA or hate them, they’ve got some good points, and KFC’s disgusting treatment of chickens is definitely among them. Oprah, who has focused shows so many times on health and wellness, shouldn’t be using her celebrity to endorse such a company.

Unsurprisingly, the offer prompted hordes of crazy Oprah fans to descend upon KFCs all over the country demanding their free meal, causing what Gawker half-jokingly referred to as ‘racial violence’. Says a Gawker tipster,

I went over to our nearest KFC a few minutes ago (this was around 42nd and Park) and chaos ensued. Despite the very visible grilled chicken behind the register, the manager told everyone with coupons to leave and that the promotion was over for the day. The people there are currently holding a sit-in and refusing to leave until they get their free chicken…or the cops are called. Racial epithets were being spewed, people who actually wanted to pay for chicken were facing a potential beatdown, and the manager ran from the screaming horde. Oprah, what have ye wrought?

The power of Oprah is truly a frightening thing.

Link [Ecorazzi]

Seventh Generation Separates Green Myth from Fact on ‘Big Green Lies’

Tired of being lied to about all things green? On Earth Day, Wednesday April 22nd, environmental activist and Seventh Generation President Jeffrey Hollender will separate green myth from facts on a special called ‘Big Green Lies’ on the Fine Living Network.

From the corridors of power to the halls of your home, follow the crew of BIG GREEN LIES as they perform mad science, track down the partisan experts, expert partisans, average citizens, rabid researchers, and other oracles who think they’ve got the ecological answers you’re seeking.  Tune in as host and Seventh Generation CEO Jeffrey Hollender dispatches his team of off-kilter operatives to locations around an overheated globe to separate ecological facts from fiction, addressing the issues that no one’s had the chutzpah to take on until now. Take a sneak peak at some of our attitudes to a few myths (yes, yours and mine!)  at www.biggreenlies.com

“As the name implies, Big Green Lies aims to reveal the falsehoods behind prevalent green myths and settle long-standing debates,” said Jeffrey Hollender. “Our team tackles a few of those questions in our first episode:

•       Is the planet really having a cow over our appetite for beef?
•       Would the world be better off if some of us didn’t drive a Prius?
•       Should a smog alert be issued for our living room?
•       Paper or plastic-which really has sustainability in the bag?
•       Are disposable diapers as guilty of environmental sins as everyone thinks?

You might be thinking, can the president of a huge company selling green products really be trusted to give us the full truth about green issues? It’s easy to be skeptical when we just found out that 98% of green products contain false claims on their labels or in advertising. I guess we’ll just have to tune in on Earth Day at 9pmET/PT to find out.

Link [Big Green Lies]

Extinction Sucks – What are You Gonna Do About it?

The first ever online wildlife TV series, “Extinction Sucks”, is now on free independent Web TV service Babelgum. It’s a series of half-hour episodes following the real life adventures of two best friends from Perth in Western Australia, Aleisha Caruso and Ashleigh Young, who will go to any lengths to bamboozle people into parting with their money to help endangered animal species around the world.

“Extinction Sucks” will suck you in and make you want to act on behalf of the animals around the world that are on the brink of extinction, too. The first episode is already up, and new ones debut every Friday, so be sure to check back!

Link [Extinction Sucks]

Who’s Who in Green: David Suzuki

David Suzuki is one of the world’s most prominent green leaders and has been named a ‘Hero of the Environment’ by TIME Magazine. The Canadian science broadcaster and environmental activist is well known for his TV and radio series and books about nature and the environment, and has long been host of CBC Television series The Nature of Things.

Suzuki began his career as Canada’s premier young geneticist and award-winning bench scientist, becoming a professor at the young age of 33, but ultimately found himself drawn to environmentalism. He made a second career for himself of creating nature documentaries for television and radio, and The Nature of Things – which began its run in 1979 – has aired in 50 countries around the world.

But Suzuki is more than a beloved television host – he’s also a long time climate change activist, working to reverse global warming and protect the Earth. He co-founded the David Suzuki Foundation in 1990, which works to “find ways for society to live in balance with the natural world that sustains us”, and has also been a prominent proponent of renewable energy and sustainable living.

His passion for global warming activism has done as much for his image as a green guru as his hosting duties. In recent years, Suzuki has spoken out again and again for the need to act on climate change, controversially urging college students to find a way to jail political leaders for ignoring science in February of 2008.

Suzuki has been honored with Canada’s most prestigious award, the Order of Canada Officer as well as Order of British Columbia and UNESCO’s Kalinga Prize for science. He has been nominated as one of the top ten greatest Canadians by viewers of CBC, finishing fifth – and the four Canadians ahead of him on that list are all dead. Suzuki is also the recipient of the Bradford Washburn Award, presented by the Museum of Science in Boston.

David told Natural Life Magazine why he feels it’s important to target children with environmental education:

The lesson to me is that adults don’t want to change. People – especially people in positions of power – have invested a tremendous amount of effort and time to get to where they are. They really don’t want to hear that we’re on the wrong path, that we’ve got to shift gears and start thinking differently. And I understand that. After you’ve worked for a little nest egg, you don’t want to change.

Children haven’t invested time or effort into the status quo. They’re completely open. Now the problem is that children are going to take another 20 or 30 years to replace us and we don’t have 20 or 30 years. But I feel the one vulnerability adults have is their children. Even the most rabid right-wing conservative bastard loves his children and if you love your children you are vulnerable. If a child says, “Dad (or Mum), I’m really worried. What kind of a future am I going to have? What are you doing to help my future?”, parents have to respond. You have no choice. So the hope in this kind of endeavour is that children singing it around the house are going to effect mum and dad.

David Suzuki’s Green Score: 67,849

Green Porno is Back, Now with More Sex!

Isabella Rossellini will be doing some very dirty things on your television screen again starting this week, but it’ll only turn you on if you’ve got some weird fetishes.  Last year, the beautiful Italian actress teamed up with the Sundance Channel to produce a series of short films entitled ‘Green Porno’, and the second season debuts Wednesday, April 1st.

It involves Rossellini wearing bizarre costumes (including weird nude bodysuits complete with fake nipples and pubic hair), moaning and rubbing her body up against fellow costumed creatures. This season, there will be even more sex, and it’s not just limited to insects- fish and crustaceans are getting in on the action, too.

Here’s a clip from last season:

And a teaser of episodes to come:

It’s bizarre, no doubt about it – but it’s also educational, and Rossellini is passionate (ahem) about animals, as we can all see. She’s not just the star, but also conceived, scripted and directed the films. Her goal is to make people laugh and get them more interested in animals – and hey, sex sells.

Via [The Huffington Post]

Who’s Who in Green: Sara Snow

You probably already know Sara Snow’s face from her Discovery Health television show, Get Fresh with Sara Snow. But Snow is far from just a television host – she’s a green living expert and passionate advocate for sustainable food and she has made it her life goal to share her knowledge about healthy and natural living.

Snow grew up in a progressive household in the country outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan, with parents who immersed her and her siblings into the world of food and natural living early on.  Her father, Tim Redmond, is co-founder of Eden Foods. Snow spent many of her days communing with nature, helping her parents cook healthy meals and taking part in local theatrical productions. Snow went on to get her degrees in theater performance and telecommunications, and worked briefly as a television producer and later as a reporter.

In 2005, Snow came up with the idea for a lifestyle television series that focuses on the things she learned growing up – composting, recycling, gardening, natural cleaning and eating organically. Soon after, she struck a deal with Discovery Communications and began work on “Living Fresh”, her first show, which is credited as being the first series about natural living on the air. In 2006, Snow got her second show, “Get Fresh with Sara Snow”, in which she travels the country in search of companies that offer green, natural products and services and helps people find ways to go green in their own lives.

Snow visited her fellow ‘Who’s Who in Green’ honorees, the Dervaes Family, at the Path to Freedom Urban Homestead on an episode of Get Fresh with Sara Snow.

Sara Snow is also an advisory board member at Planet Green and is on the board of directors for the Organic Center, a non-profit organization that advocates for organic products. Snow appears regularly on CNN in a segment called “Living Green with Sara Snow” and has a column at Treehugger entitled “Green Eyes On…”. Snow released a DVD with Gaiam called “Growing Green Babies” and her first book, Fresh Living: The Essential Room-by-Room Guide to a Greener, Healthier Family and Home was released just last week.

In a 2008 article at Treehugger, Snow discussed her pleasure at gaining a reputation as an ‘eco warrior’ and what it means to her to be honored with an award by the Natural Products Leadership Gathering:

These men and women have been working day and night since their awakening (some describe it as a smack to the head, though the yogis of the bunch call it their third-eye opening) to improve our planet and our food supply for future generations. And it’s because of the things that they chose to do that I have something to do!

So it was with emotion beyond my imagination that I accepted an award from this very group at the Leadership Gathering, which honors four individuals or companies each year. Most times, the awards go to people who have been fighting the fight with decided dedication and focus for years. One award goes to someone from the so-called second generation, and this year, it was me. I was honored as the Rising Star of the current generation, working diligently to crescendo the message of green and natural living.

Check out Eco Chick’s write-up of Sara Snow’s new book and grab yourself a copy at Amazon.com.

The Simpsons Go Green Again, Featuring Ed Begley Jr.

We love it when references to green stuff appear in pop culture – especially, in case you haven’t noticed, when it’s on South Park or The Simpsons. Sunday night’s episode, Gone Maggie Gone, features green reality TV star Ed Begley Jr., a solar eclipse and solar-powered cars and trains. Check out the clip below, or watch the full episode at Hulu.com.

Link [Hulu] via [The Huffington Post]

Smug Self-Important San Francisco Stereotype Springs to Life

There’s a certain stereotype that San Franciscans just can’t seem to get away from. Smug, Prius-driving, Whole Foods-patronizing with a my-shit-don’t-stink attitude that is unleashed upon anyone who isn’t flawlessly green 24 hours a day. That stereotype doesn’t actually fit most residents of this beautiful California city, but it came to life in a maddening episode of ABC’s reality show Wife Swap in the form of Brit transplant Stephen Fowler. The episode aired weeks ago, but the fallout continues.

Fowler, wearing t-shirts with slogans like ‘Treehugger’, ‘Go Solar’ and ‘Sustainability’, made a complete and total jackass of himself by treating Gayle Long, the woman who was forced to live with him for a week, embarrasingly badly.

From The Huffington Post:

At one point, as Long read a list of rules for the Fowler family, Fowler told her, “I didn’t know you could read.” When Long challenged Fowler for acting like he was better than her, he responded: “I probably make more in a week than you make in a year.”

At the end of the visit, he said, “God, that woman is the most stupid woman I’ve ever met in my life.”

Friends quoted anonymously in the San Francisco Chronicle said Fowler told them he was instructed to ham it up by “Wife Swap’s” producers. His performance evoked a stereotype of the San Francisco elitist liberal — the tree-hugging do-gooder who acts morally superior while putting down others.

Watch the video clips to get a real sense of just how much of an asshat this guy really is:

Shea Gunther said it best over at MNN.com:

Fowler does not represent the vast overwhelming majority of environmentalists (and San Franciscans) who are very nice people who just want to pass on a nice world to their grandkids. Sure, a few are snobby jerks like Fowler, but most of us are really nice folks.

I’m happy that Fowler seems to be paying mightily for his terrible behavior. His wife has publicly said he needs to “get professional help” and the Internet has responded in full force, spawning StephenFowlerSucks.com and a Facebook group called “I Can not Stand Stephen Fowler from `Wife Swap’ “. I hope he takes a lot of lessons away from this and comes out a less douchey person on the other side.

On behalf of all greenies – especially San Francisco greenies – you suck, Stephen Fowler!

Link [The Huffington Post] + [MNN.com]

Who’s Who in Green: Angela Lindvall

She’s a gorgeous, smart vegetarian eco-activist with a big heart – and one of the world’s most recognizable models. Angela Lindvall is the founder of the Collage Foundation, a non-profit organization that encourages a trend for environmental, social and political concern. She’s also a green living role model and an actress, and shares her eco-knowledge on television and in internet videos.

Born in Oklahoma and raised in Missouri, Angela was a tomboy – she grew up climbing trees and playing with frogs and was uninterested in modeling until a talent scout spotted her at the age of 14 and signed her with IMG. Angela has since appeared on the cover of Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, Vogue, W and several other magazines and has appeared in ad campaigns for Fendi, Calvin Klein, Christian Dior, Tommy Hilfiger, Jil Sander, Chanel and H&M.

As her modeling career took off in NYC, Angela had more on her mind than fashion and glamour. “I [began] looking into what was in our food, water and the air, and started getting environmental disaster anxiety,” she said. “I felt like, ‘Why isn’t this on the front page of the newspaper?’”

For several years, Angela lived on an environmentally friendly tugboat she refurbished with her husband William Edwards using as much sustainable material as possible, including recycled glass tiles, beeswax-based paint and cork flooring. Angela’s current home in Topanga Canyon, California is also chock full of eco-friendly style and she hopes to soon get her own chickens and install solar panels.

The Collage Foundation is “driven by the goal of showing today’s youth they have real choices about their role in the world, and the power to make a difference in a variety of ways.” It provides resources and inspiration for young people to get involved in today’s environmental and social issues, presenting these issues in a fun and entertaining way to foster creativity and activism.

Angela is now the style expert on Planet Green’s Alter Eco, and works with organizations like the National Resources Defense Council and Global Green. She also works with Camp Hill Farms, an organic farm in upstate New York that has developed a model for local food production in cooperation with local government.

Angela Lindvall’s Green Score: 12,038

The Digital Conversion Will Send Thousands of Useless TVs to Landfills

As the February 17th deadline for the digital TV conversion looms, more people are starting to wonder what can be done with all of the televisions that will become obsolete. State and local governments have been concerned about old TVs piling up in landfills since the switch was first announced, and some have developed special recycling programs to handle the problem.

Some states are charging for the privilege to recycle your old TV, however, making it an unpopular option – and many are seeing increases in illegal TV dumping. It’s illegal in 11 states to dispose of televisions in landfills due to hazardous substances contained within them as well as their heavy weight.

The government is offering coupons worth $40 toward the cost of a DTV conversion box that will keep old analog televisions working after the switch, but they’re starting to run out. There are also some reported problems with the conversion boxes, since various broadcasters present programs in different aspect ratios and some programs appear double-letterboxed, cropped into a 13” picture on a 17” television. All of this makes it likely that many people will choose to upgrade their televisions rather than use the conversion box.

Chicago’s The Week Behind explains the problem:

Bart Forbes, a spokesman for the U.S. Commerce Department, admits the DTV conversion kit is a stopgap measure, and he points out the coupons are not a magic bullet. The coupons were aimed at preventing poor, rural and older citizens from losing their TV signals entirely. They were not intended to let viewers replicate the HDTV experience.

As it stands now, only 18% of discarded TVs ever reach a recycler. The vast majority of these (about 80%) wind up being shipped overseas to Asia, South America and other developing countries for resale or materials recovery.

Inside the United States, the EPA estimates only two percent (that’s less than 100,000 TVs) are broken down in “glass to glass” recycling plants while another 16 percent go to smelters for lead recovery or recycling companies that cull out the plastic and metal parts.

Since we’ve learned that we can’t necessarily rely on recycling programs to actually dispose of electronic waste safely and ethically, many people with analog televisions are unsure of what to do.

You can find out what your state’s laws are and whether recycling programs are available locally at MyGreenElectronics.com, a site run by the environmental affairs division of the Consumer Electronics Association. If you can’t find recycling options, hang on to your television until new laws and government oversight ensure that it can be safely recycled.

Link [The Week Behind]
Photo credit: Flickr user luisvilla

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