Silly Sustainability Saturday: While the world burns, Farmville thrives

Time for another tour through the lighter side of sustainability this week, with sustainability news that is funny, silly (including just plain stupid), fun, or simply positive. This week's news features Next Media Animation, Cracked, Grist, and Hysterical Raisins with supporting roles played by CNBC, The Huffington Post, USA Today, Data Driven Detroit, and others and continues over the jump.

LOL, PETA

PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, is known for their very public, sometimes controversial, crusades against all forms of animal cruelty. Now they have trained their sights on a video game, Nintendo's Super Mario 3D Land.

In the game, the popular character Mario is able to wear a "tanooki suit," resembling a Japanese tanuki raccoon dog. PETA claims the suit encourages the wearing of fur products and has created a website in protest. The site features a parody game where players assume the role of a skinned "tanooki" who tries to wrestle his pelt back from an evil Mario lookalike.

People in the gaming press have been quick to point out that Mario is never seen harming a tanuki in the course of the game. One website called PETA's outrage "absurd and unresearched."

More at NMATV's YouTube page.

PETA has made two prior appearances here, the first in a Silly Sustainability Saturday during September and the second in a stand alone post in October. Now, they've made the silly sustainability news three months in a row. So, should we expect a story about them before Christmas?

In other news, my part in the hornet swatting ends today.  It's now up to other people.  I'll have details when it's done.

PETA attempts a science-fiction solution to a real-world issue

From Next Media Animation comes this story about PETA filing a lawsuit on behalf of the orcas at Sea World.

Seaworld has long been a family favorite for its spectacular shows. Trained killer whales have been a special draw.

But for members of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, what Seaworld is doing is enslaving killer whales.

PETA lawyers are suing Seaworld. They argue the 13th Amendment does not apply solely to humans.

Instead, they recommend that Seaworld replace real killer whales with robots.

But if human laws apply to whales, shouldn't Tilikum be in jail for killing a trainer?

This is straight out of Larry Niven's Known Space. From the uplifted animal page on TVTropes:

Larry Niven's Known Space stories (e.g. World of Ptavvs) have intelligent dolphins that have learned to speak English. They interact with humans as equals; we manufacture artificial limbs and hands for them to use to enable tool-using.

• Actually, the dolphins were always intelligent. It just took humanity a long time to learn to communicate with them. The first thing they do once we do figure it out is, of course, filing a class-action lawsuit against humanity as a species for our whaling practices, something that they were evidently rather angry about (but unable to file complaint) since the get-go.

We truly are living in science-fiction times.

Silly Sustainability Saturday for August 20, 2011

Another brief tour through the lighter side of sustainability this week. Some of the links will be funny, others will be just fun, or at least positive.

First, Huffington Post has cribbed a list from the Sierra Club: The Greenest Colleges: Sierra Magazine List. The Sierra Club's Top Ten are here. California schools compose half the list. Two colleges each from Washington and Vermont and one from North Carolina fill out the rest. No surprise, the North Carolina school is in Asheville, and it isn't Western Carolina University--it's Warren Wilson College. The complete rankings are here.

Huffington Post has two other stories in this week's edition, both of which reflect HuffPo's politics as entertainment focus, thus qualifying as silly. PETA Plans A Porn Site--yes, you read that correctly. If nothing else, PETA knows how to get attention, even if it isn't always constructive. This is nothing new for the organization.

PETA has done ad campaigns with adult film stars Sasha Grey, Ron Jeremy and Jenna Jameson. In 2008, the organization's YouTube account was temporarily shut down after posting racy videos of celebrities and others posing nude.

In Fighting Global Warming Could Stave Off Alien Invasion: Report, HuffPo links to an article in The Guardian. The gist of the article was "Rising greenhouse emissions could tip off aliens that we are a rapidly expanding threat." Well, that certainly fits the sustainablity with a science fiction slant of this blog!

Speaking of alien invasions, climate change, and science fiction, Think Progress has the following gem describing the response of Fox News and its viewers to the study quoted by The Guardian: Fox Viewers Overwhelmingly Think We Should Prepare For Alien Invasion Before Fighting Climate Change. Watch the video.



Yes, the majority of people responding to the poll said scientists should focus their efforts on increasing jobs (never mind that green technology will increase jobs) but more than six times as many viewers said that scientists should work on weapons to kill aliens than should work on climate change. I don't think there are that many people with the kind of sense of humor that would think that was funny watching Fox; I'm afraid they were serious. Not everything that is silly is really funny.

Finally, Grist is featuring a game from UbiSoft in Cool new game is like SimCity for the whole environment. Here's the video.

Master new technologies and build your empire in Anno 2070. Check out this new trailer for the futuristic strategy game coming to PC.

That looks like educational fun, and I might just buy it.

That's it for Silly Sustainabilty Saturday!

Good news for animals in entertainment on the first Norther!

Happy Norther!  After teasing my readers twice, it's time to celebrate.  First, I'll be a good environmentalist and recycle the conversation between the Archdruid and me about fake holidays.

I'm single-handedly keeping alive a fake holiday called Wester, which is the first Sunday following the first Full Moon after the Autumnal Equinox.  When I first posted about it, my Discordian friend claimed it for Discordianism.  As far as I'm concerned, it's still a Discordian holiday.
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Wester is funny; presumably that was the day that some messiah or other descended from the living?
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>I agree, Wester is funny.  As for an anointed one descending from the living, sorry, that wasn't part of the Wester story that I heard.  However, the holiday has its own animal mascot, the Wester Squirrel, which goes around and gathers goodies to hide instead of hiding goodies to pass out like the Easter Bunny.
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Druids would likely demand a Souther and a Norther, too, with a Souther Wombat and a Norther Lemming as animal mascots; I'll leave you to decide what if anything they do with goodies.
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Ah, but which solstice gets which holiday?  At first, I was not amused by your suggestion, as I thought one parody holiday was enough.  Then I slept on it and not only was I OK with it, I decided that Norther would come after the Winter Solstice and Souther would come after the Summer Solstice.  Why would a lemming visit in the middle of summer?  Norther would usually have little competition for holidays, at least in the U.S., most of the time.  Next year, it would fall on January 15th, the day before MLK Day.  Not a bad three-day weekend!

So that's the story of how I'm celebrating a fake holiday that the Archdruid came up with.  Oh, well, the Norther Lemming approves.


As this is also Sunday, it's time for an entertainment update.   I have just the one for a holiday with an animal mascot.  Follow over the jump.

The ethics of orcas as entertainment

In PETA attempts a science-fiction solution to a real-world issue, I embedded a Next Media Animation video describing a lawsuit PETA filed against Sea World to release the aquarium chain's orcas, along with how the lawsuit was an action right out of Niven's Known Space stories.  That lawsuit was dismissed, but the controversy has continued, as ABC News reported in Should 'Killer Whales' Be Tourist Attractions?

Orcas are no threat to humans in the wild, but in captivity, they have killed.

When I included this video in Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Solstice and Supermoon) at Daily Kos, one of the commenters responded with Simple answers to easy questions--"No."

'Face Your Food': Student sustainability video festival 24

After featuring trailers for two films, "No Impact Man" and "Tapped," that my students reviewed for extra credit, I'm returning to videos that they used in their presentations.  Here is the first video used in a presentation this semester, Peter Dinklage: Face Your Food.

"Game of Thrones" actor and longtime vegetarian Peter Dinklage narrates "Face Your Food," revealing the ugly truth about that meal on your table and how it got there.

It's no secret that I don't take PETA seriously, but I will give them credit when they have a point, especially when it reinforces one of mine.  In this case, it's one of Commoner's Laws, "There Is No Such Thing as a Free Lunch."  As I wrote in my worksheet to Food Inc., I mean it quite literally.

SeaWorld phasing out its current Orca shows in San Diego

"Blackfish" may have been snubbed by the Oscars and endured push back from SeaWorld, but it's having an effect just the same.  CBS Nightly News reported yesterday SeaWorld to phase out killer whale shows.

SeaWorld San Diego said Monday it would end the theatrical whale shows the park has become known for. Ben Tracy has more on how the park came to the decision.

I think this is a great development, although I'd prefer it be implemented at all their parks, not just the one in San Diego.  If nothing else, SeaWorld wants to greenwash what it does in the name of education (and the bottom line).  If so, I have the same opinion of the action that I have of Republicans on climate change and energy at the CNBC debate--a step in the right direction, however inadequate.

On the other hand, I'm not so sure about Representative Schiff's bill.  I'd rather have more orcas, even captive-bred ones in captivity to safeguard against the species becoming endangered in the wild.  Consequently, I think his proposal is well-meaning but wrong-headed.  Would he also ban the breeding of elephants in captivity to stop circuses from using them?  Better to ban that practice and allow zoos to breed elephants, I say.

Stay tuned.  I'm sure I'm not done with this subject, if for no other reason than PETA might pull one of its legal stunts again.

'Water Facts': Student sustainability video festival 25

Here is another video one of my students included in a presentation.  Unlike Face Your Food, which I won't use because it's a duplicate what my students see in "Food Inc." and because I don't want to give PETA any more attention than I already do, I plan on adding this to my lectures on water.  It will make for a great introduction to the chapter and complements perfectly the diagram above, which it will accompany.

Water Facts


Cool.

14 nominations for 12 reports about Las Vegas Massacre and other mass shootings at the News and Documentary Emmy Awards

I've already promised to write entries about the nominees examining the opoid crisis and the Syrian Civil War.  I plan on writing one about the nominees reporting on mass shootings as well.  Stay tuned.

That was my promise in the footnote to 'Chasing Coral' versus 'Yosemite' — two nominees for Outstanding Nature Documentary both examine climate change, which I wrote in response to mentioning "Tower."

For their third nominated category, both "Chasing Coral" and "Yosemite" are competing for Outstanding Music & Sound along with the HBO Documentary Films "Cries From Syria" and "The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble" and the "Independent Lens" episode "Tower."  The most formidable overall are "Cries from Syria," which also has nominations for Outstanding Current Affairs Documentary, Outstanding Writing, and Outstanding Research, and "Tower," about the first mass school shooting in U.S. history at the University of Texas, which earned a nomination for Outstanding Historical Documentary as well.

Joining "Tower" in competing for Outstanding Historical Documentary are Independent Lens episode "Birth of a Movement" and the Netflix documentaries "Cuba and the Cameraman," "Let It Fall: Los Angeles: 1982-1992," and "Blood On The Mountain."  Other than "Tower," the only other nominee in this category with a second nomination is "Let It Fall: Los Angeles: 1982-1992," which has a nomination for Outstanding Research.  Based on that and my including it in The most honored political documentaries of 2017 examine crime, injustice, and the Syrian Civil War, I consider it to be the strongest competition to "Tower" for Outstanding Historical Documentary.  As for its chances to win its second nominated category, I'm recycling what I wrote: "I suspect 'The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble' might be the fiercest competitor for Outstanding Music & Sound; it also earned nominations for Outstanding Arts & Culture Documentary and Outstanding Editing: Documentary."

To get a feel for the documentary and the incident it portrays, watch the trailer from PBS.

Combining archival footage with rotoscopic animation in a dynamic, never-before-seen way, TOWER reveals the action-packed, untold stories of the witnesses, heroes, and survivors of America’s first mass school shooting, at the University of Texas, 1966, when the worst in one man brought out the best in so many others.

Speaking of the nominees for Outstanding Editing: Documentary, one of the two nominated episodes of Showtime's "Active Shooter: America Under Fire" earned a nomination in this category for "Columbine, Colorado," which is about the most infamous mass school shooting of the 20th Century.  Joining it and "The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble" are RYOT's "Fear Us Women," HBO Documentary Films' "Solitary: Inside Red Onion State Prison," and "Life, Animated."  I've already called "Life, Animated" tough competition, as it is also nominated for Best Documentary and is competing against "The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble" for Outstanding Arts & Culture Documentary, where I consider "Life, Animated" to be the strongest contender for this award.

The other nominated episode of "Active Shooter: America Under Fire" is "Charleston, South Carolina," which is competing for Outstanding Social Issue Documentary with the "Frontline" episode "Last Days of Solitary," two HBO Documentary Films, "Abortion: Stories Women Tell" and "Unlocking the Cage," and fellow Showtime documentary "Jackson."  I am finding it difficult to handicap this category, as these are the only nominations for each fo these shows.  That written, my sympathies lie with "Unlocking the Cage," which is about animal rights for chimpanzees, which echoes the themes of PETA attempts a science-fiction solution to a real-world issue and The ethics of orcas as entertainment.

As for "Active Shooter: America Under Fire," watch its tralier from Showtime.

The traumatic events of infamous mass shootings and their aftermath.
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Whether due to acts of terrorism, hate, or mental instability, mass shootings have become all too commonplace. Active Shooter: America Under Fire is a documentary series that examines this disturbing phenomenon from the points of view of victims, family members, emergency medical workers and first responders, who bravely risk their own lives in the face of grave danger. Each episode recounts a specific incident using archival footage and in-depth interviews to shine a spotlight on the traumatic events and their aftermath. The results are powerful, eye-opening, and hopefully change-inducing.

While I find all the above nominees to be deserving, they are not the reason why mass shootings became a top news topic of 2017.  That is because of the Las Vegas Massacre, the coverage of which earned eight nominations for eight entries.  Combined with the two nominations each for "Tower" and "Active Shooter: America Under Fire"  plus nominations for coverage of the Sutherland Springs shooting and the Attack at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, that's a total of fourteen nominations for twelve news and documentary programs, making this the second most nominated news story this year next to the Syrian Civil War with 22 nominations for 14 nominees ETA: 17 nominations for 11 nominees.*  Follow over the jump for my discussion of the nominees covering the Las Vegas Massacre, the Sutherland Springs shooting, and the attack at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.