TV goes green

Global warming 'insurmountable' without Heroes!

Posted by Joseph Romm (Guest Contributor) at 3:58 PM on 01 Oct 2007

Read more about: TV | climate

So the fall season has begun and, as expected, shows from Boston Legal to Moonlight are going green -- even William Shatner got into the act. I'd be very interested in hearing from readers if any of their favorite shows had a green element.

In the opening voiceover of the second season opener, genetics professor Mohinder Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy) says that humanity's problems, including global warming, are "insurmountable" without our Heroes. Shades of The 4400.

I'm glad the writers mentioned global warming. But the way they did leaves the impression that we can't solve the problem without superhuman abilities. And people can't fly or teleport or heal themselves from any injury -- can they?

The season opener of Boston Legal had James Spader giving a big speech about "big oil" and global warming's "biggest emitters" in a case he was trying -- while sleeping with opposing counsel (if having sex in an elevator counts as "sleeping"). And even Shatner uttered the phrase, "You got to fight global warming" (which I actually thought was out of character for the conservative that he plays, Denny Crane).

I happened to catch Moonlight -- a very poor ~~man's~~ vampire's Angel -- and it appeared as if the heroine drives a Prius.

I am definitely looking forward to seeing how 24 delivers on its promise to introduce green themes -- perhaps our dependence on Mideast oil wil play a role.

And no, I don't normally watch all those shows, but I was stuck in a hotel room.

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

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6 Comments | Post a Comment

Shatner for president

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6GWqrpneAo

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 8:12 PM on 01 Oct 2007

Lovely choice ...

... but there is that silly old Constitution in the way: James T. Kirk was in fact born in Montreal.

But George Takei, aka Mr. Sulu, would do just fine -- born in LA in 1937, and interned during WWII -- , now that he is an "out" gay actor, supports same-sex marriage, and participates in Human Rights Council campaigns.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 10:28 PM on 01 Oct 2007

Green on TV...

...is a long-growing trend. Having done some research into green themes in pop media for an assignment, I can report that overtly "environmentalist" stories have been showing up on network tv series for at least a few years now.

Boston Legal in particular has been devoted to them; each season seems to feature one "green episode." In season two it was "Finding Nimmo," which put Crane and Shore (Shatner and Spader) (heyyyy...CRANE and SHORE...hmmm) in British Columbia's Nimmo Bay, doing something legal involving a salmon ranch.

The hands-down champs, though, are Futurama and the Simpsons, which have integrated eco-themes for years (with a "gloom and doom with a sense of humor" approach that any Grist reader can appreciate), long before they were embraced by Brad Pitt or Alicia Silverstone .

It's great that global warming's getting name-tagged in pop culture -- if that'll get more average Janes and Joes interested, who can argue? But hard not to laugh a little all these egregious shout-outs. Hurrah for Hollywood's "discovery" of a pressing environmental issue!

Emily Gertz Journalist & Editor egertz AT oneatlantic DOT net http://www.apartmentecology.com/

by Emily Gertz at 7:52 AM on 02 Oct 2007

speaking of heroes

by The Disposable Heroes of Hypocrisy

One nation under god has turned into
one nation under the influence of one drug

(chorus)
Television, the drug of the nation
Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation

T.V., it satellite links
our united states of unconsciousness
apathetic therapeutic and extremely addictive
the methadone metronome pumping out
150 channels 24 hours a day
you can flip through all of them
and still there's nothing worth watching
T.V. is the reason why less than ten percent
of our nation reads books daily
why most people think Central America means Kansas
socialism means unamerican
and apartheid is a new headache remedy
absorbed in its world it's so hard to find us
it shapes our mind the most
maybe the mother of our nation
should remind us that we're sitting too close to...

the rest is here

by gmunger at 8:05 AM on 02 Oct 2007

Hotel Room, TV ?

Wow...while the rest of us are eating nutburgers and riding our bicycles, you're watching cable tv and lapping up room service.

The Climatemen (a.k.a. editors of Grist) are a real "Do as I say...not as I do" team.

by jabailo at 8:29 AM on 02 Oct 2007

Heros to save the world

I think that it is implying that you require a genetic mutation of some kind to even acknowledge global warming.

This doesn't have anything to do with "Green." I am really sick of people throwing that term around. That is like calling a Jeep an SUV when the freaking Jeep was around WELL before the term SUV was around. Just because we make a blender that generates dung daiquiris doesn't make it green. It makes it a really weird thing that belongs in a county fair. We need to be the determining factor of energy conservation, and the ultimate creators of better terms.

by mighty2000 at 9:01 AM on 03 Oct 2007

ADVERTISING POLICY

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