The Green Remix

So, earlier this summer I worked on a show called Green Tech Today with Sarah Lane at the TWiT Network. It was a highly produced, magazine style program that was meant to whet the green whistle of the TWiT audience and also (hopefully) pull in a bit of a new audience for TWiT.

For a variety of reasons, the show was stopped after releasing only two episodes. We shot five episodes that you may eventually see in various stages of dress in other programming since they will never be released as Green Tech Today. Why?

Well, Green Tech Today has been remixed and gotten a facelift. Thankfully, it wasn’t relegated to the dustbin, but given a second chance. No longer is it the Green Tech variety show. Rather, it’s now:

The TWiT Networks Top 25 Green Tech Innovators Series

I will be hosting it along with the world-famous Becky Worley, who is also the executive producer for this fine show.

And, just released yesterday, here is the first of the new incarnation of Green Tech Today:

If you like the show, be sure to subscribe and get your audio or video preference every week while the series lasts! Some up coming highlights include SeaGen’s wave power and Zero Motorcycle’s electric bikes.

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Teach Your Children Well

A line from a song by Crosby, Stills, and Nash that speaks volumes to the report that is out this week on the worsening state of science education in America.

Why is it that we can argue about immigration, health care, the Tea Partiers and whether or not President Obama is a citizen, but stand by idly while the public school system deteriorates?

Is that where the voting public really wants this country to go? Is ‘Idiocracy‘ the future of our country?

I hate to even entertain such thoughts. Thankfully, I know many, many hard working people who care deeply about the education of our country’s children, and who will keep working to see that improvements to the educational system are made, with or without such a report.

Is the situation really as dire as the report makes it out to be? Maybe, maybe not.

In a USA Today article discussing responses to the report, there is a quote from one B. Lindsay Lowell of Georgetown:

“It’s easy to understand with the America COMPETES Act up for renewal why advocates would frame the situation this way. But it seems less helpful to frame things in a voice of crisis rather than a more reasoned response. Things aren’t as bad as this report paints them.”

Mr. Lowell issued a study in 2007 that concluded there were more than enough science and engineering graduates for the jobs that were available. So, ok, there are lots of graduates, but are they qualified, Mr. Lowell? That could be part of the problem. Just because people are graduating does not automatically make them able to perform a job.

Also, why are there fewer jobs than graduates? Why isn’t our country exploding with technological industry? Wouldn’t funding R&D through the America COMPETES Act lead to more jobs in that sector?

In this issue, as in all others, it does help to try to see as many sides of the issue as possible. But, the side I keep coming back to is the side with the children who are going to be our future. If the children are not educated well, there is not much hope for the future of this country. Shouldn’t protecting the future be something of a priority?

So, Mr. Lowell, I do think that framing this issue as a crisis is necessary. How else will it get the attention it deserves when there are so many loud mouths clogging up the media?

Since when has a reasoned political debate worked to fire up the public (and thus the politicians) in recent history?

Where is Whitney Houston when we need her most!?! (And, I mean pre-crackhead Whitney who sang with such conviction, I almost believed she believed what she was singing)

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