Friday, October 31, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Thursday, October 9, 2008
SCRIPT FOR GREEN SMOKE.
Open
Man rides up on segway, talking animatedly on handsfree ear phone MUSIC: LET'S FORGET ABOUT TOMORROW
Man: petulant but perky "No... it's not an SUV... it's a crossover."
Listens, then: "No, no... no, not yet. But when it's all electric, it will
be completely green, I mean we're talking
completely, totally green. That's
electric, right?"
Pulls up to a stop, looks at camera
Man: "Hi! I'm Thomas Ed from Green Con Incorporated... and I'm here to tell you about an exciting new way to manage
the rising cost of oil, the whole energy crisis.... and save the environment at the same time."
Man steps off segway.
Camera angle change, plus close up.
Man, sort of confidentially: "Now if you think I'm talking about solar... think again. Solar is waaaay to expensive. I mean just look at it. Sure... if you put solar panels on top of your house you might power a refrigerator and a computer or something... but will the utility company won't buy back any extra power that you produce? Not even one volt! So you know solar power has just got to be
expensive."
Change location. Transfer station. Close up on man and zoom out as he talks.
Man: "No.... IIIIIII'm talking garbage.
"Do you know how much garbage we have to throw away each day?
"... each week?
"... every year?
Pan shot of huge garbage pile.
Man: "We at Green Con are the biggest waste management Specialists in all
of the whole united states of AMERICA...
"... now that's a lot of garbage. And, not many people realize this, but even we at Green Con have to pay to get rid of it.... it's not like we can just bury it out of sight for free...?
"And it's not just going to vanish into thin air on it's own by magic now, is it? No, of course not. That's ridiculous. But with the magic of Green Science.... we can transform as much garbage into energy as we want.
All we need to do is light a match and burn it."
New shot, someplace wholesome, family like, park or suburban home etc. Man is now wearing a lab coat. Close in dolly shot. zoom out later.
Man: "Well...... Okay. It's not quite as simple as that. First we have to incinerate the garbage to make garbage-gas, and then, we burn the gas as plasma to turn it into zero emission electricity.
"If this all sounds rather complicated, don't worry, we know what we're doing. I have a little demonstration plan for you in a bit.
Zoom out.
Man: "Just remember this one thing: "The more garbage you produce... The more free electricity we can make... And the more green energy we can sell to you, the happy consumers of AMERICA."
Close up on man's face again. Man grins insidious evil greedy smile.
Man: "And we won't even charge you more for picking up that garbage...
It'll be like scooping up buckets of oil for us, so don't fret one bit, your
dollars will be safe with us here, America, in our pocket books... not in foreign hands."
GIGO burning garbage scene.
Green can cordoned off with safety cones and caution tape.
Man: "Okay.... so this is how it all works. We burn the garbage one time first."
Man lights piece of garbage and tosses it in the green can.
Close up of garbage burning.
Voice over-
Man: "Yuck...! I know what you all are thinking right now... this is soooo... not green. Just look at all that toxic smoke. Well this is where the green step comes in. All that discarded smoke is a waste product... and how do we manage waste?.... We burn it just like the rest of the garbage."
Man or Toxic Suit Man points Flame thrower into green can.
Close up of flame firing into green can.
Longer shot. Toxic Suit Man standing by coughing lightly though out beginning of scene as green smoke pours from can. Man standing off warily at a "safe" distance.
Man: "Now ain't that a pretty sight. And it doesn't even matter how much garbage, or what kind it is that we burn because we're making electricity... electricity is green! For all it matters we could burn radioactive nerve gas or WMDs... not that anyone's going to toss that stuff away. What'cha say Joe? We good?"
Toxic suit man moves closer (coughing increases) and measures smoke with geiger counter.
Close up of geiger counter in the smoke.
Toxic suit man coughing profusely while reading meter on geiger counter: "A-Ok.... hack, hack... all clean... hack... nothing toxic here." Gives thumbs up. Noticeable scab type chemical burn scars on his face.
Man: "That's right Joe. It's clean because it's green!"
Man waves Toxic Suit Man over and hands him an extension cord. Toxic Suit Man has noticeably more burns, There is green smoke smoldering from his hard hat, arms, and torso, parts of his chemical protection suit are starting to dissolve.
Man: "Ok Joe... hook her up."
Toxic Suit Man inserts various corrugated pipes into smoking green can, closes the lid, carrying extension coed he walks along length of pipe purposefully but starting to stager from effects of the smoke.
Flying cam run shot along length of pipe them extension cord up to Chem Suit Man crawling on ground handing plug to Man. Chem Suit Man is covered with burns his suit is burned open in many places, exposing numerous burns underneath. Chem Suit Man collapses dead.
Man is oblivious to fall of Chem Suit Man. He plugs cord into open engine of a car. The car instantly starts up.
Man: "Doesn't that just beat all?"
Shot of rear end of car. Green smoke coming out of tail pipe.
Voiceover, Man: "Nothing but green smoke hear."
Part II
Mark is dressed in street clothes. Setting is someplace public like a park. As mark speaks his piece warning about the pitfalls of "green" that is nothing but an advertising slogan, the extras who later appear as DHS agents walk in and out of frame. At first they appear to take no notice of mark. As his speech continues and becomes more blasphemous about corporate AMERICA the undercover agents, starting with glances and increasing to characters with dark sunglasses, visible earphone cords, and pushing baby strollers etc, monitor his activities.
Mark: "Hi. I wanted to talk to you about my last video. I wanted to let you all know that despite the video's not being very serious, I really do think this is a very serious subject. And I'm a little pissed off at everybody, myself included, that we aren't up in arms over this issue. I mean, it's like this... I'm not a tree hugger, but these days with pollution and global warming the way they are, you don't have to be one to understand and know that we simply just can't keep doing things like it was business as usual.
This is especially important when we have folks like sarah palin confronting us from one side with the idea that Global Warming is nothing more than a normal and natural change in the climate... and more politicians on another side like barrack obama trying to slip in ridiculous ideas like the notion that burning coal is an environmentally sound practice so long as we call it... "
CLOSE UP HEAD SHOT
Mark: "...clean coal.
This is what really gets to the core of my video: A turd by any other name stinks just as deep."
WIDE SHOT AGAIN, FROM RIGHT SIDE THIS TIME.
Mark: "Palin knows it and still, she lies about it. Her brush off of our involvement in global warming is just so much frebreeze sprayed in the air. All of us can easily agree that climate change has always taken place and always will, with or without us. But it is just as easy to agree with the scientific authorities on the subject who have proven that carbon emissions affect climate. To deny our involvement in climate change is an awful lot like saying, 'Guns don't kill people, people don't kill people... it's those nasty little bullets.' Who knows, maybe it is just the bullets. But wouldn't it be a good idea, I mean a really good idea, to err on the side of caution and do something about it if we can.... while we still can?"
WIDE SHOT FROM LEFT
Mark: "And don't think obama doesn't know about this stuff. He knows a turd when he smells one. He's just as slick as any other politician, and he lies just as much. It doesn't matter how much you try and scrub that dirty old turd, coal is still a hydrocarbon and when you burn it you release carbon. Now I will admit that I've heard 'Lets just bury that carbon like we bury the rest of our garbage' argument, but honestly now, who came up with this idea? Personally I think it's just another fanciful spritz of air-freshener and about as realistic as catching a bullet with your teeth. The experts say it is too expensive to even begin to consider. And anyone with a functioning brain cell or two will realize just how prohibitively dangerous it is. First off, where would all that carbon go? It's not like we can mix it in with the rest of the junk in the land fill. I've heard it suggested that we pump it into the caverns left after we pump out oil out of the ground. Now who could have come up with that idea... the oil companies? Oh yeah, let's trust them. Does it really have to be pointed out to us what will happen when an earthquake causes leaks in those underground chambers and all that carbon we'll be producing for the next twenty, fifty, hundred years is suddenly released into the atmosphere all at once?"
CLOSE UP HEAD SHOT CENTER
Mark: "Well... who knows, but maybe we're just such an instant this, instant that, disposable culture that instant global warming would be only a fitting way to go.
Which gets us to another core issue in my video. For as much as we've seen words like bio, eco, clean, footprint and enviro-friendly used and used all over the place: Green is still the color of money.
WIDE SHOT CENTER
Mark: "And with this unfortunate truth comes a dire need not only to be to be skeptical, but to be outraged when we find people using green jargon as a means for profit. If you don't know what I'm talking about let me tell you something that I would swear to in court.
"By some very basic laws of physics, you always loose energy when you convert it from one form to another and you always loose energy when you move it from one place to another. What this means is that if we woke up tomorrow and "green" elves had converted all of our cars into electric cars over night, we would burn more fuel and produce more carbon than when we burned that fuel in our own cars.
Do not let anyone tell you that electricity is green. Not until we change how we produce the electricity.
So as an example of what we can be skeptical about I say take a look at electric cars. And as an example of something that we can be outraged about, look at the chevy volt. The volt is an "electric" car chevy plans to start producing very soon. Why should we be outraged? Well is this volt a serious attempt to build an electric car? No, not by a long shot. What it is, is a serious attempt to get us to BUY an electric car because with gas prices on the rise and never to come back down again, they are finding it rather difficult to sell us gas guzzling SUVs.
How can I say this with such confidence? Physics... and a healthy skepticism. Has chevy proposed to supply electricity that is truly clean for volt drivers? Not that I've heard of. When a person plugs their "volt" in it simply increases the amount of hydrocarbons we need to burn, and increases it by more than if they were burned in the car. If that isn't bad enough, the volt will only go 40 miles before it's battery dries up. To try and get around this, they had the audacity to put a gas burning motor under the hood to power a generator to charge the battery.... and still they call it an electric car. This car will not only pump out more hydrocarbons after that 40 miles than if it was a regular car or SUV, but it will cause even more hydrocarbons to be pumped out for those first 40 miles than if it was a regular car or SUV.
Unfortunately this applies to all electric cars fuel cell cars, except for hybrids which have become such a joke their not even worth mentioning any more. We the general public need to reacquaint ourselves with basic physics. If someone claims that a car is big, safe, faster, and fuel efficient, it should raise an eyebrow or two because such things go against the laws of physics and we know them to be lies.
Just because someone says it's green doesn't make it so.
Bio fuels for example are cleaner, but still not a solution. Not any of the ones we are currently making. And don't even get me started on nuclear power. And by the way sarah, I don't want to be a snob, but you are trying to become the VP, so FYI it's nu-CLE-AR power, not nu-CU-LAR. It is simply absurd to think that you can put garbage in one end and expect nothing but clean electricity to come out the other. We the good honest ordinary people of this country may not be the most smartest people on this planet, but we aren't a bunch of dumb-ass retards either, and we certainly aren't stupid enough to look at the turd of a pig with lipstick and think we're gonna get chocolate for dinner.
Now, some of us are the glass is half empty types and some of us are the half full types, but all and everyone of us is capable of independent thought. And since the government and the corporations aren't going to help us handle global warming, we're going to have to do something about it ourselves. Unfortunately that means we are going to have to think about what we do, and what we need to do... and what we can do. I mean realistically what can we do?
Well for starters we can use our skepticism avoid the BS and don't buy the crap. Don't buy it figuratively as in don't buy into it when we know better, and by all means don't literally buy the garbage just because it has a green sticker or some other marketing gimmick on it.
So where does this leave us. I mean if all this stuff we've been looking at is not green... what IS green?
Well to the best of my knowledge, solar is almost entirely green, and so is wind power. Hydrogen that was produced by solar or wind would be wonderful, but I'll reserve my opinion on that till I see if better ways of storing and transporting it can be developed.
In the mean time I do know that there are fascinating and truly amazing things going on with photovoltaic and electrochemistry, or fancy solar power. If those folks are successful, than before too long we will be able to make solar cells which will work like artificial leaves but instead of making chlorophyl, or plant fuel, they'll make fuel that we can use and is carbon neutral... the process draws in as much carbon as it produces.
Now that's pretty green. But I don't know if we can wait that long. The research is very real and it's going on right now, but photovoltaic-electrochemistry can involve nano technology and perhaps even genetically modified organisms... and it's funded by corporations like british petroleum. In my opinion anything that involves genetically modified organisms requires years if not decades of testing we can even consider using it in everyday ways.
Maybe good old fashioned solar and wind power along with things like geothermal power and heat exchange, and perhaps tidal power, are what we need to concentrate on right now. Besides these are ideas we can freely exchange with anyone on the planet. They don't involve hazardous things like plutonium or genetically modified micro-organisms we need to worry about being handled improperly or falling into the hands of pissed off folks who would like to use them as weapons.
But green isn't all about energy, even if cars do belch out one fourth of all the greenhouse emissions in america. What green means is having as little impact on the environment as possible. Or at least this is what I was taught when I was a boy scout way back when. I learned that it's not as bad as it sounds. Having little impact is not the same as having NO impact, and everything has some impact: birds build nests, gophers dig holes, and fish poop right in the water. The difference is that when they do these things it has very little impact, it hardly changes anything at all. Whereas when we do the things we do, we change things around so much that we no longer think or feel that we are a part of the whole environment, so how could we possibly change the whole big huge environment thing, how could what we do possibly impact that whole huge thing if we aren't really a part of it like all those animals and stuff?
Well it's because we are not a separated as we think. We are a part of what the environment is, and the environment is part of what we are. Why do you think it is that pollution kills millions of children each year? We have reached a point of gross imbalance and are beginning to topple. Now I'm no tree-hugger and I'm not proposing that we try and get it back to something like the frontier days when everybody had to live by their wits. No, that might have been a little too wild. But if we allowed nature to take it's course without having such a... massive? ...mammoth? ...prodigious?... No, whopping-big-humongous-supersized impact it, we might find something that actually works.
Now here's the kicker.
And those of you with sensitive dispositions might want to mute the volume for this part. Some might find this disturbing. It is certainly odd. But I think it's true.
at some point it in the next paragraph, the telltale red dots of laser gunsights zero in and dance on m's chest
If we reached a balance with more comfort... obviously ...than the frontier days, but where nature too was comfortable and no longer in danger of capsizing and flopping over into something really, really nasty, we might reach a balance point where we hear about a few babies each year that were stolen by wolves, or bear, or bobcats, or something. And,as sick as this sounds, I would still find it was better than loosing millions to pollution in a world of global warming climate change where they probably didn't have a chance for a future anyway."
AGENTS RUSH IN AND CAPTURE MARK
there is a scuffle of confusion and official identities are not revealed right away. In the shuffle the camera sees one agent wearing and AK47. The camera is assaulted first from the angle of itself and then from the new observer perspective (use elura or other possibly buy $5 vhs camera). Camera man shouting, "He, hey, hey!" is tackled, camera confiscated, and dragged off screen with hands in plastic ties. The new observer angle is hand held, and should be shown once as being filmed by one of the agents to reinforce this.
Whenever mark asks who they are his query is met with forceful orders and physical restraint and abuse like throwing him to the ground holding him in place with a boot on his back while others try to drag him off saying come with us don't resist, as if his honest and legal question was itself a physical attempt to resist arrest, escape, or assault the frighteningly aggressive and so far anonymous perpetrators of the assault.
Once they "heros" have him "subdued", ie they have escalated things to the point where he is beaten down to the degree that he no longer feels it is safe to ask questions,one of the agents demands
aj: "Is your name mark?"
m: "What?"
AJ (agent johnson) practically yelling: "Mark Gleason?"
M (mark) : "Yes?"
aj: "Are you sure?"
m: "Yes?"
aj: "Alias Livid Tomatoes?"
m: "Well... uh ...that's the name of my production company.... uh..."
AGENT J DOES NOT LIKE THIS AND SIGNALS FOR THE AGENT WITH HIS BOOT ON M'S BACK TO LEAN HARDER.
aj actually yelling this time: "Are you Livid Tomatoes!!!!!!?"
m struggling to speak: "Y.. y... yes, yes... arrrgh!"
aj quite calmly now, flips out his badge (perhaps the vonnegut DHS one) and puts it in m's face saying...
aj: "Agent Johnson, Department of Homeland security."
At this point the others flip out their badges announcing who they are the same way but add the specific agency (secret service division etc) at the end.
aj: "All right guys, go search the van."
A few of the agents leave screen.
aj: "I just want to know one thing, what made you think you could get away with it?"
m confused: "What are you talking about?"
aj: Mocking "Talking about? Talking about?..... You goddamn subversive insurgent terrorists can't fool me! You understand goddamn well what I'm talking about. What I don't understand, goddamn it, is how you could be a terrorist.......... in... your... OWN... goddamn country!"
m: "What? I'm not a terrorist! I just make videos."
The agents who "searched" the van start returning. The first is holding a pistol or two, holding it by the finger guard with a pencil. The second is wearing rubber gloves and holding the AK47 between two fingers by the tip of the barrel.
agent1 (a1): "Look what we found boss."
aj: "Oh, ho,ho. Look what we have here. What do you call these..... video disks? Your kind makes me sick."
m: starting to loose it a bit and chuckling at the absurdity of it "You can't be serious. Those aren't mine. You planted those.... this is insane! Wait till I get a lawyer, I'm gonna sue the hell out of you."
a2 holding up a large plastic bag of weed with a few joints pre-rolled inside: "Check this out boss." and the looking at m, "Look familiar junkie?"
m looking a bit sheepish: "Yeah, ok, that's mine. It's just a bit of pot though. What's the big deal? Those guns aren't mine!"
aj: "I don't believe you, you terrorist thug, and nobody else is going to believe you either. I mean, the energy crisis is a matter of national security, and just look at what all they found in your van."
aj waves at an array of weapons laid out on the ground or on a blanket. The weapons are laid out for display like one of small caches of weapons found in a house in iraq and photographed for the six o'clock news. As the camera pans across the individual weapons a voice describes each one. It is a new voice belonging to someone we have not yet seen. The voice is even and terrifyingly emotionless.
As the voice drones on, m protests: "You can't do this, you can't do this, this is america... you have no right to do this...etc."
A quality of judicial indignation that comes in when the owner of the voice is revealed to be the general in a big hat (g). He glares down at m.
g: "Sub-clause 37b dash 9 stroke six of The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 gives me the inalienable authority to requisition any and all action or means necessary to fulfill the interception and obstruction terrorism. Double under sub-clause 9 stroke 1 stroke one, states, 'Pre-emptive arrests, executions, and...', well.... I can't divulge the exact contents of any double under sub-clause, nor even confirm their existence, but rest assured, justice is legal and inevitable... it's the law.
The trial is over, bring him along men, lets finish this job."
end with m being shot in the head like famous vietnam photo/footage of General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing either Nguyễn Văn Lém or Le Cong Na.
Man rides up on segway, talking animatedly on handsfree ear phone MUSIC: LET'S FORGET ABOUT TOMORROW
Man: petulant but perky "No... it's not an SUV... it's a crossover."
Listens, then: "No, no... no, not yet. But when it's all electric, it will
be completely green, I mean we're talking
completely, totally green. That's
electric, right?"
Pulls up to a stop, looks at camera
Man: "Hi! I'm Thomas Ed from Green Con Incorporated... and I'm here to tell you about an exciting new way to manage
the rising cost of oil, the whole energy crisis.... and save the environment at the same time."
Man steps off segway.
Camera angle change, plus close up.
Man, sort of confidentially: "Now if you think I'm talking about solar... think again. Solar is waaaay to expensive. I mean just look at it. Sure... if you put solar panels on top of your house you might power a refrigerator and a computer or something... but will the utility company won't buy back any extra power that you produce? Not even one volt! So you know solar power has just got to be
expensive."
Change location. Transfer station. Close up on man and zoom out as he talks.
Man: "No.... IIIIIII'm talking garbage.
"Do you know how much garbage we have to throw away each day?
"... each week?
"... every year?
Pan shot of huge garbage pile.
Man: "We at Green Con are the biggest waste management Specialists in all
of the whole united states of AMERICA...
"... now that's a lot of garbage. And, not many people realize this, but even we at Green Con have to pay to get rid of it.... it's not like we can just bury it out of sight for free...?
"And it's not just going to vanish into thin air on it's own by magic now, is it? No, of course not. That's ridiculous. But with the magic of Green Science.... we can transform as much garbage into energy as we want.
All we need to do is light a match and burn it."
New shot, someplace wholesome, family like, park or suburban home etc. Man is now wearing a lab coat. Close in dolly shot. zoom out later.
Man: "Well...... Okay. It's not quite as simple as that. First we have to incinerate the garbage to make garbage-gas, and then, we burn the gas as plasma to turn it into zero emission electricity.
"If this all sounds rather complicated, don't worry, we know what we're doing. I have a little demonstration plan for you in a bit.
Zoom out.
Man: "Just remember this one thing: "The more garbage you produce... The more free electricity we can make... And the more green energy we can sell to you, the happy consumers of AMERICA."
Close up on man's face again. Man grins insidious evil greedy smile.
Man: "And we won't even charge you more for picking up that garbage...
It'll be like scooping up buckets of oil for us, so don't fret one bit, your
dollars will be safe with us here, America, in our pocket books... not in foreign hands."
GIGO burning garbage scene.
Green can cordoned off with safety cones and caution tape.
Man: "Okay.... so this is how it all works. We burn the garbage one time first."
Man lights piece of garbage and tosses it in the green can.
Close up of garbage burning.
Voice over-
Man: "Yuck...! I know what you all are thinking right now... this is soooo... not green. Just look at all that toxic smoke. Well this is where the green step comes in. All that discarded smoke is a waste product... and how do we manage waste?.... We burn it just like the rest of the garbage."
Man or Toxic Suit Man points Flame thrower into green can.
Close up of flame firing into green can.
Longer shot. Toxic Suit Man standing by coughing lightly though out beginning of scene as green smoke pours from can. Man standing off warily at a "safe" distance.
Man: "Now ain't that a pretty sight. And it doesn't even matter how much garbage, or what kind it is that we burn because we're making electricity... electricity is green! For all it matters we could burn radioactive nerve gas or WMDs... not that anyone's going to toss that stuff away. What'cha say Joe? We good?"
Toxic suit man moves closer (coughing increases) and measures smoke with geiger counter.
Close up of geiger counter in the smoke.
Toxic suit man coughing profusely while reading meter on geiger counter: "A-Ok.... hack, hack... all clean... hack... nothing toxic here." Gives thumbs up. Noticeable scab type chemical burn scars on his face.
Man: "That's right Joe. It's clean because it's green!"
Man waves Toxic Suit Man over and hands him an extension cord. Toxic Suit Man has noticeably more burns, There is green smoke smoldering from his hard hat, arms, and torso, parts of his chemical protection suit are starting to dissolve.
Man: "Ok Joe... hook her up."
Toxic Suit Man inserts various corrugated pipes into smoking green can, closes the lid, carrying extension coed he walks along length of pipe purposefully but starting to stager from effects of the smoke.
Flying cam run shot along length of pipe them extension cord up to Chem Suit Man crawling on ground handing plug to Man. Chem Suit Man is covered with burns his suit is burned open in many places, exposing numerous burns underneath. Chem Suit Man collapses dead.
Man is oblivious to fall of Chem Suit Man. He plugs cord into open engine of a car. The car instantly starts up.
Man: "Doesn't that just beat all?"
Shot of rear end of car. Green smoke coming out of tail pipe.
Voiceover, Man: "Nothing but green smoke hear."
Part II
Mark is dressed in street clothes. Setting is someplace public like a park. As mark speaks his piece warning about the pitfalls of "green" that is nothing but an advertising slogan, the extras who later appear as DHS agents walk in and out of frame. At first they appear to take no notice of mark. As his speech continues and becomes more blasphemous about corporate AMERICA the undercover agents, starting with glances and increasing to characters with dark sunglasses, visible earphone cords, and pushing baby strollers etc, monitor his activities.
Mark: "Hi. I wanted to talk to you about my last video. I wanted to let you all know that despite the video's not being very serious, I really do think this is a very serious subject. And I'm a little pissed off at everybody, myself included, that we aren't up in arms over this issue. I mean, it's like this... I'm not a tree hugger, but these days with pollution and global warming the way they are, you don't have to be one to understand and know that we simply just can't keep doing things like it was business as usual.
This is especially important when we have folks like sarah palin confronting us from one side with the idea that Global Warming is nothing more than a normal and natural change in the climate... and more politicians on another side like barrack obama trying to slip in ridiculous ideas like the notion that burning coal is an environmentally sound practice so long as we call it... "
CLOSE UP HEAD SHOT
Mark: "...clean coal.
This is what really gets to the core of my video: A turd by any other name stinks just as deep."
WIDE SHOT AGAIN, FROM RIGHT SIDE THIS TIME.
Mark: "Palin knows it and still, she lies about it. Her brush off of our involvement in global warming is just so much frebreeze sprayed in the air. All of us can easily agree that climate change has always taken place and always will, with or without us. But it is just as easy to agree with the scientific authorities on the subject who have proven that carbon emissions affect climate. To deny our involvement in climate change is an awful lot like saying, 'Guns don't kill people, people don't kill people... it's those nasty little bullets.' Who knows, maybe it is just the bullets. But wouldn't it be a good idea, I mean a really good idea, to err on the side of caution and do something about it if we can.... while we still can?"
WIDE SHOT FROM LEFT
Mark: "And don't think obama doesn't know about this stuff. He knows a turd when he smells one. He's just as slick as any other politician, and he lies just as much. It doesn't matter how much you try and scrub that dirty old turd, coal is still a hydrocarbon and when you burn it you release carbon. Now I will admit that I've heard 'Lets just bury that carbon like we bury the rest of our garbage' argument, but honestly now, who came up with this idea? Personally I think it's just another fanciful spritz of air-freshener and about as realistic as catching a bullet with your teeth. The experts say it is too expensive to even begin to consider. And anyone with a functioning brain cell or two will realize just how prohibitively dangerous it is. First off, where would all that carbon go? It's not like we can mix it in with the rest of the junk in the land fill. I've heard it suggested that we pump it into the caverns left after we pump out oil out of the ground. Now who could have come up with that idea... the oil companies? Oh yeah, let's trust them. Does it really have to be pointed out to us what will happen when an earthquake causes leaks in those underground chambers and all that carbon we'll be producing for the next twenty, fifty, hundred years is suddenly released into the atmosphere all at once?"
CLOSE UP HEAD SHOT CENTER
Mark: "Well... who knows, but maybe we're just such an instant this, instant that, disposable culture that instant global warming would be only a fitting way to go.
Which gets us to another core issue in my video. For as much as we've seen words like bio, eco, clean, footprint and enviro-friendly used and used all over the place: Green is still the color of money.
WIDE SHOT CENTER
Mark: "And with this unfortunate truth comes a dire need not only to be to be skeptical, but to be outraged when we find people using green jargon as a means for profit. If you don't know what I'm talking about let me tell you something that I would swear to in court.
"By some very basic laws of physics, you always loose energy when you convert it from one form to another and you always loose energy when you move it from one place to another. What this means is that if we woke up tomorrow and "green" elves had converted all of our cars into electric cars over night, we would burn more fuel and produce more carbon than when we burned that fuel in our own cars.
Do not let anyone tell you that electricity is green. Not until we change how we produce the electricity.
So as an example of what we can be skeptical about I say take a look at electric cars. And as an example of something that we can be outraged about, look at the chevy volt. The volt is an "electric" car chevy plans to start producing very soon. Why should we be outraged? Well is this volt a serious attempt to build an electric car? No, not by a long shot. What it is, is a serious attempt to get us to BUY an electric car because with gas prices on the rise and never to come back down again, they are finding it rather difficult to sell us gas guzzling SUVs.
How can I say this with such confidence? Physics... and a healthy skepticism. Has chevy proposed to supply electricity that is truly clean for volt drivers? Not that I've heard of. When a person plugs their "volt" in it simply increases the amount of hydrocarbons we need to burn, and increases it by more than if they were burned in the car. If that isn't bad enough, the volt will only go 40 miles before it's battery dries up. To try and get around this, they had the audacity to put a gas burning motor under the hood to power a generator to charge the battery.... and still they call it an electric car. This car will not only pump out more hydrocarbons after that 40 miles than if it was a regular car or SUV, but it will cause even more hydrocarbons to be pumped out for those first 40 miles than if it was a regular car or SUV.
Unfortunately this applies to all electric cars fuel cell cars, except for hybrids which have become such a joke their not even worth mentioning any more. We the general public need to reacquaint ourselves with basic physics. If someone claims that a car is big, safe, faster, and fuel efficient, it should raise an eyebrow or two because such things go against the laws of physics and we know them to be lies.
Just because someone says it's green doesn't make it so.
Bio fuels for example are cleaner, but still not a solution. Not any of the ones we are currently making. And don't even get me started on nuclear power. And by the way sarah, I don't want to be a snob, but you are trying to become the VP, so FYI it's nu-CLE-AR power, not nu-CU-LAR. It is simply absurd to think that you can put garbage in one end and expect nothing but clean electricity to come out the other. We the good honest ordinary people of this country may not be the most smartest people on this planet, but we aren't a bunch of dumb-ass retards either, and we certainly aren't stupid enough to look at the turd of a pig with lipstick and think we're gonna get chocolate for dinner.
Now, some of us are the glass is half empty types and some of us are the half full types, but all and everyone of us is capable of independent thought. And since the government and the corporations aren't going to help us handle global warming, we're going to have to do something about it ourselves. Unfortunately that means we are going to have to think about what we do, and what we need to do... and what we can do. I mean realistically what can we do?
Well for starters we can use our skepticism avoid the BS and don't buy the crap. Don't buy it figuratively as in don't buy into it when we know better, and by all means don't literally buy the garbage just because it has a green sticker or some other marketing gimmick on it.
So where does this leave us. I mean if all this stuff we've been looking at is not green... what IS green?
Well to the best of my knowledge, solar is almost entirely green, and so is wind power. Hydrogen that was produced by solar or wind would be wonderful, but I'll reserve my opinion on that till I see if better ways of storing and transporting it can be developed.
In the mean time I do know that there are fascinating and truly amazing things going on with photovoltaic and electrochemistry, or fancy solar power. If those folks are successful, than before too long we will be able to make solar cells which will work like artificial leaves but instead of making chlorophyl, or plant fuel, they'll make fuel that we can use and is carbon neutral... the process draws in as much carbon as it produces.
Now that's pretty green. But I don't know if we can wait that long. The research is very real and it's going on right now, but photovoltaic-electrochemistry can involve nano technology and perhaps even genetically modified organisms... and it's funded by corporations like british petroleum. In my opinion anything that involves genetically modified organisms requires years if not decades of testing we can even consider using it in everyday ways.
Maybe good old fashioned solar and wind power along with things like geothermal power and heat exchange, and perhaps tidal power, are what we need to concentrate on right now. Besides these are ideas we can freely exchange with anyone on the planet. They don't involve hazardous things like plutonium or genetically modified micro-organisms we need to worry about being handled improperly or falling into the hands of pissed off folks who would like to use them as weapons.
But green isn't all about energy, even if cars do belch out one fourth of all the greenhouse emissions in america. What green means is having as little impact on the environment as possible. Or at least this is what I was taught when I was a boy scout way back when. I learned that it's not as bad as it sounds. Having little impact is not the same as having NO impact, and everything has some impact: birds build nests, gophers dig holes, and fish poop right in the water. The difference is that when they do these things it has very little impact, it hardly changes anything at all. Whereas when we do the things we do, we change things around so much that we no longer think or feel that we are a part of the whole environment, so how could we possibly change the whole big huge environment thing, how could what we do possibly impact that whole huge thing if we aren't really a part of it like all those animals and stuff?
Well it's because we are not a separated as we think. We are a part of what the environment is, and the environment is part of what we are. Why do you think it is that pollution kills millions of children each year? We have reached a point of gross imbalance and are beginning to topple. Now I'm no tree-hugger and I'm not proposing that we try and get it back to something like the frontier days when everybody had to live by their wits. No, that might have been a little too wild. But if we allowed nature to take it's course without having such a... massive? ...mammoth? ...prodigious?... No, whopping-big-humongous-supersized impact it, we might find something that actually works.
Now here's the kicker.
And those of you with sensitive dispositions might want to mute the volume for this part. Some might find this disturbing. It is certainly odd. But I think it's true.
at some point it in the next paragraph, the telltale red dots of laser gunsights zero in and dance on m's chest
If we reached a balance with more comfort... obviously ...than the frontier days, but where nature too was comfortable and no longer in danger of capsizing and flopping over into something really, really nasty, we might reach a balance point where we hear about a few babies each year that were stolen by wolves, or bear, or bobcats, or something. And,as sick as this sounds, I would still find it was better than loosing millions to pollution in a world of global warming climate change where they probably didn't have a chance for a future anyway."
AGENTS RUSH IN AND CAPTURE MARK
there is a scuffle of confusion and official identities are not revealed right away. In the shuffle the camera sees one agent wearing and AK47. The camera is assaulted first from the angle of itself and then from the new observer perspective (use elura or other possibly buy $5 vhs camera). Camera man shouting, "He, hey, hey!" is tackled, camera confiscated, and dragged off screen with hands in plastic ties. The new observer angle is hand held, and should be shown once as being filmed by one of the agents to reinforce this.
Whenever mark asks who they are his query is met with forceful orders and physical restraint and abuse like throwing him to the ground holding him in place with a boot on his back while others try to drag him off saying come with us don't resist, as if his honest and legal question was itself a physical attempt to resist arrest, escape, or assault the frighteningly aggressive and so far anonymous perpetrators of the assault.
Once they "heros" have him "subdued", ie they have escalated things to the point where he is beaten down to the degree that he no longer feels it is safe to ask questions,one of the agents demands
aj: "Is your name mark?"
m: "What?"
AJ (agent johnson) practically yelling: "Mark Gleason?"
M (mark) : "Yes?"
aj: "Are you sure?"
m: "Yes?"
aj: "Alias Livid Tomatoes?"
m: "Well... uh ...that's the name of my production company.... uh..."
AGENT J DOES NOT LIKE THIS AND SIGNALS FOR THE AGENT WITH HIS BOOT ON M'S BACK TO LEAN HARDER.
aj actually yelling this time: "Are you Livid Tomatoes!!!!!!?"
m struggling to speak: "Y.. y... yes, yes... arrrgh!"
aj quite calmly now, flips out his badge (perhaps the vonnegut DHS one) and puts it in m's face saying...
aj: "Agent Johnson, Department of Homeland security."
At this point the others flip out their badges announcing who they are the same way but add the specific agency (secret service division etc) at the end.
aj: "All right guys, go search the van."
A few of the agents leave screen.
aj: "I just want to know one thing, what made you think you could get away with it?"
m confused: "What are you talking about?"
aj: Mocking "Talking about? Talking about?..... You goddamn subversive insurgent terrorists can't fool me! You understand goddamn well what I'm talking about. What I don't understand, goddamn it, is how you could be a terrorist.......... in... your... OWN... goddamn country!"
m: "What? I'm not a terrorist! I just make videos."
The agents who "searched" the van start returning. The first is holding a pistol or two, holding it by the finger guard with a pencil. The second is wearing rubber gloves and holding the AK47 between two fingers by the tip of the barrel.
agent1 (a1): "Look what we found boss."
aj: "Oh, ho,ho. Look what we have here. What do you call these..... video disks? Your kind makes me sick."
m: starting to loose it a bit and chuckling at the absurdity of it "You can't be serious. Those aren't mine. You planted those.... this is insane! Wait till I get a lawyer, I'm gonna sue the hell out of you."
a2 holding up a large plastic bag of weed with a few joints pre-rolled inside: "Check this out boss." and the looking at m, "Look familiar junkie?"
m looking a bit sheepish: "Yeah, ok, that's mine. It's just a bit of pot though. What's the big deal? Those guns aren't mine!"
aj: "I don't believe you, you terrorist thug, and nobody else is going to believe you either. I mean, the energy crisis is a matter of national security, and just look at what all they found in your van."
aj waves at an array of weapons laid out on the ground or on a blanket. The weapons are laid out for display like one of small caches of weapons found in a house in iraq and photographed for the six o'clock news. As the camera pans across the individual weapons a voice describes each one. It is a new voice belonging to someone we have not yet seen. The voice is even and terrifyingly emotionless.
As the voice drones on, m protests: "You can't do this, you can't do this, this is america... you have no right to do this...etc."
A quality of judicial indignation that comes in when the owner of the voice is revealed to be the general in a big hat (g). He glares down at m.
g: "Sub-clause 37b dash 9 stroke six of The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 gives me the inalienable authority to requisition any and all action or means necessary to fulfill the interception and obstruction terrorism. Double under sub-clause 9 stroke 1 stroke one, states, 'Pre-emptive arrests, executions, and...', well.... I can't divulge the exact contents of any double under sub-clause, nor even confirm their existence, but rest assured, justice is legal and inevitable... it's the law.
The trial is over, bring him along men, lets finish this job."
end with m being shot in the head like famous vietnam photo/footage of General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing either Nguyễn Văn Lém or Le Cong Na.
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