Video Killed the Radio Star by Gia Machlin, August 03 2010, 1 Comment

Do you remember where you were when MTV debuted on August 1, 1981? (If you're too young to remember, then hurray for you). I was at a sleepover at my friend Allison's apartment on West 95th Street in Manhattan. I lived in the suburbs at the time, so those city sleepovers were super cool. The first music video ever played on MTV was "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles. That song has been stuck in my head for the past two weeks because: "look at me now, Mom, I'm a radio star!" OK,maybe I'm not exactly a "radio star" - but I was interviewed for two radio shows this last week. The first interview, which was taped ahead of time, will air on John Shegarian's Green is Good Radio show on Clear Channel network and on greenisgood.fm the week of August 27th. I also had the pleasure of appearing LIVE on "Valerie's New York" last Friday, July 23rd on WOR 710 Talk Radio. Click on Valerie Smaldone's picture to listen:

Why all the publicity? Well, of course I want to get the word out about my social venture EcoPlum. But if you listen carefully to both of my interviews, you'll hear that I am desperately trying to reach people - trying to get them to be aware of their ecological impact. We are trashing the earth and we don't even seem to care. While I am encouraged by all the hard work by environmental advocates like Annie Leonard, Sylvia Earle, Bill McKibben, Ken Cook, Kieran Suckling, and way too many others to name, I am also very frustrated. Excuse me if I'm starting to sound like a broken record (to continue with the "multimedia" theme) but based on what I see every day all around me here in NYC, people just don't get it!! WHY CAN'T WE ALL STOP THE MADNESS? I mean seriously, what's it going to take to get people to be more conscious of their impact? While I am tempted to start standing outside Duane Reade stores yelling "did you really need that plastic bag?" and "are you sure you want to use those chemicals on your baby?" and "are you kidding me? - you did not just drink half of that bottled water and throw it in the garbage!?!" - I know that's not the answer. We just need to get through to people on a higher level.

A colleague of mine recently recommended that I watch this video series by economist Joshua Farley where he talks about Ecological Economics. I thought he made a lot of sense, so I'm passing it along in the hope that it will resonate with someone in an "AHA" sort of way.

Economics not your cup of tea? Well there's always the good old "Story of Stuff" video that does a great job hitting home the message. Other good videos are: No Impact Man, Tapped, An Inconvenient Truth, Food Inc.,
Crude Impact, and Who Killed the Electric Car.

So here's what I'm thinking: most of you reading this don't need to be converted - you already are doing as much as you can to reduce your ecological impact. But I know you all have friends, colleagues, co-workers, family members who are still going about their business as usual and not thinking about their destructive behavior. So please pass this on to one of them and ask them to take a few minutes to listen to my radio show or watch one of these videos. If they do this and write to me (or better yet - send a video) with ONE thing they learned and ONE habit they will change, I'll pick one lucky winner of $100 worth of EcoChipz that can be used for purchases in our EcoShop or donated to environmental causes. It's that simple. Let's all be video and radio stars and get our message out, one person at a time.

Please send all submissions to videostar@ecoplum.com or post them to our FACEBOOK page.