GoGreenTube.Com Eyes Global Environmental Community, YouTube Style

For many, George Carlin’s cherished riff on conservation concerns may seem out of place on a new video-laden Web site dedicated to all things environmental.

 

“And the greatest arrogance of all: ‘Save the planet.’ What? Are these (expletive) people kidding me?” the late comedian says. “Save the planet? We don’t even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven’t even learned how to care for one another. We’re going to save the (expletive) planet? I’m getting tired of that (expletive). I’m tired of (expletive) Earth Day. I’m tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is that there aren’t enough bicycle paths.”

 

Yet Carlin’s always-unique take on environmentalism has its place on www.gogreentube.com, according to Michael Shell, the site’s founder and chief executive officer.

 

“You have to make education fun and people have to want to go to your site again and again and again,” Shell told TMC (News - Alert) during an interview today. “They have to want to see the new stuff that comes on the side and to do research on the site. You’ve got to make it so it’s a fun experience.”

 

The brainchild 45-year-old Shell, a Simi Valley, California resident and former motorcycle dealer, gogreentube accomplishes that by basing its design on the terrifically popular YouTube (News - Alert) site – with videos from comedians such as Carlin and Will Ferrell, as well as news spots about the environment, TV ads, cartoons, user-generated content, movie clips, videos of presentations and more.

 

Since its launch in June, the site has seen as many as 30,000 unique visitors in a month, and Shell says he expects the tally to double in August.

 

Backed by Shell and four others – including a programmer, marketing consultant, Web master and Shell’s own uncle, a Texas-based president of the company – the site is designed to reach a global audience, its creator says.

 

“I was trying to figure out the most effective way to reach a global audience, to help everything go green and educate people on how to be more environmentally friendly, so I put two and two together and realized that consumers drive the movement,” Shell told TMC. “As more companies go green, there are more green products available, and that’s because consumers become more educated, create more demand for those products.”

 

Shell, a fan of YouTube, has built a site that already features of hundreds of videos, two dozen channels – dedicated to topics such as wind power, biofuels and green corporations – and soon will add features that allow Web sites dedicated to the environment to embed its videos and allow members of the free site to shop online.

 

So far, Shell said, the site has about 200 registered members.

 

That number is bound to increase next month, when gogreentube hosts this year’s “Chill Out” contest, an effort organized with the National Wildlife Foundation that awards prizes and names a winner among about 400 colleges that submit videos focused on environmental issues.

 

In this presidential election year, amid horrifyingly high fuel costs and as the nation teeters on the brink of what many economists call a looming recession, environmental issues are taking center stage.

 

So-called “green” technologies come in a number of forms – and as TMC President and Group Editor-in-Chief Rich Tehrani writes, some companies do a better job than others at achieving the “lofty goals” of the environmentally conscious.

 

“Case in point is Mitel (News - Alert),” Tehrani wrote in one recent blog entry. “I recently had a discussion with Doug Michaelides, the company’s vice president of marketing, where we discussed the Mitel’s alliance with SUN to deliver (unified communications) solutions. He pointed out in our meeting that of course UC is a green technology to begin with as it reduces commuting costs.”

 

According to Tehrani’s conversation with Michaelides, a Sun/Mitel UC solution reduces power consumption per person from 90 watts to nine.

 

“So if you are looking to go UC and do it as environmentally responsibly as possible, you may want to check out the Mitel/Sun combo live and in person,” Tehrani writes. “On second thought, stay at home and do it over the Web.”

 

That’s what Shell does, and unlike some companies who sell themselves as “green,” gogreentube can actually point to a tangible difference its making.

 

By partnering with www.carbonfund.org, the site is doing good for the environment, Shell says. In particular, the company “buys a pound of carbon emissions” from carbonfund.org, he says, every time someone watches a video on the Web site.

 

That works through what the organization calls “carbon offsets,” which carbonfund.org describes as “more efficient than other measures an individual can take to fight global warming, while reducing the same or more carbon dioxide emissions.” The organization supports carbon-reducing projects such as renewable energy, energy efficiency and reforestation projects.

 

The site, parts of which are still works in progress, in about three weeks will feature a tool that’s designed to help green businesses create their own space online, Shell said.

 

Not that everyone will be impressed.

 

Carlin, the great comedian who succumbed to a history of heart problems in June, said the planet will shake off the concerned human race “like a bad case of fleas.”

 

“I don’t worry about the little things,” he says in the video now featured on gogreentube.com. “Bees, trees, whales, snails. I think we’re part of a greater wisdom that we will never understand. A higher order. Call it what you want. You know what I call it? The big electron. The big electron. It doesn’t punish. It doesn’t reward, it doesn’t judge at all. It just is. And so are we. For a little while.”