I saw cautiously optimistic when I was surfing the cable box and found this channel. It turns out it pissed me off! These guys have a show about "green cars". anyway they take an H2 Hummer and a Caddillac Esplanade and put a desiel engine in the caddie to burn vegitable oil in. Already I'm not liking the show. Then they drag race the two to see NOT which one gets better mpg or is greener, but the want to see which has more power and is fastest!! One of the quotes is " I dont care about mpg I want power!" as he is adjusting the computer with one of those chip programmers. :tape: This show has nothing to do with Green! Then I watch a commeercial on the channel about another show where a mom is trying to show her family about living a green life. So how do they do it? Road trip in an Expedition!! I wonder if this is a wasted channel or if most people just dont get it?!
If this is the channel I'm thinking of, then I've caught a couple of programs that I like... 'Wasted' is one, and another is that show about Ed Bagley (sp?)... 'Living with Ed' or something like that.
Yep, that is the one. I like it. Not as much as Discovery or the Sience channel but for a channel that just started up, pretty good. As for vegie oil, I don't care what the vehicle is used for, veggie oil is 'greener' than gasoline.
I'm a big fan of those two also, as well as National Geographic Channel and Discovery Health. Ah, but I digress from the green theme...
sailboat racing burns nothing and doesnt race a hummer H2! Burning veggie oil still is a deisel fuel mixture and adds gunk to the air! It aint veggie oil only you know. It is a waste to race the cars on a tv show and call that any kind of green anything! And the H2 used gasoline! I don't understand why you folks are acting so dense here. You must be pulling my leg right? Yea thats it. Thats the ticket. You had me there!
I wonder how many hours of shows they have? If they run through all of their shows once per month, how many viewers will they have a year from now?
Sheepdog, I think you are missing the finer point of attracting a different viewer than would typically be interested in only that which is truely green. Some people jump into the idea of being green rather quickly due to education (academic or personal), some do it after having a child. There are also people who do not want to give up certain aspects of their life yet may be mildly interested in going green. Racing vegetable oil-powered vehicles is meant to attract just this type of person. It is not "green" imo, yet neither is driving any car. It is however, a way to get people to stop racing their gasoline powered car and maybe trade over to something running a cleaner fuel. Once they take that step who knows what other areas of life they will consider changing.
I think there's that, and then if you can get that viewer to stick around for another 30 minutes to watch Wasted, to see a real life example of a family who cuts their carbon impact by a significant percentage without having to change their life too much, then they can impact the greater world incrementally with each changed viewer.
I think PriuStorm has a good take on the channel. I saw the offending show and thought it was silly, but Wasted and Living with Ed, as well as Greenburg, about the town trying to rebuild from complete destruction, are IMO good shows. After a few episodes of Wasted, we made some changes around our home to try to decrease our carbon footprint, and the channel can have a awareness-raising effect. I think many of the shows on the channel start with an assumption that the average viewer has some resistance to going green(er), and they don't try to deny that change is difficult. I watch DIY channel frequently, and there are shows on that channel that are either not interesting to me or even irritating, as with just about any channel.
