With the weather turning colder and the economy showing little, if any, heat, more and more folks may be hitting their local streets as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement. We thought we’d put together a fun list of items to make protesting a more pleasantly green and productive enterprise. Below we’ve listed a few green gift ideas for the protester in your household:

• No lights, no electricity, no TV…no problemo!  The Etón American Red Cross Microlink radio and flashlight features a multi-band radio that can be charged via hand-crank, solar cell or USB port. The radio features AM/FM and seven NOAA All-Hazard Alert and weather channels. Additional features include: cell phone charging capabilities and a handy LED flashlight.
• Buy your protester a t-shirt that will clearly proclaim their support, affection and affiliation with the Occupy movement. This shirt, made by Colorado-based Occupy Shirts, is made of green stuff too – combed ring spun organic cotton and post-consumer P.E.T. recycled polyester. Occupy Shirts donates proceeds to the city of your choice and the tee costs a very reasonable $20.
• Hygiene is a major issue for any long term, outdoor occupation and protesters always make a better impression on reporters and media types when they smell like a fresh mountain breeze instead of a urine-soaked billygoat. The solar shower (pictured at right) can provide a quick cleansing spritz before that next on-camera opportunity. The shower holds five gallons of H2O which it heats via a small integrated solar panel.
• Hot food is always a mood lifter in an outdoor protest situation and, given the fact that most police and fire departments frown on open fires in public places, innovative cooking solutions are probably required. One option, go all Ed Begley Jr. and break out a solar cooker like the one pictured on the right – all you need is some strong sunlight and a little bit of time…a commodity that, unfortunately, may be in great supply.

Related: more green gifts previously on The Alternative Consumer.

• Keep your event’s size manageable. Invite only guests who still use the term “global warming.” This will guarantee plenty of room on the dance floor and ensure tons of leftovers.
• Create a menu of strictly local fare. Avoid this approach if your patio is located next to a Nebraska cattle feedlot, your vegetable garden is regularly irrigated by run-off from the local coal mine, or your neighbor’s cloned sheep are known to sport a couple of extra, calorie-rich appendages.
• Instead of throwing another slab of meat on the barbie, take the kids to a petting zoo or local farm so they can connect with some of the critters they’re not eating.
• Invite Al Gore over for a barbecue – make sure you have plenty of potato salad and corn relish. Al’s such a big eater you may want to invest in carbon offsets to counter-balance his food intake!
• Take the heartfelt advice of my neighbor, Four Fingered Tony – lock-up all fireworks before you start imbibing any organic wine, beer, vodka or tequila.

• Tired of bulky binoculars? Try this…Latest Buzz: Man Invents Wearable Hummingbird Feeder – aol news
• Hopefully we won’t see an update of this story in a week, linking this man’s name and the phrase ‘lion breakfast’. Florida Man Says He’ll Live in Lions’ Den for 30 Days – myway
• I thought the biggest British fox ever was Helen Mirren…(video) ‘Biggest Ever’ Fox Caught in Britain – sky news/orange uk
• A cave big enough to hold a skyscraper – has its own clouds…Explorers Discover Spectacular, Giant Caves in Vietnam – yahoo! news
• New alternative energy source? Solar-Powered Hornet Found – natgeo

Here are some tips on how to support the Tea Party’s green platform…we jest, of course:)

• Global Warming – First disregard all scientific evidence.  Consult meteorological experts like Glenn Beck (he does use a blackboard), and Sarah Palin.  They have a firm grasp on middle America’s political temperature.  Any day that falls below the daily average temperature is a strike against man-made climate change – any day with above average temps is just a good old heatwave.
• Emulate Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell by avoiding masturbation and abstaining from pre-marital sex – 2 potentially dangerous man-made sources of global warming.
• Follow Republican Congressional leader John Boehner’s lead and slather on the self-tanner.  Our thinning atmosphere can cause harmful skin cancers (John McCain) an affliction that can undermine the Party of No’s position on climate change.  Besides, becoming your own bizarrely orange version of the sun can only help draw attention away from any real issues…like that meticulously manicured hair.
• Lowering our deficit is Job One.  Cut funding and grants to special interest groups – specifically, American-based alternative energy companies.  We all know that Al Gore’s investment in wind and solar energy is just a scam to fill his wallet with more cash to finance his those “therapeutic” massages and happy endings.
• Concentrate on the key issues facing America.  Sure it will kill a few million trees, but we must demand a hard copy of every non-white American’s birth certificate for public examination.
• Illegal immigration must be stopped.  Physically closing our borders may prevent some incidental animal migrations and isolate a few barn owl populations, but this needs to get done.  We’ve made a good start by fencing off some of our border with Mexico – now let’s get down to the serious business of closing our border with Canada to wayward Canadian comedians, Canadian geese and any stray bull moose looking to steal American jobs.
• Drill baby drill!  Nothing kicks our economy into high gear like giving piles of cash to multinational oil companies.  As BP’s Gulf oil spill showed us – the oil clean-up biz has tremendous growth potential.

To fight the state of depression enveloping us over the Gulf Oil Spill we thought we’d lighten our mood by roughing out the pitch for a comedy loosely based on the tragedy.

Thus was born “Tar Balls” – The Movie

Concept:  A wacky bunch of misfits bands together to fight the greatest environmental disaster of our time.  Think ‘Airplane’ meets ‘Towering Inferno’ meets “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” without the star power of Leslie Nielsen, Paul Newman, or Shelley Winters.

Cast:

• Will Ferrell as Barack Obama – A man who can’t dress casually, administer a righteous ass-kicking, or “plug the damn hole” in his political or social life…Will Ferrell nails the president with another spot on characterization – wig and makeup required.  We’re leaning toward Beyonce as Michelle…
• John C. Reilly as Admiral Thad Allen – This man is on a mission.  Needs a catch phrase like “shake and bake” – from that Oscar-worthy opus, “Talladega Nights – The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” – to capture the synergy and relationship of Barack and Thad – 2 men, an oil boom and a burning ocean…John C has got to have a “Junk Shot” ad-lib in him somewhere…
• Mike Myers as our villain, BP’s Tony Hayward – With Peter Sellers gone, who better than “Dr. Evil” himself to capture the comedic timing and quippy-charm of a man prone to talk of “small people” and “getting his life back” whilst having no memory or knowledge of any of the actual operations of a multi-billion dollar company.  Think Fat Bastard redux, just change the line from “Come on, get in my belly” to “Come on, get in my wallet”.  A classic villain, able to talk of “making things right” while working to make everything go wrong…just give him a tight-perm and an angora cat.
• Jim Carrey as James Carville – Think of the accent, think of the granny glasses and envision Kirsten Wiig as James’ wife Mary Matalin.  Oh the comedic possibilities!
• Alec Baldwin as Rep. Joe Barton of Texas – It’s a cameo, but what a cameo!  A wardrobe change, a southern accent and a gray wig will transform the “30 Rock” star into the man who brought the House down with his classic punchline, “I’d like to apologize to BP…”
• Kevin Costner as Kevin Costner – Waterworld got him in the mood and his centrifuge puts him over the top.  Think “Dances With a Blowout Protector”.  A comeback in the making…

• No he wasn’t attacked by Courtney Cox…Family Dog Saves Boy From Cougar Attack – cnn
• Now that’s a dirty desk…Mouse Nest Found on Policeman’s Desk – ananova
• …and I have trouble sleeping already…Winter, Nighttime Tornadoes Pose Greatest Risk, National Weather Service – sciencedaily
• These guys have to be stopped. Kenya Arrests Rhino Poaching Gang – bbc
• but he’s sooo cute….Creepy Case: Tarantula Shoots Hairs into Owner’s Eye – livescience
• Dope duped! Fla. Man Calls Detectives After Pot Plants Seized – myway
• New Estate Bans Cats and Dogs to Protect Birdlife – timesonline

Was 2009 a good or bad year for green?  On balance I’d say it was a net positive: we got rid of G.W. Bush and his oilman cronies, saw the Obama administration throw some significant seed money at alternative energy R&D, and got the EPA back doing what it was created to do.  On the down side — the economy makes changing anything that costs money a tough sell; Congressional Republicans are stuck voting “Nay” on everything and won’t be changing that approach anytime soon; and big money still runs Washington.

What follows is a list of some observations on the year past, some green – some not, some funny – some not.

• The Copenhagen Climate Summit ended up looking like a typical Congressional vote on healthcare reform. The gap between the climate “haves” and the “have nots” isn’t going to get much smaller in the next year.
• Some purloined emails, a few warm days and Senator James “Junkscience” Inhofe and his global warming naybobs have new momentum in their fight against science and reality.
• Charlie Sheen and Tiger Woods continued their efforts to fight zero population growth, the sanctity of marriage and net worth of their corporate sponsors.
• I nominate Lady Gaga for my “Biggest Affront to Nature 2009″ award.  Her costumes are the most appalling waste of natural resources since the 1971 Yugo and her singing has driven at least 3 endangered species to extinction.
• 2009 saw the gray wolf taken off the endangered species list and gleefully hunted by folks in states like Idaho and Montana.  This ain’t over yet…
• The blundering performance of Congressional Democrats energized Fox News blowhards Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity in their shrill effort to promote fear of healthcare reform, climate change legislation and black Presidents.
• Also in entertainment…Stephen Colbert and John Stewart countered the Fox blather with intelligent humor and insightful truthiness…
• Finally, the one thing we learned in 2009 – change is one tough nut.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We’re having a little DIY fun here…

1. You got the ingredients mix wrong on that DIY shampoo and now sport a hairstyle that’s been kindly described as early “Telly Savalas”.
2. The t-shirt quilt you’re creating chronicles your pathetic journey from Black Sabbath worshiper to Bon Jovi fanatic (it also contains 17 threadbare Bruce Springsteen tees).
3. The DIY lamp you created out of old kitchen appliances was so frightening that your cat, Mr. Cuddles, took one look at it and has now been missing for over a week.
4. In designing your own electric bike your only success has been in permanently numbing your ass from the repeated shocks from the ungrounded battery and exposed wiring.
5. Your attempt to utilize your breakfast bacon grease as biofuel has transformed your Volkswagen Beetle into a driveway sculpture.
6. You’re still removing splinters from your behind after testing a reclining chair you creating from wooden pallets you snagged from you company’s loading dock.

Given our focus ‘all things green’ we thought we’d throw together a fun list of ghoulishly green scary movies.  Here’s our top ten.  Don’t hesitate to add your own:

10.   Let’s get it out the way right off the top.  The thought of having to sit through Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” is a terrifying prospect for about 50% of the American public.  All those Power Point charts, stock footage, melting glaciers, and God forbid facts…it’s just too much for many people to emotionally handle.  Still…I know when I first saw it, it frightened the hell out of me.

9. “The Fly” (1986) – Mess with mother nature and you just might get what’s coming to you.  And while we’re on the topic of messing with mother nature – how many genetically modified substances do you ingest every day?  Jeff Goldblum (drooling fly goo above) has some graphically scary transformation scenes – David Cronenberg does some very icky movies – and the film’s ending just might make you think before you squish that ant crawling up your pant leg…or maybe not.

8. “The Blob” (1958) – Danger lurks in outer space (or cold war Russia). A comet crashes near a small town unleashing a creature that resembles a giant blob of gummy bear residue and possessing an insatiable desire to consume human flesh – always a good horror combo. Throw in a heroic young Steve McQueen and some pop corn and you’re good to go.

7. “Open Water” (2003) – Get out there and dive into nature…if you dare. A couple left to drift alone in a shark infested ocean try to resolve their relationship issues only to see that most terrifying of all relationships…with mother nature…go bad…

6.  “Them” (1954) – Long before Three Mile Island and Chernobyl there was this classic depiction of the hazards and potential damage done to nature by nuclear testing.  What better villains than giant voracious ants.  A few people-hungry ants escape from a nuclear test site in the New Mexico desert, happily munching on unsuspecting movie extras all the way to L.A. sewers.  A young and virile James Whitmore stars in this classic science lesson.

5.  “The Birds” (1963) – Is that a wood thrush in your beehive Mrs. Smith? This Alfred Hitchcock classic still has me looking at crows with suspicion.  Tippi Hedren sets the standard for fright flick screaming.

4. “Jaws” (1975) – The granddaddy of all animatronic monsters, a giant pissed-off killer whale terrorizes New England vacationers.  What could be more chilling?  Spielberg probably did more damage to the shark population than global warming and long line trawling combined.  Still a great scary movie.  Good karmic antidote: see “The Cove.”

3. “Arachnophobia” (1990) – A deadly South American spider enters the U.S. in a coffin and starts both breeding and killing.  Somebody call Lou Dobbs!  A comment on NAFTA, isolationism, or just a scary manifestation of people’s issues with our spider friends?  Anyhoo…Jeff Daniels and John Goodman get the job done.

2. “The Wicker Man” (1973) – Not to be confused with the 2006 turkey starring Nicholas Cage, (scary only in the fact that it ever got released), the original English classic explores the dangers of meddling with folks hell bent on pursuing religious freedom…in this case paganism.  Is the strange community on this remote Scottish island really a bastion for tree-hugging nature lovers and organic farming?  Probably not, but getting torched in a giant wicker sculpture is a very scary prospect.  High creepiness quotient!

1. “The Blair Witch Project” (1999) – The first of the low budget pov handy-cam genre and probably the scariest.   Are we really so frightened by nature and the Jersey woods that we can wet our pants without ever seeing the scary witch monster?  I recall being slightly disturbed leaving the theater after this one – perhaps it was the prospect of how much moolah the film makers were making with zero production value…

• You’ve been working for ten long years to complete a 30′ tall sculpture of Queen Elizabeth out of 20,000 recycled Ballantine Ale cans and your kidneys are about shot.
• Putting your Hummer in neutral going down hills has saved you only .008 gallons of black gold per mile.
• You tried a pair of hemp sandals but found them largely un-combustible and difficult to fit into any of your old hash pipes.
• Your neighbor’s wind farm is blocking your view of the local oil refinery.
• They have yet to make an authentic Ben Roethlisberger jersey out of organic cotton.
• The Wave Power installation in your Koi pond won’t power your 3,000 cubic foot hot tub.
• Scientists have failed at all attempts to make a 100% organic version of Velveeta.
• Hamburger Helper’s new ‘All Vegan Simulated-Sirloin Helper’ just doesn’t get the job done for you.
• That ‘Soy Hold’ hair gel you bought makes you look like Marie Osmond on a bad-hair day.
• You were recently mauled by a horde of carpenter ants after a failed attempt to talk them out of your house.

Related: previously on altCon – 10 reasons to go green