The not-so-mad scientist

Meet Greg Craven, an over-caffeinated, obsessive-compulsive chemistry teacher from Independence, Ore., whose fresh take on global-warming cuts through all the hot air circulating about the subject.

Craven was surely the kind of kid who couldn’t sleep until he'd acquired all the baseball cards for his favorite team, and then arranged them in order of their RBI stats. He’s focused his maniacal energy on posting several compelling (not to mention entertaining) video proposals for a new way to look at global warming. The YouTube postings have hundreds of thousands of hits.

Take a few minutes and read a well-written profile by Scott Learn in the Oregonian. Then click on Craven’s set-up on YouTube. (There’s a lot more where that came from, so if you get really hooked, check out his other offerings, listed on the right side of the YouTube page)

The exponential viewership for Craven’s videos is boosted by countless blogs and websites around the world, including the erudite Tidepool, an excellent Northwest news source where I first got wind of this latest YouTube mania.

If Craven was typical of science teachers, more of us might have made it through chemistry. He may be doing more for the global-warming discussion than all the activists, politicians and scientists out there put together.

• Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett is Crosscut's Oregon editor, based in Portland. You can e-mail her at kimberly.marlowe.hartnett@crosscut.com.