Treehugger TV: Solutions

This episode of treehugger TV is all about solutions. Solutions for surviving the apocalypse, solutions to death and solutions to problems that you didn't even know existed!

SURVIVING 2012
On December 21st 2012 the ancient Mayan calendar comes to an end, and with it, some say, will come wide spread disaster. So, our intrepid correspondent Faith Salie sets out to find out just what she'll need to do to prepare for the oncoming end of the world, as we know it. Her first stop is Dennis McClung in Arizona. He's the proprietor of web-store called 2012Supplies.com and he's all about preparing for the end times. Faith will find out what she needs to buy in case of the worst, try on a hazmat suit and learn about the perfect housewarming gift to bring to someone's secret mountain disaster hideaway (hint: it involves a bunt pan).

But as an urbanite, she's also going to need to learn to survive 2012 on the mean streets of the city—once the government falls apart and chaos sets in. Luckily she's going to get a training session from Kevin Reeve an expert on tactical survival in urban environments. From how to avoid being in the cross hairs of marauding gangs to hiding from flesh eating zombies, Kevin is going to teach Faith everything she needs to know to make it through the apocalypse uneaten.

BEATING DEATH
Death. It's been bumming people out for centuries. In this segment we'll explore ways people are keeping the grim reaper at bay or avoiding the inevitable entirely.

Sam Meranto is a 79-year-old motivational counselor who creates specialized audio recordings to help people reach their goals—no matter what those goals might be. According to him, listening to one of his recordings is like unscrewing your head, reprogramming it and then screwing it back on like it's a brand new head. With the right programming, anything is possible, even living to be 125 years old.

Next we meet doctor Michael Rose, a scientist at UC Irvine who is studying life extension. He's created flies that live three times the length of the average fly and he claims that his research could lead to people living for hundreds of years.

And if living longer isn't good enough for you, you should get acquainted with Justin Lowe from the Immortality Institute. He's hoping that scientists can eliminate death entirely. We'll travel with him to Alcor, the cryogenics facility where he will be preserved until the day they cure death.

RUBE GOLDBERG MACHINES
Where are the best and brightest minds of engineering?s future coming from and what are they doing with their free time? They're building insanely complicated machines for the National Rube Goldberg Competition at Purdue University. 12 teams have built machines in the spirit of cartoons created by the artist Rube Goldberg, which feature ridiculously complicated machines to accomplish a very simple task. This year's challenge? Use at least 20 steps to dispense a squirt of hand sanitizer! May the most unnecessarily difficult machine win!