Take a geeky-looking US student, an idealistic young mainlander, and an actor from Toronto, mix in video, some naff rap lines - 'Wind energy, hey/ Reduce emissions, hey/ It's green energy/ Hey! Hey! Hey!' - and the result is the China's Green Beat website.
Calling themselves the Green Brothers, the unlikely trio of John Romankiewicz, Zhao Xiangyu and Rene Ng have been highlighting efforts to tackle China's environmental crisis through quirky videos that they post on their site, and now hope to persuade young people that it's hip to be green.
A visiting Fulbright scholar, 24-year-old Romankiewicz says they got the idea for the podcasts while he was tutoring Zhao in English. 'Each time we met, we ended up spending all our time discussing China and the environment,' he says.
Green Beat started last September as a blog funded with remaining money from Romankiewicz's scholarship, but has since grown into a website (chinasgreenbeat.com) with five podcasts posted so far. Made in Putonghua with English subtitles, the earlier videos by Romankiewicz and Zhao, 20, featured topics such as Beijing's recycling system, solar water heaters and biomass power plants.
The more recent addition of Canadian actor-director Ng, 32, who runs the Beijing International Theatre and Entertainment stage group, has injected more polish and humour into the productions. Take the episode titled Sun Zhe's Transportation Adventures, in which the Green Brothers (kitted out in urban streetwear and comically dazzling bling) rap about the merits of public transport. The hero finds he becomes attractive to girls as soon as he starts taking the subway.
Such humorous efforts have won the brothers a growing number of fans, increasing respect and, more recently, international sponsorship. Last week, with help from China Dialogue, an international NGO with an environmental focus, they conducted a two-day workshop to teach university students how to make Green Beat-style videos.