Now regardless of your feelings on global warming, carbon footprints, holes in the ozone, air pollution, endangered species, depleting natural resources, or any of these other "liberal" issues; I think we should be able to agree that it is important to teach about stewardship of the earth and our resources. Environmentalism is still important, even if you feel that we aren’t causing the "end of the world" with any of our behavior.
I say, when you make something important like this a partisan/contradictarian issue, the only people who win are paid loud mouths like Rush Limburger and all of them. You basically wind up paying for books, listening to radio that's been sponsored (in this case, by people who want to sweep environmental issues under the rug, say oil companies), and feeding a beast that tells you what to think instead of coming up with your own opinion.
Also remember that a lot can (and probably will) change before the actual release. Anyone remember the early designs of Sid from "Sid the Science Kid" (who was also originally named Josh)? Thinks will likely change over the next year and a half as they develop the show.
And honestly, that version of Sid looks uGlY... almost lifeless. I still don't think this Doozer is that bad looking, and it just looks like a conceptual design. But sometimes things need to be skewed to look like they're animated. A Doozer CGI that's slavishly designed to look like the same puppets might come off a bit more rigid and lifeless than they should be. Same problem when Doozers were animated in the Fraggle cartoon series.
Of course, knowing Henson the difference between the Fraggle Cartoon and this project is, while FRA (Fraggle Rock Animated) was totally hand dranw and animated, they may just make use of the WALDO, similar to what's going on with Sid... so basically, we still get puppetry... just with a CGI wire frame instead of foam and felt.