by cameron | Nov 23, 2006 | climate change, Podcast
It’s my great pleasure today to have Doug La Follette on the show. Doug is a United States academic, environmental activist, and politician. He is the current Secretary of State of Wisconsin. Known as an environmental activist before running for public office, in 1970 he was a Wisconsin organizer of the first Earth Day for Gaylord Nelson, and co-founded Wisconsin’s Environmental Decade (now known as Clean Wisconsin) with Peter Anderson.
We talk about the history of the environmental movement, how you can figure out the global warming facts from the climate change disinformation, and what you and I can do to make a difference.
To get the facts, Doug recommends these websites:
STEPHEN H. SCHNEIDER, CLIMATOLOGIST
THE HEAT IS ON
by cameron | Nov 13, 2006 | climate change, Culture Jamming, environment, Melbourne
For those of you in Melbourne town, I’ll be taking my video camera down to the Bourke Street Mall on Nov 24 to cover “Buy Nothing Day“. Why not come along and join in the merriment?
According to Wikipedia:
Buy Nothing Day is an informal day of protest against consumerism observed by social activists. It was founded by Vancouver artist Ted Dave and subsequently promoted by the Canadian Adbusters magazine. Participants refrain from purchasing anything for 24 hours in a concentrated display of consumer power. The event is intended to raise awareness of what some see as the wasteful consumption habits of First World countries.
There’s a detailed explanation of the idea from our friends across the Tasman. Here’s an excerpt:
Why don’t you want people to shop?
We are saying we want people to think about what they buy, and whether consuming ever-more actually does increase quality of life. The effects of over-consumption on the environment (such as toxic pollution and climate change) are widely known. These mean we need to reduce consumption, especially in many Western countries like New Zealand that are consuming much more than their fair share of resources. We are also concerned with the role of advertising, the effects of global trade liberalisation and inequities between the developing and developed worlds.
Events:
The Melbourne Culture Jammers will be back in the Bourke Street Mall, cutting up credit cards. Join us. 11am-2pm, Friday November 24th.
by cameron | Oct 23, 2006 | climate change, Iraq, Podcast, Uncategorized
Beti the Excel Jedi (and the host of the TPN Health and Fitness podcast) has put together a nifty pps containing the results of the TPN Oct 2006 survey so far. I’ll leave it open for another few weeks but I think the results are already showing some interesting trends.
Some interesting things that popped out at me:
- most people say that, on average, they listen to “most or all” of podcasts
- about a third pay attention to ads in podcasts, but another third ignore them
- 50% would be willing to pay >$1 a month to listen to TPN podcasts
- the breakdown between people listening on a PC versus a portable player is moving away from the PC, with 75% listening on a portable device
- nobody first heard of TPN via the mainstream media
- the vast majority say they trust the opinions of TPN hosts either “very much” or “somewhat” and 70% trust TPN hosts more than they trust mainstream media (which might shut up all the journos who love to say “you can’t trust blogs”… nah who am I kidding… )
- almost all of you relate to TPN hosts more than you relate to mainstream media hosts, yet again demonstrating the power of citizen media
- two-thirds listen to less traditional radio since discovering podcasting (I should have asked what percentage of the podcasts you listen to are traditional radio shows versus citizen media… next time)
- two-thirds find citizen media more stimulating than mainstream media
- and, overwhelmingly, you are Beatles persons who disagree with the Iraq invasion and are worried about climate change. In other words, you haven’t been fooled by the propaganda campaigns on these issues run by your Governments and the corporations that run them. I am very proud of you.
Check out the early results.
And if you haven’t completed the survey yet, you still have a chance by going here.
by cameron | Oct 12, 2006 | climate change, Uncategorized
So far I’ve had about 94 responses to the TPN survey I put up last week. Any suggestions why the responses are so low and what I can do to get more?
Oh and to the person who answered the last question with "See, this is why I have trouble with TPN. I was happy to help you out by filling out a survey, but now you are wasting my time", I’d say "GET A SENSE OF HUMOUR". Jesus. Mind you, this person isn’t subscribed to any TPN podcasts, so I guess he/she isn’t our target market which is obvious anyway from that answer. Bloody hell.
For those of you WITH a sense of perspective about how important you are, you might be interested to know that 79.5% of responses were for The Beatles (which means I have to get rid of the sunnies and get a long wig), 72.7% are worried about climate change, 72.4% think the "War On Terror" is a shame, and only 36.8% of you have offered me a spare bed. Can those people please email me with their location because I might need it soon. Especially if you live in LA or San Fran.
<a href="http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=826122623222">Click here to take survey</a>
by cameron | Sep 30, 2006 | climate change, Uncategorized
I just saw Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” at my local cinema and it had a huge impact on me. I started asking myself what we could do at TPN to help promote the film. We’ve got ~300,000 listeners and I want to do what I can to help spread the word. The obvious way is to place an ad for it on each of our shows. I’m going to start doing it and I’ve invited my TPN co-hosts to join me.
Other things each of you can do:
by cameron | Sep 23, 2006 | climate change, science, Uncategorized
Feeling confused about whether or not climate change is really a threat? Good. That’s exactly what they want you to feel. Confused.
I was having a conversation about this with a friend over lunch during the week and he explained to me how the big oil companies fund hundreds of small lobby groups who purport to be scientists and who put out misleading and contradictory evidence deliberately to confuse the general public.
Here’s an interesting statement I read tonight:
According to Ward’s own analysis of Exxon’s Corporate Giving Report, the company last year funded 64 groups conducting climate change research, of which 25 were in line with mainstream climate science and 39 were "misleading." The latter category included the Centre for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, to which Exxon gave $25,000 in 2005, the Exxon website shows. The Centre’s website says: "There is no compelling reason to believe that the rise in temperature was caused by the rise in CO2."
This is from an article in Al Jazeera stating that The Royal Society, Britain’s national academy of science, is criticizing Exxon’s attempts to mislead the general public by confusing them with contradictory reports.
So, here’s how it seems to work. You give money to both the dodgy groups who make up their science off of the back of a breakfast cereal box but you *also* give funding to the real scientists so you can’t be accused of just funding the bad guys. You can say
"These organisations do not speak on our behalf, nor do we control their views and messages. They may or may not hold similar views to ours."
But what you *really* want to do is create confusion. It’s Alexander of Macedon’s old "divide and conquer" strategy updated for the 21st century corporation. Plausible deniability.
Now, when you read about the confusion in the newspaper, all you read is that Politician X said "Climate change is important and we need to do something about it now" but then you read that Politican B said "Such-and-such a group of scientists says it isn’t as big a problem as everyone is making out, go back to your Reality TV". Of course, what you *don’t* read is that the group Politican B quoted from was funded by Exxon.
Who has the responsibility to tell you this last fact? The newspaper? You would think so.
