EIRecommended
Originally Posted on March 25, 2017
We just posted Good Night & Good Luck as a Resource here.
This Storyline, from IMDB
In the early 1950's, the threat of Communism created an air of paranoia in the United States and exploiting those fears was Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. However, CBS reporter Edward R. Murrow and his producer Fred W. Friendly decided to take a stand and challenge McCarthy and expose him for the fear monger he was. However, their actions took a great personal toll on both men, but they stood by their convictions and helped to bring down one of the most controversial senators in American history.Written by Brian Washington <Sargebri@att.net>
Good Night, and Good Luck provides a kind of tutorial, from an earlier era in American History, about how to confront, resist, and eventually take down a leader who deals in slander, innuendo, and a near total lack of evidence to smear his enemies and get his way.
Joe McCarthy was that leader. He conducted a vicious campaign that under the guise of rooting communist influence out of American life - swept up many Americans through innuendo, association, or just trumped up charges against anyone who opposed him. These attacks were ruthless.
Edward R Murrow was a journalist and later pioneer broadcast journalist. He first covered the the March 1938 Anschluss, in which Adolf Hitler engineered the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany. Later he reported live from London as German bombs rained down.
Murrow had become a prominent journalist for CBS News by the time this movie is set.
In the movie Murrow uses McCarthy's own images and footage against him, knowing that McCarthy will attack him back.
In the end, Murrow and his team use discipline, tactics, and resolve to bring down McCarthy and bring an end his reign of terror.
I believe this provides a model of the kind of courage that is required to turn aspects of the current tide.
More about the movie itself in the Civic Direct Resource.
Originally Posted on October 12, 2016
It's getting clear, the great majority of us need to be sent back to Kindergarten to learn how to communicate, get along, right? This article in Monday's New York times shines a light on Kelly Hayoe's ground breaking work in #ClimateCommunications: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/11/science/katharine-hayhoe-climate-change-science.html Spoiler alert, she's a really nice person. Kelly, Canadian born, lives and works in West Texas, is a climate scientist at Texas Tech. "When she started her work spreading the word about climate change in Texas, very few people in the Lone Star State believed it was happening, and even fewer believed that people were causing it." Sailing into the wind, she had to learn to tack, and tack she did. Person to person, with small groups, even with her then skeptical husband - she honed her craft, forged her way. From the Times article: "She has emerged as one of the nation’s most effective communicators on the threat of climate change and the need for action." " 'Katharine Hayhoe is a national treasure,' said Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. He said that she combined powerful communications skills, world-class scientific credentials and an ability to relate to conservative religious communities that can be skeptical about the risks of a changing climate." To get a feel for Professor Hayhoe's approach check out the Global Wierding YouTube Channel: globalweirdingseries.com Effective communication, clearly a key. The full article: #EIRecommended
Originally Posted August 31, 2016
Climate Central is a powerhouse organization based in Princeton. Everything you need to know is here: ClimateCentral.org
They are a great source of Videos and InfoGraphics.
Here they take us for a scary trip through one possible future, Earth at + 4° C
Can't go there!
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ClimateCentral is EI Recommended
#climate #climatecentral #EIRecommended
Originally Posted on May 18, 2016
Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project, @ClimateReality reminded me this week that it has been 10 years since An Inconvenient Truth premiered.
Planning to carve out time this weekend to rescreen this classic, savoring that.
Climate Reality is also promoting that we all weigh in with our own story, using #AIT10. And they are publishing a steady stream, as those stories come streaming in, at http://www.takepart.com/ait10.
After I watch, I will make an AIT10 post, but right now my most vivid take away from the film has Al, on the deck of an ice core drilling cutter. One of the scientists onboard is kneeling by a core, which has a vivid divide between murky & clear ice. He taps his ice hammer on the dividing-line and says “this is precisely the year when the Clean Air Act took effect.”
That moment floored me, policy matters!
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Moneyed interests have owned much of the politics in those 10 years, with an enormous stake in the status quo – precious time has been wasted, looking backward.
In truth, it has been 25 years since Ronald Reagan’s first act as President was to have the solar panels taken down from the White House.
There was actually a National Solar Heating and Cooling Information Center right in Philadelphia, before President Reagan’s term. One of our authors here at the Earth Initiative worked there. See http://ow.ly/C1z4300ldjs for a sampler of their resources.
This time, we cannot let there be another false start.