So what do big polluters like Alcoa, American Electric Power, Chrysler, Dow, Duke Energy, and Shell Oil have in common with green groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council and The Nature Conservancy?

We believe it’s time for Democrats and Republicans to unite behind bi-partisan, national energy and climate legislation that increases our security and limits emissions, as it preserves and creates jobs.

Click the link below to see to see the statement with your own eyes:
Environmental Advertisement in the Wall Street Journal

This environmental advertisement is compelling because it works two angles at once:

• The “Strange bedfellows” angle — Shell Oil and NRDC agree on something? I bet that got your attention.
• The “Credible messenger” angle. I come back to this point often, and I’ll do it again. Nature protection and pollution control organizations are NOT credible messengers on jobs and the economy. People like you should stick to family, health, clean water, and wildlife arguments. If there is an economic argument to be made, enlist some business allies to make it, like this example here. Don’t try to make it yourself!

The ad was orchestrated by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. Good job, guys.

Snowmaggedon, that’s what they’re calling the blizzard that hit the DC metro area this weekend, blanketing “World Headquarters” (my house) in about two feet of wet, heavy snow. Sadly, I will now miss my scheduled presentations in Maine and Massachusetts. I’ve never no-showed before, and I’m pretty upset about it.

I extend my heartfelt apologies to my hosts, the Maine Association of Water Utilities and Watershed Action Alliance of Southeastern Massachusetts, and to any of you who were planning to attend.

As you can see from the picture, I had shoveled the driveway, packed my suitcase, and was ready to travel. Alas, the snow on our street is quite literally as high as the suitcase. We have yet to see our first plow, more than 48 hours after the snow stopped. Area airports, subways, busses, and Amtrak are all barely running, if at all. And for good measure, more snow is on the way. Yikes!

We’ll reschedule the Massachusetts presentation for sometime in March. I’m hoping my hosts in Maine will put me on the schedule for next year’s conference. If you are a client — I’m open for business so long as we have electricity.

Thanks for your understanding!

“Choice” is on the words that work list, and “decision” is a synonym. So that’s reason enough to alert you to the the “Your Water, Your Decision” toolkit. It’s an online tool that allows you to mix and match various types of information to produce an attractive and handy guide for local officials on steps they can take to protect water resources.

This online environmental communication resource has a good pedigree. It was developed by Salter-Mitchell, a marketing firm that has done a lot of work in our community.

In January, I pulled ten videos and print publications from EPA’s Nonpoint Source Outreach Toolbox and gave it to the Do Diligence Sounding Board to review. This commercial from Kentucky was the biggest dud in the bunch.

Because I’m about to be so harsh, let me remind you why I’m doing this in the first place: I’m conducting a shakedown cruise of this new service by testing materials that have already been released. But the real point of the DDSB is that you use it to pre-test materials before you release them “into the wild.” Don’t worry — once I launch the service, I will give you the board’s feedback on your stuff in complete confidence!

So imagine that it was you who had commissioned this video — and the panel came back with feedback like “depressing,” “dull,” “pointless,” and “confusing.” It would give you an opportunity pull the plug or revise the piece before throwing good money after bad to actually air it.

You can click here to read the full feedback from the sounding board, but it seems to me that this piece basically unravels because of the weak call to action. The piece does NOT begin with behavior.

The little girl does her job — the sounding board members find it very sad that she can’t play in the creek because of the construction site erosion. But the video gives viewers no hope for a remedy to the problem, no encouragement that they can help solve this problem, no indication that anybody else is doing anything about it. The below average ratings below suggest that reviewers find this piece to be just one big disheartening downer.

So even I’m not sure I know the answer to this, what can a regular citizen do about construction erosion?

Click the link below for the full feedback:
Environmental Communications Review