Archive for September, 2008

Podcasting is cool, no doubt about it. And a lot of nature protection and pollution control organizations are giving it a try. In July, the National Park Service put out a press release, boasting:

Many parks offer interpretive podcasts about wildlife, history, and topical issues like climate change and fire management… The Inside Yellowstone series has more than 50 episodes, which are one to two minutes in length. More episodes are on the way.

And the good folks over at ThankYouOcean.org also a produce a podcast series of the same name, the Thank You Oceans Report, which they describe as:

…interesting and exciting California ocean topics such as marine mammals, the latest news on ocean health, timely ocean issues and fascinating ocean facts.

So… should you jump on this bandwagon? The answer depends on your appetite for experimentation and how quickly you need a communications venture to pay off for you.

One of the trade publications I respect, eMarketer, recently did a roundup on the state of podcasting and concluded that despite rapid growth over the past couple of years:

…podcast downloading is still a niche activity.

eMarketer reported that only about one in five Internet users has ever downloaded a podcast, and only one in five of them does so regularly. That means that only somewhere in the neighborhood of 4% of Internet users are regularly listening to or watching podcasts.

The conclusion I draw from this article is that although podcasting will continue to grow for the forseeable future — it will be several years before it’s a truly useful mainstream channel for people like us.

So for those orgs that have some resources to throw at an experiment, I say go to town (and share what you learn with the rest of us). But if your organization doesn’t have a technically-inclined person on staff to produce your podcasts for free, don’t get caught up in the hype and get distracted from basics like good websites and email programs that consistently use the words that work.

Click here for the full eMarketer article on the state of podcasting today.

Source: Benimoto via Flickr

That’s a headline that will surely get your attention, but the kudos are well deserved. Last week, the U.S. EPA put it’s foot down — vetoing a massive Army Corps engineering project that would have drained and degraded a gazillion acres of wetlands in Mississippi. And one of the politicians who took a lot of heat over the years to provide political cover for the agency as it weighed this move is none other than Senator and candidate John McCain.

Now I’m not in the business of writing statements for the press anymore, but if I was, I’d probably draft up something chock full of words that work. Something like this:

EPA made a brave and responsible decision today, standing up to pressure from polluters and arm-twisting politicians, to veto the so-called Yazoo Pumps. The project was never anything more than a thinly disguised handout to corporate agribusiness interests, and if this misguided project had ever been built, future generations of Americans would have never been able to experience a vast and rich area that is home to rare wildlife and unique opportunities for families to experience nature together. Now that the pumps are off the table, we look forward to beginning a dialog with local leaders — planning ahead to develop smart choices for how live and work along the healthy, natural rivers that flow through their communities

Disclaimer: These are my views alone. I do not speak for any organization involved in the Yazoo Pumps issue.

I’ll spare you the policy blow-by-blow — but my hat is off to my former colleagues at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the “Corps Reform Network” for sticking to their guns for years and years, speaking up for nature and wildlife, and advocating for sensible and balanced investments to keep local residents safe from floods in the years to come.

If you’ve ever wondered if policy advocacy is your cup of tea, imagine the joy these hard working conservationists must be feeling today. Wouldn’t you like to feel that way about your own work someday?

Over the Labor Day weekend, I picked up a copy of the Chincoteague Beacon newspaper, and I spotted something rarer than a healthy Chesapeake oyster: An environmentalist acknowledging that things could be worse:

Thus far, Virginia’s Seaside bays are relatively pollution-free and every effort should be made to retain this status.

Source: Virginia Eastern Shorekeeper, letter to the Chincoteague Beacon, August 27, 2008

The Shorekeeper is recruiting activists to help him fight a pending discharge of treated sewage into these not-yet-so-terribly-polluted seaside bays — and he made an interesting choice. He could have emphasized that overfishing and other problems that plague these bays already, but chose instead to emphasize their relative health. Is that smart?

Social research suggests it might well be… because people are more motivated to keep the good things they have than to try to regain the good things they have lost. Here’s one quote:

Attempts to inspire activism will be more successful when issues are framed in terms of avoiding harmful consequences rather than achieving positive ones. Messages should emphasize the losses that occur as a result of inaction. They are more persuasive than messages emphasizing the positive benefits of action

Source: Engaging Women in Environmental Activism, Recommendations for Rachel’s Network, 2003

Now here’s why this gets tricky. In order to call on citizens to work together to ward off the loss of something they want their children to enjoy, you have to remind them that they have something worth keeping — which means finding something positive to say about the situation now.

Can you do it? Can you find something positive to say about the issue that you are working on? Something that people have now — and would hate to lose?

Meet January. She’s an actress in New York and a donor to a charity that I admire: Kiva. I admire Kiva because they have mastered the art of motivating generosity by inspiring confidence in their donors, rather than just hammering them with pictures of poor people and discouraging statistics about how big the problem is. Check out January’s quote below about why she supports the organization:

I don’t have a lot of money to spare, and I’ve always had a feeling of “what good will my ten or twenty dollars really do?” Now, I can see what it does, and I couldn’t be happier to share as much as I can.

January has come out and said what millions of your fellow citizens are afraid to — so pay attention. And although she’s talking about making a charitable donation, she could easily be talking about a rain barrel on her house, a rain garden in her yard, her signature on your petition, and any other opportunity you might offer her them to help protect nature or control pollution.

And Kiva is one of the world’s fastest growing charities because they recognize that they have to work their butts off to convince January and other donors that their $10, $20, $50 investments make a difference for poor people around the globe.

You can do it, too. It starts with that flash of insight that Americans are quick to believe that the problems are real and your mission is important — and what often holds them back is doubt in themselves. So next time you’re gearing up to ask for something, think about you could prove that it’s worth it — that one rain barrel, one $50 check, one short shower, one signature on that petition — makes a real difference.

It’s a good feeling to know you’re doing your part to protect nature and control pollution. And it’s even sweeter when you help inspire and empower somebody else along the way.