California’s water woes are the stuff of legend, and environmentalist Mindy McIntyre (California Planning and Conservation League) and bureaucrat Lester Snow (California Department of Water Resources) square off this week in the Los Angeles Times, offering competing visions for how to providing enough clean water to balance the needs of families and wildlife in the state. Two things to keep in mind before I grade their work:
- The LA Times is losing readers and writers faster than the industry as a whole, so this worthy debate won’t have the influence on opinion it would have had five or ten years ago.
- Everyday citizens find these “he said she said” debates to be hard to follow. According to a 2005 Yale University study, more than half of Americans (53%) agree with this statement: “There is so much information and disagreement in the media that I don’t know who to believe about what is best for the environment.”
This second point means that the likely “winner” of this debate will be the one who states their case the most clearly to readers. Now the critiques:
Lester Snow: “Don’t be fooled by the rain — we’re in a water emergency.” C+
Snow uses only a few words that work: “investment” several times, “healthy” once, and “conservation” a few times. He could use a lot more: The whole piece is basically a call for Californians to work together, plan ahead, and… um… build more dams (not your humble blogger’s solution of choice).
Snow makes some word choice mistakes that environmental professionals often make: he uses “climate change” where he could use “global warming,” he uses “water quality” where he could use “clean water” or “enough clean water,” etc… Insisting on using professionally-correct lingo sucks some punch out of his piece.
But I think the biggest mistake Snow makes is structure his piece like a scientific paper: facts first, conclusions last. He should reverse that — Snow should make his point (”We need to work together, plan ahead, and build more dams”) before he provide the facts that prove his point (snowpack, global warming, delta smelt, cfs, hydrology, blah blah blah). As is, many readers will lose interest before he gets to the punchline.
Mindy McIntyre, “Old solutions won’t solve today’s crisis.” B-
McIntyre is also bit sparse with the words that work: “conservation” a few times, “nature” once, and “healthy” a couple of times. She could use a lot more: Her whole piece is basically a call for Californians to work together, plan ahead, and use the water they have more wisely (Your humble blogger prefers this approach).
I give McIntyre bonus points for a pararaph where she writes that some California fish species are facing extinction, rather than writing that they are “endangered.” The term “endangered” is polarizing — your friends love you more, your enemies fear and hate you more. But nobody likes extinction.
McIntyre’s big mistake is venture into economic arguments. She’s not a credible messenger on this point. And if Californians believe that more dams are the only or best way to keep the water flowing, they’ll say “to hell with what it costs.”
I declare McIntyre the winner by a nose here, though. This line is a killer:
We cannot rely on strategies from the past to solve the problems they created and address the water issues of the future.
If she’d opened her piece with this, she’d have knocked Snow out cold. As it is, McIntyre wins the first round but there’s more to come.
Hat tip to the fine Aquafornia blog for spotting the debate.
When I first saw this video produced by WWF Canada, I thought “that’s so clever.” But when I watched it again, I thought “that’s so disappointing.” Bottom line here: You have to know a lot about global warming already to get anything from this little stunt. It’s preaching to the choir, and it won’t win over many converts to our point of view on the problem.
It states a true fact — and illustrates it in a snazzy way. But the billboard completely fails to address two crucial questions that everyday citizens ask themselves when confronted with an environmental problem:
How does it affect me?
If you are totally clueless that sea level rise threatens inhabited areas before you see the billboard, you will still be totally clueless after you see the billboard. And many citizens are clueless about this.
What can I do about it?
If you don’t already know that you can do something about this before you see the billboard, you still won’t know that you could do something after you see the billboard. The statement on the billboard now is so matter-of-fact that it somehow implies inevitability.
If it was my billboard, I’d slap a picture of a home or a school on there, that would slowly succumb to the rising waters, to illustrate that this problem will affect you. And then I’d replace the factual-but-meaningless statement that “Ocean levels are rising faster than ever” with something more empowering or action oriented, like:
“You can stop this. Learn how: http://saveourclimate.cn”
Almost there, WWF Canada. Please try again.
I admire Amy Vickers‘ command of communications secret #3: Make your point before you prove your point. Her proficiency is on display in an Op Ed she had placed in the Boston Globe last month. Called “Lawn Binge,” the piece compares America’s wasteful household irrigation to an alcohol abuse problem. The piece demonstrates that nature protection and pollution control experts can “open up” their issue to a wide audience without “dumbing it down.”
Here’s how she does it:
By volume, America’s biggest drinking problem isn’t alcohol: It’s lawn watering.
Home lawn and landscape irrigation consumes an average of more than 8 billion gallons of water daily, equivalent to 14 billion six-packs of beer. One-third of all residential water use in the United States is devoted to irrigation, estimates the US Environmental Protection Agency. Many cities and some states in the Southeast and Southwest, the country’s fastest growing regions and those with the tightest water supplies, report that 50 percent of their residential water use is outdoors, primarily for lawns.
She makes her point in the opening sentence — clearly labeling excess water use as a problem. Then she backs up that claim with the facts.
Had she not included the first paragraph, most newspaper readers wouldn’t have known whether to interpret 8 billion gallons daily as a good thing or bad thing. Facts without context are meaningless. But on the other hand, if she hadn’t included the facts in the second paragraph, many Globe readers would have dismissed the claim as unsubstantiated.
She made her point before she proved her point. She told the reader what the facts meant, then the she told them the facts.
Good job, Amy! Thanks for letting me know about your piece.
A brand new river group has formed down in Mississippi, the Friends of the Sunflower River. That’s great. They’re using a blog as their main webpage. That’s great, too. And one of the first posts on their new blog has the headline “Small Environmental Groups Can Make a Big Difference.” That’s also great, and it’s what this blog post is really about.
“Make a difference” are words that work to attract attention and put people in the right frame of mind to help you out. That’s because one of the biggest things holding people back from contributing to our cause is the sense that their efforts are too inconsequential to matter. A lot of otherwise well-meaning people are quick to say “I can’t make a difference, so why bother?”
Of course, you can’t just tell people they can make a difference and leave it at that. You’ll have to follow up by telling them what they can do. But, offering some encouragement always gets the conversation off on the right foot. It’s kind of like a giving someone a compliment on the first date!
Good job, Friends of the Sunflower River. Best of luck down there.
