Archive for the ‘Misc’ Category

Biodiversity Project and the 30+ member Mississippi River Network: Headwaters to Gulf (MRN), is looking to hire a Mississippi River Policy Manager for a 2-year contract to work on the coalition’s policy agenda. The MRN is a collaborative effort of 35 organizations who have joined together to protect and restore the Mississippi River. The MRN has several initiatives: 1. a public communications campaign, 2. improved and amended policies that restore and protect the river and 3. promoting communication and collaboration among the MRN partner organizations.

Environmental Communication and Policy job at Biodiversity Project

This month, I am hosting the Carnival of the Blue — an online smorgasbord of recent posts from bloggers around the world who write about the ocean. It’s a chance for loyal readers of this blog to find some new bloggers to check out, and for readers of other blogs to discover mine. Here is a sample of some writing worthy of your precious reading attention:

1. Squirm of Worms on Wandering Weeta’s blog. A moving tribute in words and pictures to that most humble of coastal inhabitants.
2. Eight Ways Elephant Seals Have Evolved on Kind of Curious. The blogger explores some of the unique adaptations of the elephant seal, and posts some terrific photos of these odd animals at the Piedras Blancas State Marine Reserve in California.
3. Tuna and Reflections on the Gulf Oil Spill – Conversations With My Grandpa on Observations of a Nerd. Christie Wilcox contemplates the art and science of cleaning up oil spills.
4. Conquest of the Land, A La Chubby Checker on NeuroDojo. Zen Faulkes introduces readers to the terrestrial escapades of a fish, the blenny.
5. The Mangove Land Crabs of Punta Santiago and The Dolphins of Punta Santiago on the time traveling blog. The author introduces readers to the animals he encountered while exploring the coast of Puerto Rico.
6. A Drop in the Ocean, on the of winds and water blog. Blogging sailors Darcy and Kyle report on their experience breaking free of the ICW and sailing the open oceans.
7. Gulf Oil Spill Disaster: Spawn of the Living Dead for Atlantic Tuna on the Living the Scientific Life blog. GrrlSientist warns of the devastating consequences that the Deepwater Horizon spill will have for the beloved (and delicious) Atlantic Bluefin tuna.
8. Humpback Whales Realize the Importance of Girl Power, on Dr. Carin Bondar’s blog. Dr. Bondar explores the friendly and durable relationships that female humpback whales develop with each other.
9. The Water is Alive and Why is a Cooked Lobster Red? on Deep Type Flow. Blogger Alistair Dove answers a pair of question that I had frankly never bothered to ask myself!

Enjoy the carnival!

The Daily Green blog has published a post featuring an impressive collection of environmental awareness advertisements from Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund, International Fund for Animal Welfare, and others. The ads are full of memorable images, clever and creative concepts, and expensive graphic designs. I betcha most of these were produced by big name advertising agencies as pro-bono efforts.

Most of these ads are failures. In fact, I designed the environmental message method and Due Diligence Test Panel to help people like you avoid the kinds of mistakes you see on display here.

So let me be very blunt about where all these expensive advertising agencies missed the mark for their pro-bono clients:

It is a mistake to trying to wow or shock people into action, without telling them explicitly what that action is or encouraging them that it matters. It does not matter how cleverly or creatively you do it.

Of the 11 ads featured here, only this one below has an explicit call to action — switching out lightbulbs — and shows a picture of somebody doing that. It’s both clever and effective.

Other than that, most of these ads are just too clever for their own good.

That said, they are damn clever so take a minute to surf on over to Daily Green and take a look for yourself:
11 Powerful Environmental Messages

My former colleagues at American Rivers have scored a terrific victory — negotiating the removal of four hydroelectic dams along the Klamath River in California and Oregon. Some of you may remember that about a decade ago, this was one of nastiest controversies in the conservation world.

Click the link below to read the press release:
American Rivers signs agreements for world’s largest river restoration project

Congratulations to you all!