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Newcastle’s Chronicle, Daily Mail are green winners

The Press Gazette have announced the winners of their inaugural Environmental Journalism awards, and illustrated in one move what a strange and contradictory thing such events can be. First of all, what the judges got right before what they got totally wrong.

Most importantly, the special commendation for Newcastle’s Evening Chronicle and it’s Go Green initiatives over the course of a year. The relationship between regional living, local media and environmental sustainability may be one of circumstance as much as anything, but initiatives such as the Transition Town movement over here and the Locavores in the US provide a hint that regional media can both survive the industry downturn and develop ecological living patterns through such environmentally-focused editorial. The Chronicle are running their own awards for local environmental champions. More »

Tags: BBC, campaign, coverage, ecology, economics, environment, environmentalism, green, greenpeace, Guardian, jobs, Journalism, kyoto, local, magazines, media, news, regional, reporting, students, US

Forum: climate change and violence

Last Friday I attended the first of seven ‘climate change and violence’ 1-day workshops attended by a network of academics, campaigners, government and faith groups (and others) interested in looking at climate change in a holistic manner, rather than from segregated disciplines or policy positions. The network is called Crisis Forum, set up and coordinated by Mark Levene and David Cromwell (of MediaLens), both academics in Southampton. More »

Tags: business, campaign, capitalism, convergence, Copenhagen, ecology, economics, environment, Guardian, jobs, kyoto, news, politics, regulation, research, training

Climate change bill passed (in the night)

Well I think I spoke too soon. There was very little coverage of the Climate Change Bill passing its commons stages. Perhaps this was due to the Brand-effect, or that most journalists are still deployed onto credit crunching topics. Prince Charles did make it into the papers yesterday talking about the ‘climate crunch’.

But so far I’ve found only two MSM reports on the passing of the climate change bill; a bill which is a world-first in setting legal targets for nation-state government:

• Historic, yet nothing has been done (The Guardian)
• Companies face mandatory CO2 reporting (The FT)

The same angle on companies reporting their CO2 emissions was reported in The Telegraph prior to the vote on the bill.

What’s the reason for such a low level of coverage?
There are probably a few. More »

Tags: business, campaign, Caroline Lucas, climate change bill, coverage, ecology, environmentalism, green, Guardian, news, reporting, scientists, WWF

Animal suicide: new global warming ad

Picked up this from a US-based social media and PR class blog.

This was unsettling to watch, for a few reasons. One, it is well made, put together by a Portuguese environmental organization named Quercus. The PSA was created by McCann Erickson Portugal.

The tag line at the end of the video reads “Global Warming - If you give up, they give up.”

However, the anthropomorphism is unsettling and perhaps a problem. The manipulation of images of polar bears has already given denialists plenty of ammunition against effective action on climate change (not least Sarah Palin, of course, who sued the Federal Government in the US on its decision to list Polar Bears as under threat).

I’m not wholly comfortable with the attribution of such human decision-making to animals. Not least because animals are smarter than we’ve been - they look after their own habitats much better than we do.

The question is, what gathering of meaning does this message contribute to? If this is one singular event of a particular form of message, what message pool does it contribute to at the semiotic level? What ‘regime of truth’ does it help supplement? That if animals are sentient enough to ‘give up’, does that justify their own extinction? Did the Javan Tiger (extinct) really ‘give up’ because we gave up on its habitat or right to life?

As appreciative as I am of the efforts of this Portuguese group, the fact that an ad agency (ultimate goal and mindset is one of capital and money making; I worked in advertising, and I know that people in that industry are not in general aware of the need to be semiotically and psychologically aware of the content of their messages) came up with this advert says a lot of the type of ad that it is. Think for example of the Coca-Cola Polar Bear, and you see the same anthropomorphic intent.

In no way should any message cloud the understanding, at a conscious, semiotic or unconscious level, that animals are without choice in a world so comprehensively dominated by one species. Yes, if we give up on tackling global warming, they are doomed, but not because of any choice on their part. I’d prefer an ad that apportioned all responsibility for extinction of animals, where linked to global warming, to those actually responsible: us.

Tags: advertising, adverts, animals, blogging, blogs, denialists, ecology, environmentalism, global warming, image, industry, media, news, psychology, semiotics, tigers