Environmental Communication
nisbetmc | March 5, 2010
Chris Palmer, director of the Center for Environmental Filmmaking at American University, argues in an op-ed at CNN.com that the tragic accident at SeaWorld Orlando should draw renewed attention to the ethics and safety of keeping Orcas as captive performing animals for spectators. As Palmer, a veteran of more than 25 years of wildlife filmmaking, writes:
Orcas and other large predators should not be held in captivity unless those doing so can make an overpoweringly persuasive case for it -- mainly that the animal's release into the wild, perhaps after an injury, will mean certain,…
nisbetmc | March 4, 2010At the blog "Global Change: Intersection of Nature and Culture," Phil Camil has an excellent overview and synthesis of research on some of the communication barriers to action on climate change and the strategies for overcoming those barriers. Camil is associate professor and director of the Environmental Studies program at Bowdoin College in Maine.
At the post there are also links to other analyses by Camill on the problem of environmental literacy and engagement generally.
nisbetmc | February 28, 2010What does climate change mean to you? from Andrea Posner on Vimeo.
Students in AU Professor David Johnson's class on interactive media have created a social media and discussion site for tonight's American Forum on "The Climate Change Generation: Youth, Media, and Politics in an Unsustainable World."
Features at the site include video interviews with AU students on the topic (see above), a Twitter feed that student attendees and public radio listeners will be posting to, a Facebook group, a news aggregator on climate change, and various topic driven discussion boards with topics ranging…
nisbetmc | November 4, 2009
The faculty here at American University's School of Communication include several of the country's leading environmental filmmakers with their work coordinated through the Center for Environmental Filmmaking. One of our faculty Larry Engel worked on the recent PBS NOW film "Waterworld" which documents how climate change is impacting Bangladesh. The film describes the human health effects that climate change is already causing in this developing country of more than 200 rivers and frequent storm surges. You can read a transcript and/or watch the film at the embed above.
You will also want to…
nisbetmc | November 3, 2009
Repower America's lastest advertising campaign to promote their new online feature "The Wall" is brilliant. The ads and the social media initiative vividly portray the diversity of support for serious climate action while also framing the relevance of the issue in ways that transcend the traditional ideological divide. As I wrote in a paper this spring at the journal Environment, the Repower campaign is a stark contrast to the dominant message of Inconvenient Truth which may have unintentionally reinforced the partisan divide on climate change.
Gore, however, also faces a major…
nisbetmc | August 7, 2009Last week I participated in a two-day workshop at NSF on climate change education. The meeting brought together researchers in science education, communication, and informal learning; representatives from government agencies such as NOAA, the EPA, and NASA; and organizations such as the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society. The presentations and discussions focused not only on school-based settings but also on public engagement campaigns, the news media, and the role of science centers and museums.
Among several participants, there was an emphasis on three…
nisbetmc | June 1, 2009In an article in the Sunday edition, WPost reporters Steve Mufson and Juliet Eilperin detail how Obama during his presidential campaign took the lead in urging his staffers to re-frame their message on energy and climate change. As the headline notes, Obama's campaign and White House has gained traction by "re-framing" the issue in terms of jobs and national security, the type of communication strategy and bully pulpit leadership that I urged was necessary in an April article at the journal Environment.
Unfortunately, as I wrote last week and detailed at Environment, though the White House is…
nisbetmc | May 21, 2009Hooked around the accidental release of a climate change "rebranding" memo by the firm EcoAmerica a few weeks back, Seed magazine runs today an interesting roundtable discussion on the good, the bad, and the ugly of applying framing research to communicating about climate change.
I provide comments as one of six experts "who discuss the merits of framing climate change, the language that troubles them, and the inherent bias of any chosen word." Others include climate scientists Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt, ecologist Ann Kinzig, political scientist Clark Miller and science writer Robert…
nisbetmc | May 13, 2009The Washington Post profiles Barton Seaver today, the chef who put 14th street's Saint X on the map foodwise and then helped launch the ultra-successful Hook in Georgetown. Seaver is now opening a fish market and restaurant around the corner from this blogger in Logan Circle, strategically proximate to the busiest Whole Foods in the country.
More importantly, the article discusses how Seaver views food as a way to engage Americans on issues of sustainability. It's one more example of a novel medium for environmental communication. Here's the quick summary on his approach with affirmations…
nisbetmc | May 12, 2009At the Washington Post today, Dana Milbank reviews Rush Limbaugh's Monday program. The peg is Wanda Sykes' comments at this weekend's White House Correspondents Dinner.
Perhaps of greater interest, later in the column, Milbank reports on this line delivered by Rush during his Monday program:
Among callers to his show yesterday, the opinions of Limbaugh were more on the side of extravagant admiration: "There are no words to adequately describe our appreciation for your program and your individual accomplishments as a patriot."
The host had a similar sentiment: "I normally don't pat myself on…