TV Biologist Demonstrates All That’s Wrong With Public Relations and Science

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Jack Whaley — Leave a comment

I haven’t written a blog in a while, and really I only tend to think about writing posts when something in particular irks me or catches my attention. Even then, nine times out of ten I forget about it and don’t write anything. However, today is one of those rare occasions when I do.

When sat eating my bacon sandwich this morning watching Channel 4’s ‘Sunday Brunch’, I was particularly interested to see they had a biologist on the show with a large snake. Really the snake was just a side piece for the biologist to be on TV and plug his new TV programme due to air on Animal Planet, and whilst I was interested to see what his new show was about, and now I’ve seen a clip I may even watch it, I was disappointed by the manor in which he advertised it.

I give the man huge credit for filming a programme about the worlds most dangerous animals, particularly for the way he is using something which will hook people to watching it, i.e. ‘worlds most dangerous’, to actually show the bigger picture on how it is in fact humans who are really the worlds most dangerous animals and how these so called dangerous species are actually only really dangerous to humans when we encroach on their environment. I particularly liked the use of the phrase ‘humans insatiable drive to control their surrounding environment.

Take nothing away from him for any of the above, I think its a fantastic thing to do, and have been a long subscriber to using modern platforms (TV, internet etc) as a means to spread messages about protecting wildlife. This is a man, who in his own words, has dedicated his life to researching endangered species and deserves great credit for this, but…. when using these platforms, you’ve got to know your audience. You’ve got to perhaps change a little way that you would normally present things. As a scientist, you have to realise when you go on TV to present your findings, or your interest, that your on TV, you’re not writing a scientific journal article for other scientists to read, this isn’t a competition as to who can use the most ridiculous scientific sounding words that aren’t even in the dictionary.

Is there anything worse than having really long complex words shoved down your throat whilst you’re trying to relax on a Sunday morning and eat your bacon sandwich? I am by no means averse to these long complex words, in fact I spent four years trying to understand what they mean and then cram them into essays and dissertations about the environment whilst at university.

You see, the issue with science, particularly environmental science is that it isn’t accessible to the public, whether interested in a scientific topic or not, people just don’t relate to long complicated, often obnoxious and demeaning science talk.

Thousands of fantastic pieces of scientific research get published every year, some of it I’m sure could have had such bigger impacts on those it was intended to benefit, if it was just put in plain English. Now I don’t mean to demean people, and I hope this hasn’t come across in a demeaning way, but surely it’s so easy to see that so much science is taken seriously because people see it as exactly what it is.. Science. We need to find some common ground. Science really needs to convey its findings openly and interact with people.

When I completed my undergraduate dissertation, one of the key areas I focused on was the relationship between scientific jargon and the people it was being presented to. I found that people, who could really benefit from some of the scientific information that was out there were a) completely unaware of its existence or b) unable to understand  or c) unable to understand how it related to them.

You may ask what this has to do with the TV biologist. Well despite having a keen interest in nature, conservation and generally the environment, I found myself wanting to turn the channel over. Why? Because I generally felt like I was being talked down to. Like I wasn’t good enough for this guy. Like I was really thick. The strange thing is, if anyone was going to understand and relate to him, surely it would be somebody like me, another ‘green’, another guy who shares a similar passion and interest in protecting all creatures, great and small… but I literally felt repelled by the way he spoke to the others on the show. And, nothing against him, I’m sure it was unintentional as I have often found with scientists, they mean no harm, they just can’t get out of their mind-set that everything has to be dressed up in big fancy words to make it sound more complex and important that it actually needs to be.

Still, we can’t all be David Attenborough I guess. Although at least this guy wasn’t Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, that guy just completely misses the point.

Anyway, meaningless, pointless rant over. If you haven’t already seen it I highly recommend you check out this footage of a spectacular environmental event which took place last week. Ta.

 

 

 

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Posted in Being Green, Conservation, Ecology, Environmental Media

US and Russia embarrass UK and EU in Polar Bear trading fight.

Posted on January 12, 2013 by Jack Whaley — Leave a comment

The UK media, which is normally fairly vocal in its support for species protection, remained fairly quiet over the Christmas period with regards to emerging news that the UK government has as of yet failed to back plans to make the trade of polar bear parts illegal.

Poachers with their latest kill

Poachers with their latest kill

It is well documented that the polar bear is facing a tough time, and its image is often associated with climate change stories. However the species is being pushed further towards extinction in the wild by poaching for its fur and other body parts used to make rugs and other ornaments.

The Humane Society claims that this relentless poaching of the species is being driven by the ‘extremely worrying and rapidly increasing’ prices paid on the international markets. During the decade 2000-2010, 30,000 polar bear parts were traded. Since 2007, the number of polar bear skins sold at auction has risen by 375% with prices of up to £7,400 being paid per skin.

Opponents to this horrifying trade are proposing a blanket international ban on the trade of all polar bear parts. This is to be put forward at the next CITES meeting in March 2013 when the organisation gather in Thailand.

Surprisingly, two of the major supporters for the ban are the USA and Russia. Some may see this as the two nations showing a sort of corporate social responsibility, and opponents of the ban have pointed to the fact polar bears are in the predicament they finds themselves in due to global warming, something the US and Russia have failed to address.

Name-calling aside, the US and Russian stance should not be taken lightly. As two of the major global economic forces, their influence on international markets and trade is mighty.

It was to my suprise to find that the last time a move was made to change the ruling on international trade of polar bear parts and have it outlawed, it was defeated after the UK and EU both voted against such action occurring.

I was also suprised and dismayed to find that the UK and EU stance is backed by some prominent supporters such as the WWF, who claim that the trade of polar bear parts is not a major factor toward their decline and that banning trade of polar bears would only serve to ‘act as a distraction’ from the real threat to the species, climate change.

I appreciate the angle that they’re coming from, and can see exactly how powers such as Russia and the US could well point to their involvement in fighting polar bear trade as doing their bit, but I’d argue that by doing nothing to quell the greedy poaching of one of natures most beautiful and majestic giants on the whim that other might use it as an excuse to take no further action is bordering on the ridicolous. Surely it would be more proactive to jump at the chance of working with two of the global powerhouses in this rare opportunity that they are offering to help save such an iconic creature, using it to then further the rescue mission by educating and lobbying further climate change action.

Your thoughts?

Source http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20798136

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Posted in Climate Change, Conservation, Ecology, Environmental Crime

London 2012 – Is it really the ‘greenest’ ever olympics?

Posted on July 27, 2012 by Jack Whaley — Leave a comment

The current hot topic – the London 2012 Olympics. The games return to the UK for the first time since the summer of 1948 and it’s safe to say that there was certainly some excitement about it when it was announced that the largest sporting event on Earth would be coming to these shores.

When London made its bid for the games, it described a London olympics as ‘a one planet olympics’, flirting with the concepts of sustainability, carbon neutrality, and generally being the ‘greenest olympics in history’. Now I’m going to say straight away, I don’t have the figures to prove or disprove whether London 2012 is in fact the greenest ever olympics. What I do have though, is some interesting information on the general environmental state of the London 2012 games.

Lets start with the Aquatics Centre. An effort was made to ensure that construction materials used were sustainably sourced from the UK. This includes steel from North Wales and under-floor heating from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and 30,000 sections of low-carbon ethically sourced Red Lauro timber. The roof design (the wave) is made of steel, covered in aluminium half of which has been recycled. The audience seats are made from a reduced chemical plastic and where possible the impact on the environment generated by moving goods to the Olympic Park has been reduced. For example, the pool tiles were transported into Stratford by train.

It isn’t just the Aquatic Centre which is built in an environmentally considerate way. Built using low-carbon concrete (a 40% reduction in the use of carbon), and even the decorative Olympic rings on the roof of the stadium made from recycled gas pipes, the Olympic Stadium is described as the greenest ever. When compared with previous Olympic stadia,the London stadium is 75% lighter in terms of steel. Other ‘green’ features in the Olympic park include 3,000 square metres of recycled copper cladding on the Handball Arena and the 100% natural ventilation system in the cycling Velodrome.

However the sustainable legacy of the Games as well as the expected CO2 emissions produced by the event has been questioned by some. The London Assembly’s environmental committee is to conduct its own independent review – “Bold promises were made about how environmentally friendly the Stratford site will be. We want to investigate how these commitments on its legacy will be fulfilled once the excitement of the Games is over.” Source: (http://www.earthtimes.org/going-green/how-green-london-olympic-games/1195/)

One of the main issues with London 2012’s ‘green’ agenda is that it is based upon carbon offsetting – the idea that whatever you pollute, you simply offset this pollution by investing in an environmental project elsewhere. This isn’t the greatest way to be environmentally friendly, really you should be focused upon reducing your own emissions, not playing them off somewhere else. There has also been a noticeable shift in attitude towards being carbon neutral, with the Olympic organisers now choosing to use language such as ‘reduce’ and ‘mitigate’ rather than all out neutrality. This begins to beg the question, how committed is London 2012 to being the ‘greenest’ games yet?

Recent estimates suggest that London 2012 will produce 3.4million tonnes of CO2 in two weeks, to put this into perspective the UK approx produces 550million tonnes per year. It is difficult to say whether this is good or bad, as no other host city has attempted to track the emissions it produced and as London has never hosted an event such as this, there is no benchmark.

Whilst much praise has been heaped onto the organisers by the independent environmental committee for their commitment to recycling and other key environmentally friendly measures, there has also been criticism for their slow uptake on alternative energies such as biogas which could have created a zero/low-carbon energy source for the games.

2012 is significant because it marks the final year of Britain’s first carbon budget. The budget commits the UK to legally binding emissions cuts, and if London fails to stage a low-carbon Olympics, it would prove highly embarrassing. Source: (http://www.actionsustainability.com/news/174/2012-Olympics-a-mixed-record-so-far-on-environmental-issues/).

To round this piece off, here is the Guardians summary of original pledges and their realities: (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/24/london-olympics-pollution-fine-ioc)

Air quality

Pledge: London signed up to the Olympic host contract which specifies that the city must meet international pollution laws.

Reality: Olympic route will impact heavily on air quality making London more likely to breach laws unless it bans 30% of all cars.

Construction

Pledge: 90% of demolition materials to be reused or recycled, half of all materials to be brought in by rail and local waterways and at least 20% of recycled material to be used to build permanent venues and the Olympic village.

Reality: 95% of the buildings and infrastructure on the Olympic site was crushed and melted, but only around 1% reused. £20m was spent restoring a canal to ship 12,000 tonnes of waste and building materials a week, but only 3,000 tonnes were shipped on them in the first two years.

Athletes’ village

Pledge: To make the village of 8,000+ homes energy self-sufficient.

Reality: Numbers reduced to 4,700 and homes built to Level 4 – good for UK but not the best possible.

Waste

Pledge: To achieve a ‘zero-waste’ games by reducing waste, recycling and sending nothing to landfill.

Reality: Plans watered down. Some food waste to be sent to landfill in Bedfordshire, 30% to be incinerated. No catalysation of nearby authorities to improve waste policies.

Energy use

Pledge: To generate 20% of energy on site from renewables.

Reality: The Olympic park to only produce 9% of its post-games energy from renewables. About 1,000 homes in surrounding areas to be insulated. Plans for wind turbines in Hackney and at Eton manor abandoned.

Olympic flame

Pledge: A low-carbon Olympic flame and torch.

Reality: EDF energy announcement expected soon.

Decontamination

Pledge: The site was heavily contaminated and 2.5sq km of contaminated land and 1.4m tonnes of soil had to be cleaned or remediated.

Reality: Independent assessors argue that more than 7,000 tonnes of radioactively contaminated material dumped in a former landfill site has been buried.

Wildlife/Park

Pledge: To create Europe’s largest urban park.

Reality: 300,000 wetland plants grown in Norfolk and Wales. Almost 2,000 newts and hundreds of toads plucked from the site’s wetlands and waterways. But anger in Greenwich where hundreds of trees will be affected, and the park closed for several months. Future problems could include erosion of park to make way for more housing.

Food

Pledge: To serve “the best of British” food.

Reality: Cadbury, McDonald’s and Coca-Cola are the main sponsors, but millions of meals will be prepared by caterers. Hopes that all food would be organic, British and Fairtrade have been watered down. Dutch brewer Heineken have “pouring rights”, which means no branded British ale will be sold on the 40 sites.

Carbon footprint

Pledge: To encourage visitors to come by train.

Reality: Event tickets to include London Underground travelcard.

Hopefully this has been interesting, and I would encourage you to read further around the topic if you’re interested. You’ll find the official London 2012 Olympic environmental impact statements with a simple google search of ‘environmental impact of london 2012 olympics’, but if you do decide to read them, be warned they’ll be extremely long and boring – best to read the technical summary!

Jack.

 

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Posted in Being Green, Sport and the Environment, Uncategorized

When it rains, it pours.

Posted on July 16, 2012 by Jack Whaley — Leave a comment

It’s been a while since I last posted anything on here, the best part of six months in fact.I have a valid reason, I’ve been fully focused on completing my masters in Environmental Science. Now that’s done, and whilst I remain an unemployed post graduate, I thought I might as well sit down and take on the blogosphere again.

Anyway, as I pondered what to write about this morning, I didn’t have to look too far for inspiration. I simply opened my blinds, and there it was, rain.

It just seems to be endless at the moment, and it got me thinking about the whole ‘how can this be global warming, it’s the wettest summer ever.. blah blah blah’ argument. Well of course being a graduate in Environmental Science, I know exactly that really it isn’t just global warming, it’s climate change.

And climate change doesn’t just mean global warming, in fact it’s exactly what it says on the tin, CLIMATIC CHANGE. It’s exactly this kind of extreme weather. Unpredictability. We should probably expect this to be the ‘norm’ from now on. I’ve said for a while now, the main British summer happens around April-May time. That’s when we get the long periods of sunshine and drought, and the old summer period of June-August is just an inconsistent washout nowadays.

But, what does all this mean, why should we be concerned about when our summer is (apart from the fact that the school summer holidays are ruined…)? Well, nature is very much in tune with the seasons. I’ve forgotten the term for it, but there is a word that describes the relationship of blossom to the spring period or the hatching of eggs so that young birds are emerging at just the right time of the year when their is a boom in their food source. Pretty sure it begins with ‘e’. I studied it maybe a few years ago. It’ll come to me. Nevertheless, this relationship is natural, developed and evolved over time, so that the conditions for best productivity of the natural world are met.

This extreme weather we see now is a sign of climatic change, and it is having a huge effect on wildlife, both positive and negative. The National Trust have described this rainy period as ‘almost apocalyptic’ for some species.

Unfortunately it’s some of our most at risk species that are suffering. Bees and butterflies the prime examples of creatures already facing major environmental issues, threatened even more by the recent weather. The winners of these downfalls have been slugs and snails, and I’ve certainly noticed a boom in their appearance, whilst UK greenery has also thrived, particularly, unfortunately, such plants as nettles…

So severe the weather has been, that Matthew Coates (National Trust Conservation Advisor) has warned that the list of losers is far lengthier than the list of winners, and even went as far as to say that rare/isolated species may face local extinction.

It seems that the UK bird population is likely to take a bit of a battering (literally), with many sea birds struggling to nest as they’re blown off cliff nesting sites. It’s believed that the adult Terns nesting in Northern Ireland have struggled to keep chicks dry and warm, potentially wiping out all young for the year. One of the UK’s most iconic birds, the Puffin, has also suffered dramatically with the National Trust saying that up to 90% of Puffin burrows on Brownsman Island lost and nearly half of the burrows on other islands containing drowned Puffins.

Of course the issue isn’t just in the short term, i.e this summer, but it also has a knock on effect for the coming years. 2013 populations are likely to suffer as a result, and in turn like everything connected in nature it could have knock on effects from one species to another, as potentially entire food webs could suffer.

So next time you look out the window and think, what a crappy day, just remind yourself that isn’t just humans affected by climate change.

Jack

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Posted in Climate Change, Ecology, Uncategorized

‘Probably the best in the world’ climate change risk assessment falls short of headline news

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Jack Whaley — Leave a comment

So yesterday (Thursday 27/01/12) saw the release of what was probably one of the largest and most important pieces of research carried out on the impacts of UK climate change. The UK Climate Change Risk Assessment 2012 It was the first report of a scheduled five and took a deep look at the consequences the UK is likely to face as a result of a changing climate. Mainly focusing on areas such as agriculture/forestry, business, health/well-being, buildings/infrastructure and the natural environment whilst also providing an overview of the potential opportunities climate change could bring the UK over the next 80-100 years. So the findings of this very important 2000 page document produced by DEFRA created headlines around the country, prompted discussion from Canterbury to Arbroath to Aberwysth to Londonderry right….?

Yeah right.

I was suprised yesterday (Thursday 27/01/12) when I heard that this document had been released and the BBC news coverage briefly skimmed through some of the key points, I was even more suprised to log on to the BBC news website yesterday morning and find that the story had not even even made the headline news section found at the top of the page. Give the BBC some credit, they did at least have the story on their front page (all-be-it shoved right down at the bottom under the heading science/technology news – the bit that nobody reads unless they’re interested in that kind of thing). This evening (Friday 28/01/12) I looked through Sky news, the BBC news website, the Guardian website, the Independent website and the Telegraphs website and was extremely disatisfied and dismayed to find that only the BBC and the Independent still carry the story in prominent positions on their sites. When I say ‘prominent’ – I actually meany prominent if you know where to look, i.e. the environment section.

The BBC went for the dramatic ‘washed up fish’ look

Whilst the Independent newspaper took a more serious approach

This is the thing that frustrates me. We go to all this effort, spend all this money on having a really worthwhile document created which gives us a good impression of what the next 100 years is going to look like in our very own country (can’t get much closer to home than that) and yet the media find other stories such as ‘Toddler bites head off snake’ much more important and newsworthy. The worst thing about all of this is that those who are likely to be the most affected by the findings of this report, i.e. Joe Public, are reliant upon this kind of information being drip-fed to us, through the mass media. I don’t believe that many people will log onto the DEFRA site and download the 2000 page document or even take a look at the summary from DEFRA, why would they (engaged publics don’t count)?

Now for all I know, the government and various different agencies might take a few days, weeks, months… years to digest this report and all its information, and then maybe they’ll implement adaptation/mitigation strategies, and force this information upon people, but wouldn’t it be nice if there was some kind of agreement met with media – including the tabloids (the Sun, Express, Mirror, Mail etc..) that they had to keep this story in the news for a week? Maybe even just five days, covering the 5 different areas it tackles.

Perhaps its just me being ridicolously hopeful? Hmm… food for thought…

If you’re interested, I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on how the Norfolk/Suffollk tourism industry are adapting to climate change, it’s along a similar vein to this story. Get in touch if you’d be interested in reading a copy.

 

Jack.

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Posted in Climate Change, Environmental Media, Uncategorized

The baboon ‘too smart for its own good’

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Jack Whaley — Leave a comment

If you’re yet to see this Channel 4 documentary, then give it a watch. It’s a fascinating insight of how a baboon’s body works and how this particular ‘urban dweller’ has adapted to survive in a human dominated landscape.

This is not a plug for the channel 4 programme – I just want as many people as possible to see these incredible creatures and the sad story inflicted upon them because of humans.

The main character of this story, ‘Fred’, was a baboon living in South Africa’s, Cape Peninsula. This area has been home to the Chacma baboon for thousands of years. Then, as always, humans moved in. Cape-Town and its urban sprawl has left these monkeys trapped, with nowhere to go. They’re surviving in the last remaining areas of forest and woodland, but with a diminished food source they’ve turned to raiding local houses.

“It’s just a beautiful set up for these baboons… [they move] across the golf course into the houses, raid them for breakfast and then up the hill for a spot of lunch and a snooze, then later in the day – come back again”

‘Fred’ moved to a tourist hot spot in his young adulthood where he soon learnt that there were many opportunities for him here. His intelligence meant he rapidly rose to being the leader of his troop of 26 baboons, raiding restraunts, houses and rubbish bins on a daily basis. Even when the Cape-Town authorities installed anti-baboon locks on their rubbish bins, these animals learnt how to open them. ‘Fred’ worked out what the central locking beep on a car meant, and as soon as he’d learnt this he began raiding unlocked cars for any contents. Incredibly he didn’t raid just any car, he actually looked in them to determine whether they had anything worth his while before breaking in and stealing. Of course it was only food he was after, not money or jewellery. Eventually however, he became agressive to anything/anybody that got in his way and at this point having bitten and threatened humans, the Cape-Town authorities made the difficult choice to euthanase ‘Fred’.

'Fred' learnt how to open car doors

The Channel 4 documentary (link above) carries out a disection of ‘Fred’ to show what made him the incredible animal he was, it studies how his hands work, how his mouth/jaws are designed, how his stomach digests food, what allowed him to mate every 15 minutes and finally his relatively large brain. If you want to learn something interesting, do watch it, it’s done tastefully (suprisingly for channel 4!).

It’s not the documentary that I want to discuss here though. It’s the lethal injection to such a wonderful animal, through no fault of its own.

Some will disagree, I imagine a lot of people may even feel that it was an action that was required. At the end of the day, ‘Fred’ was a pest and when he began harming/threatening humans then yes, I understand that something needed to be done. However, we must remember that humans put him in a situation that meant he had to raid houses. It was humans afterall that destroyed his natural habitat, that forced him into being an animal that felt it had to threaten/attack humans. We see from this documentary, what an incredible creature he was, the things he learnt to do.

This post isn’t really going into too much detail, I’m just using this weeks entry as an attempt to mass communicate something that I feel that as many people must take a look at as possible. A chance to appreciate nature in its full glory. Hopefully I can generate a bit of conversation on here, please do leave a comment and take the poll, I’ll endeavour to get back to you asap.

 

Jack.

 

 

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Posted in Ecology, Environmental Crime, Uncategorized

A reinforcing spiral: Blogging and the environment

Posted on January 14, 2012 by Jack Whaley — Leave a comment

I am currently undertaking a research project for my masters dissertation entitled ‘How are new social media making scientific controversies public?’. As part of this project, I am currently doing a review of the literature in this area. One article which has really caught my eye is written by Nesbit and Scheufele. It focuses in on the idea that new medias such as blogging are allowing audiences to sub-consciously narrow the news that they directly receive.

They have identified three trends:

1. A proliferation of niche channels – Highly specialized online information environments leading to an increasing fractionalization of news choices and audiences. As more recent research shows, these fragmented news environments have the potential to produce more apathy among some segments of the electorate and more polarization across the population overall.

2. Algorithms as editors – Increasing shift toward online presentation of news, even amongst traditional news outlets. This has provided media organizations with real-time metrics of audience preferences and the ability to make decisions about news selection and placement based on these metrics. Increasing the influence that reader preferences have on story selection and placement also increases the likelihood of a spiral of mutual reinforcement. In other words, stories that readers selectively attend to will be placed more prominently on news web sites, which – in turn – increases the odds of readers finding them in the first place. This makes it easy for readers to select content based on popularity, interest, or political identity; opting out of the professional hierarchy of front page headlines and lead stories that might appear in a printed newspaper or broadcast.

3. Self-reinforcing search and tagging spirals: The notion of reinforcing spirals is exacerbated in online search environments where search engine rankings and search suggestions can heavily influence the overall information infrastructure. The process depends not only on the algorithms used by search engines but also on the tagging and optimization strategies pursued by news content providers, aggregators, bloggers, and interest groups. The guidance provided by Google search suggestions is likely to disproportionately drive traffic, regardless of the content available, and create a self-reinforcing spiral that reduces the complexity and diversity of the information that citizens encounter online.

They hypothesise that we may be moving toward a society where we are less and less exposed to disagreement and viewpoints that are different from our own. Being part of highly like-minded networks, in other words, may exacerbate the effects of individual-level selectivity and produce an even more fine-grained filter for incoming information.  Journalists and other professional groups such as scientists are likely to be part of this attitude polarization; since these groups tend to be disproportionately like-minded in their political outlook, are heavier users of online news sources and social media; and face greater demands on their time in managing and using information.

All very interesting ideas, and I can definitely see where they’re coming from. In a way, we all partake in this kind of selectivity. We naturally choose to read stories that may be of interest to us – even if it’s just sub-consciously, through searching google with the words ‘climate change’ for example. Yes, that type of search would throw up many results, but would we read all of them? Or would we just choose the one thats title looks most interesting, or relevant to the way that we think?

So why is this important? Well, it could have potentially huge influences on the future of important issues. We only have to take into consideration the huge furore that surrounded ‘climate-gate’. Where did that come from and where did it end up? It started when the emails were leaked and discussed by climate sceptics on their blogs. In fact, it was discussed for a few days initially in the blogosphere before it became global news. When it became mainstream news, where had journalists with little information on the actual situation get their info from? Blogs.

I think personally the most concerning thing is that more and more people are turning to the internet for their daily source of news. There’s nothing wrong with using the internet, in fact, the internet is there to provide information to a wide source of people and should allow everyone to be on a level playing field with knowledge in take. But the stats are scary. 75% of online news consumers say that the news they read is forwarded onto them through their social network – via email or posts on Facebook/Twitter. That’s an awful lot of news simply pushed onto people. Forty million americans (I don’t have UK stats) log onto the internet to gain their daily news and scientific information.

The benefits of the internet are that within seconds you can have the information you want/need and then you can log off and that’s that. It’s also free. When you buy a newspaper, yes you can skim read through most of it, or you can just choose to ignore bits of it, but at least its there, right in front of you. When you pick up a newspaper, its highly unlikely that you turn straight to page 14 and then that’s it. You at least have a flick through most, if not all of the pages, but you take in other headlines, other images, in fact other people’s views.

I suppose the point of this blog entry, was just to share an interesting article to people who might be interested. Although I’m pretty sure I’m about to myself, enter into trend 3. By tagging this post with various words that may attract the reader into viewing it. In fact, I’m pretty sure that the article in question here was forwarded on to me by a colleague through an email.

You see my point. Enjoy the rest of your weekend, and leave me feedback if you fancy.

Jack.

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Posted in Environmental Media, Uncategorized

That Little Red Light

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Jack Whaley — 1 Comment

Firstly, many apologies for my silence over the Christmas period, I have been very busy travelling back and forth between various family members and have only just returned to a ‘state of work’…

Secondly, I’d like to wish everyone a happy new year. It is at this time of the year that we make ‘new years resolutions’ and this leads me on to my first post of 2012. One of my main interests is understanding how we can spread effective environmental messages and, in a way, influence those around us into making small but necessary changes for the good of the environment.

A conclusion I made from my university dissertation/final year project (under-grad) in 2010, was that people tend to sit up and take notice of ‘green’ initiatives when they are financially beneficial. People that I spoke to during the data collection of that project included members of the Environment Agency, Natural England, the Broads Authority and local councils. These are the types of organisations that are responsible for maintaining and looking after our environment in the UK. They told me that one of the ways they get businesses in the local area (Norfolk/Suffolk) to take up green initiatives / schemes is not by telling them that they’re great for the environment, but by telling them that they’re financially rewarding. At the end of the day, many local businesses have to look at their (financial) bottom line first.

When I stumbled across this blog yesterday http://splodzblogz.co.uk/2012/01/04/no-more-standby/ it instantly struck me as an amazing idea that could be implemented in businesses and homes across the UK. It’s one of those ‘every little helps’ technologies, that many people will say, “What difference is one little plug going to make..?” or “This will probably save me about 3p, so what’s the point…?”

Well when you consider how many electrical items you have in your house that you leave on standby.. TV, Sky box, stereo system, laptop/desk-top computer…. and then you think how much electricity is wasted (for the environment and your bank balance)… and then you multiply how many houses there are on your street, all with the same standby problem… and then you multiply how many local shops, libraries, schools that all leave TV’s and computers on standby 24/7… well maybe you see my point.

Perhaps it’s because I have a green thought process, or maybe I just realised what a beneficial idea these ‘intelliplugs’ are but I made sure that I ordered one straight away. FOR £3. Absolute bargain, straight from Eon. I think it would be a lovely gesture by Eon to offer these plugs free to all of their customers, or for local councils to buy a bulk load of these plugs and send them out to businesses. However, if Eon or your local council won’t do this then maybe, just maybe more of us can make a  ‘green’ new years resolutions and invest in one of these little devices to go some way to doing our bit for the environment.

Jack Whaley.

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Ecocide – making environmental damage an international crime.

Posted on December 22, 2011 by Jack Whaley — 3 Comments

I came across this topic earlier and felt it would make a great starting point for my first environmental related blog post. Let me know what you think about my style of writing, the content of the post, and any other suggestions.

Changing the way that people think about the environment is one of my main areas of interest. Many people will see this story and ignore it, simply because it’s about the environment and therefore ‘boring’, or because it doesn’t relate to or affect them.That’s one of the problems with trying to get people to sit up and take notice, they just don’t care.

However a current movement started by environmental lawyer Polly Higgins could soon change that.

‘Ecocide’ – The extensive destruction, damage to or loss of ecosystem(s) of a given territory, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been severely diminished.

It is an interesting case, and if the Ecocide Act can get off the ground and find its way into becoming the 5th international crime against peace, then companies (little and large), will have to begin to have the environment in the forefront of their minds when making business decisions that could harm the environment. The ability to convict executives of companies makes this all the more fascinating. It changes the way large multi-national companies have perhaps in the past accepted that they could be sued for polluting the environment (knowing that they would make more than enough money to pay off a law suit anyway), by putting real people in the firing line. No longer would CEO’s remain anonymous figures, and instead potentially face damage to their professional reputations, and worse, prison sentences.

It could potentially have a similar effect as the Licensing Act (2003). Although alcohol and the environment may be two unrelated subjects, the Licensing Act (2003) ensures that the in the case of alcohol having been sold to a minor, it is not only the employee that sold the alcohol that can be prosecuted, but also the company/store that the alcohol was sold at. Having worked in nightclubs and supermarkets myself, I know how much emphasis is put on this during training at such companies. If the ‘Ecocide Act’ was to come in to place, then you would expect a similar level of emphasis to be made to staff throughout the power pyramid of a company. This would hopefully not only increase the awareness of environmental damage but also create a decline in crimes against the environment.

It of course has more far-reaching effects, and if this post has interested you or you want to know more, visit www.eradicatingecocide.com or check out this blog http://oaktreegarden.wordpress.com/2011/12/22/ecocide-giving-name-to-violence-against-the-earth/ . The video may be long but what he’s saying is interesting and makes a lot of sense.

Jack.

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Entering the blogosphere.

Posted on December 22, 2011 by Jack Whaley — Leave a comment

As it’s the Christmas holidays, and I have nothing better to do (other than my coursework…), I have finally decided to succumb to this blogging malarky. So over the next few days there is likely to be much learning on my part as to how all this works. I’ve got the rough hang of posting and editing etc, however I now need to learn how I can customise my page. This blog is to help me channel my thoughts on environmental news stories that interest me, and will act as a way for me to get them out there in the public circle.

So, please be patient and bear with me as I embark upon this journey into the unknown.

It would also be nice to hear back from anyone that reads this blog. All comments are welcome, but please keep them constructive!

Jack.

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