The peak oil folks will not be pleased to know that the top two search results, paid, are ExxonMobile-Natural Gas and Fisher Investments. Previous posts have addressed why the first two listings may be all anyone clicks on who is early in the learning cycle about Peak Oil. Not even Wikipedia is here.
From an email from the Txchnologist:
“FYI – the Txchnologist is an online magazine that looks at new innovations in science and technology. The next several weeks of coverage will be dedicated to exploring the issues around natural gas. The magazine is presented by GE but the stories are not necessarily reflective of the company’s views or positions.”
Natural gas is a high risk alternative to oil owing to the process to retrieve the gas called fracking. It will be interesting to see how balanced the stories are and to learn, possibly, more about GE’s investment in natural gas development, if they have one. Most citizens, myself included, are not very well informed on this subject. On EarthSayers.tv we have a special collection, High Risk Energy Alternatives, and we continue to believe that hearing directly from the leaders and citizens from both sides of the story is important for citizens in their professional and work roles to make informed decisions. We also see that it has been the practice to externalize risk and costs associated with our ecosystem services and the results are unacceptable as is continuing to not discuss the practice until there is a catastrophe such as the Gulf Oil spill and the meltdown of three reactors in Japan. To return to business as usual is also not acceptable and another good reason to listen to the voices of sustainability.
What we don’t know is does a sponsorship by a major corporation compromise the integrity of our collection? Major corporations have the big bucks and the marketing intelligence to know the value of thought leadership. It’s tempting. We continue to look for where EarthSayers needs to find the funding support to be part of The Worldwide Commons and remain, like a library, open to all, but unlike the bookish roots of our library systems (special libraries in particular) being rooted in online video, the voices of sustainability.
I was asked to participate in the Dow Chemical campaign, the Future of Water Virtual Conference, and what I had to say was rejected as not being personal enough. They offered me the opportunity to redo the minute video and I wrote the PR firm putting the campaign together to decline the offer. Here is my letter.
Letter:
In giving this some more thought I am going to decline your gracious offer to try again. Everything I write that is personal in nature is difficult as I have lived a life of great privilege when it comes to water as a single-handed sailor, ice skater, swimmer, and hot tub soaker. I just don’t think it is appropriate to use this life of privilege to make a point about water. The most important thing, being able to turn on the tap and drink water, is not a privilege but a right, one that I have been blessed with in most, but not all, ports of call.
The other side of the story is that I grew up where one river caught on fire, the one I played on had raw sewage floating in it, if I fell into the water my mother would burn the clothes I was wearing as they were THAT contaminated, and the great lake had dead fish galore floating on its surface.
It would be impossible to reference these beginnings without communicating feelings of shame for my great country that today elects officials who deny climate change (along with pollution and over population is the third major issue) and are working to further degrade the EPA, and the City on the great lake, like many of its neighbors, is experiencing an economic collapse.
As chemical pollution and raw sewage are major contributors to the supply of clean drinking water and may account for as much as 80% of the disease in this world, it seems to me acknowledging that we are all part of the problem and the solution (including Dow Chemical) and advocating we need leaders to be healers is the best advice I can give today’s leaders as well as pointing them to the two role models, Julia Butterfly-Hill and Roz Savage.
You may have sustainability as a focus of a campaign in the future and I would be able to speak to the topic with knowledge and passion because it is a goal and great hope I am dedicating myself to through EarthSayers.tv, the voices of sustainability.
Cordially,
Ruth Ann
Founder
EarthSayers
(links added for this blog post, not in original email nor was my photo)
Dear Friends,
The campaign Dow has undertaken around the issue of water with a virtual conference featuring “60 leading thinkers as they explore the future of water” raises the issue of whether doing good needs to be based on a history of being good. I don’t know where you come down on this issue, but the money large corporations are spreading around and the extensive social media campaigns they are conducting, are to my eye not very honest, nor informative, nor very personal. BP is spending wads of money saying the Gulf is “nearly back to normal.” The research shows that “consumers” are not convinced, but have short memories, so companies that aren’t being good, but do good are counting on our short attention spans and poor memories.
I had been asked to participate, I did my sixty seconds of video and the feedback was it wasn’t personal enough and was offered a do-over. I thought that odd at the time because I read all the material they sent, I have a long history as a corporate marketing person, and, I prepared for it. But.
Meanwhile, Anna Lappe a leading expert on sustainability and a national bestselling author, most 
recently of Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It, was much more aggressive than I and produced her own video (I did my video interview over Skype so do not have access to it) and when rejected decided to take some action. She is a founding principal of the Small Planet Institute and Small Planet Fund and an active board member of Rainforest Action Network. Here is her press release. In my next blog post, I will publish the letter I wrote DOW when declining a second opportunity.
P.S. Here is the link to the virtual conference on water campaign and her is the link to her video on EarthSayers.tv
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 6, 2011
Dow Chemical Greenwashing Campaign Exposed
Watch the Video America’s Largest Chemical Maker Doesn’t Want You to See
When a Dow Chemical PR firm asked author Anna Lappé to contribute a video about the future of water for Dow’s flashy new “virtual conference” called “The Future We Create,” she was delighted to provide them with exactly what they had asked for.
In her 60-second submission, Lappé stressed that toxic chemicals are one of the biggest global threats to water and people, and that Dow itself is one of the biggest sources of such threats. The PR company swiftly rejected the video, but they didn’t give up: they asked Lappé to record a new video. “Dow, as a huge corporation with resources, is sponsoring that [“Future We Create”] effort, which you have to admit is pretty cool,” the PR firm wrote to Lappé.
“What would be pretty cool,” Lappé replied, “would be if the company put even a fraction of the resources it spends on marketing into cleaning up communities whose water it has polluted.”
Lappé is launching her rejected video today on a YouTube channel that will also include videos from the public about the future they’d like to create.
At the same time Dow launches their “virtual conference,” the company is actively fighting multiple lawsuits from communities—including Dow’s own hometown of Midland, Michigan—alleging the company has polluted their water. More information on Dow’s history of water contamination, and on organizations fighting for clean water, will shortly be available at www.afuturewecreate.com.
“The future we should be creating is one in which no one has to worry about whether the water they drink is tainted by carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, or neurotoxins manufactured by Dow,” said Lappé.
The Yes Lab, a project of The Yes Men that helps activist groups carry out media-getting creative actions on their own, assisted Lappé in developing her response. For more information or for interviews, please contact Anna Lappé, Small Planet Institute, 917-476-4896, anna@smallplanet.org (website: www.smallplanet.org).
In the context of diminishing fossil fuel resources, climate change, and the quest for a carbon free future, the EarthSayers.tv special collection on high risk energy alternatives features nine videos about nuclear power and natural gas, the latter involving an extraction process called fracking.
All of these videos were made before the meltdown of three units at the Fukushima reactor site.
We will continue to grow the collection so as to provide voices of sustainability to our citizens who will be asked to make decisions in their communities – oceanside, rural, urban, mountain – about alternative, high risk energy sources.
(1) 300 Years of FOSSIL FUELS in 300 Seconds
Fossil fuels have powered human growth and ingenuity for centuries. Now that we’re reaching the end of cheap and abundant oil and coal supplies, we’re in for an exciting ride. While there’s a real risk that we’ll fall off a cliff, there’s still time to control our transition to a post-carbon future.
(2) Energy: The Next 10 Years Really Matter by Alexander Van de Putte
Alexander Van de Putte, Senior Director and Operating Officer at PFC Energy International and a member of PFC Energy’s Executive Committee discusses how givens and wildcards can affect our future global energy needs. He discusses how Givens, which are defined as: low uncertainty with high impact events, such as climate change, demographics and hydrocarbon supply will impact our ability to produce energy.
(3) Peak Oil and Resource Wars by Daniele Ganser
Daniele Ganser talks about Peak Oil and Resource Wars at student seminar on sustainability, 2009. What’s the solution when demand is going up and availabiity is going down? It’s only been 150 years of the oil age.
See also special collection from Peak Moment TV.
(4) Climate Change and Nuclear Energy by Anthony Giddens
Anthony Giddens, Baron Giddens is a British sociologist who is renowned for his theory of structuration and his holistic view of modern societies. Underlying foundations of climate change science and nuclear proliferation are two greatest risks in this century and we must mobilize against them. He discusses issue of energy security in a rapidly industrializing world in a world of scarce resources.
(5) Nuclear: Dirty, Dangerous and Expensive by Kevin Kamps
Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear explodes the myths now being promulgated by those promoting nuclear power. He tells of the insoluble problems of nuclear waste, how nuclear power plants routinely emit radioactive poisons, how catastrophic accidents can happen, how nuclear power plants are pre-deployed weapons of mass destruction for terrorists, and the enormously high costs of nuclear power.
(6) SAVE THE WORLD AWARDS 2009
Trailer for the Save the WORLD AWARDs show. Issues addressed at this television event include: Climate, Energy, Water, Pollution, Hunger, Peace, Dignity, and health. It takes place in a nuclear power that was built but never used in Austria.
(7) TED Debate: Does the world need nuclear energy? Brand & Jacobson
Nuclear power: the energy crisis has even die-hard environmentalists reconsidering it. In this first-ever TED debate, Stewart Brand and Mark Z. Jacobson square off over the pros and cons. A discussion that’ll make you think — and might even change your mind.
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes.
(8) Gas Drilling: Stories From the Front Line
Candace Mingins Ms. Mingins lives with her husband and three children on their family farm in Van Etten, NY. A well was drilled on their property in 2006. In 2008, she helped organize Shaleshock Citizens Action Coalition .
(9) Gas Drilling is Unsafe
Central United Methodist Church Endicott, NY; March 17, 2009 Barbara Arrindell is the co-founder and Chief Science Officer of Damascus Citizens for Sustainability. She discusses what is involved in gas drilling on a scale of development with many stages -all entail contamination. This is a process that could only happen in a de-regulated situation. This is a public health crisis.
The headline and article in today’s Financial Times, “Environment: long-term impact of green issues played down: Awareness of environmental issues is growing among consumers, who now understand more clearly the role that business plays in producing emissions or harming the environment.”
That’s the good news about awareness growing. They give a nod to the effectiveness of social media in connecting egregious acts of social injustice in, say, Mexico to the shoes you are thinking about buying here in Portland.
So what’s the bad news?
“However, the long-term impact on brands is not as great as it might seem. People have short memories and most consumers’ buying decisions are more influenced by price, convenience or product features.”
The bad news is US.
Here’s an excellent interview with Dominique Conseil, President of Aveda, on changing our habits that address the US issue.
P.S. Recent consumer study by GoodHousekeeping magazine that suggest we are on our way:
“Key findings show that concern about the environment is top of mind and influences daily behaviors and decision-making.”
A recent Pew research study which examined nine months of consumer data spanning the first three quarters of 2010, and summarized at journalism.com “sheds light on the significance of search aggregators and social networks, the importance of creating a family of related Websites, and hints at which kinds of sites might have more success with paywalls than others.
The importance of linking sites with mutual interests, say all those around water, needs to be emphasized to cause-driven organizations who continue to view their Website as the center of the universe, rather than as one star among hundreds in a virtual constellation accessible to educate our citizens on becoming more conscious and aware of this one planet and its needs. We need to connect the stars for them and view their learning process as a journey, an exploration. For us at EarthSayers.tv we are connecting the people around the sustainability movement and beginning to organize them into special collections around geography and issues such as water. Linking is what we do to increase awareness and adoption of sustainability principles and practices. We always appreciate when organizations link back, but few do. That’s got to change.
Yesterday I had the opportunity to be introduced to the thinking and activities of Jay Walljaspar from the organization On The Commons at a local event sponsored by The Oregon Commons here in Portland, Oregon. The auditorium was jammed and joining Jay as a speaker was Portlander Mark Lakeman of City Repair. Both were very inspiring and it is clear that Portland, 
largely through the efforts of leaders like Mark and the many non-profit organizations ranging from the interwine.org to Portland Community Media is a model for actualizing the principles of The Commons at the community level. I posted a video clip of Jay’s speech on EarthSayers.tv, What is The Commons? I think the concept of The Commons was hardwired into my being when I landed on this planet as it has influenced my thinking in not only my early career as an association manager and public administrator, but throughout my work in high tech and, now, as the developer of EarthSayers.tv, the voices of sustainability.
“The commons is a new way to express a very old idea—that some forms of wealth belong to all of us, and that these community resources must be actively protected and managed for the good of all. Here is a quick description:
The commons are the things that we inherit and create jointly,
and that will (hopefully) last for generations to come.
The commons consists of gifts of nature such as air, oceans and wildlife as well as
shared social creations such as libraries, public spaces, scientific research and creative works.”
I have struggled with how to make EarthSayers part of The Commons in virtual space that is very much a place but not in the usual sense. We are a library of sorts, but of video, not books. We are a network aggregating content from channels, but are broadcasters with no link to TV. But, that’s another story and one that may be helped by my better understanding the current thinking on the Web as part of The Commons. Jay referenced a related concept, POPS which I think is about Privately Owned Public Spaces, like coffee shops, but I need more information on POPS. Jay Walljasper is the author of the new book All That We Share: A Field Guide to the Commons. 
Jay brings us stories that point us toward a greener, more equitable and more enjoyable future. He is editor of On the Commons, a national think tank, and a senior fellow at Project for Public Spaces. I hope that through the links in this post you begin to educate yourself, as I am doing, about the Commons movement as it is systemic to sustainability and a cornerstone of social and cultural sustainability thinking and action at all levels. You’ll be hearing more from me on The Commons. We will be developing a special collection on EarthSayers.tv to bring together in one place the voices of leaders and activities of organizations that make up the path to The Commons.
At EarthSayers.tv, the voices of sustainability, we have created a special collection honoring environmentalist and sustainability advocate, Rachel Carson. Much of the video available is from a biographical play titled, “A Sense of Wonder” featuring actress Kaiulani Lee as Rachel. Her 
book, Silent Spring, warned of the dangers of pesticides and the disconnect of humankind to nature. While written in 1962, Silent Spring deserves to be read or re-read by us all.
Her words are inspiring, her writing (some now are eBooks) motivating, and her life an example for all of us to be advocates and activists on behalf of our planet and people.
Finding before Engaging
The hot topic these day among our business and civic leaders is not search and how it influences what we are finding to learn or buy. It’s civic and customer engagement. Unless you’re a big corporation with deep pockets how can you engage when you can’t be found? Yes, social media plays a minor role so far in search and a bigger one in terms of engagement, but searching on keywords is the first step in a buying or learning process.
Many decision-makers still consider the Web too “technical” for them to understand and manage. Search, if it is managed at all, is left to individuals with the least amount of exposure to the organization’s clients/customers/students/citizens and little if any access to the organization’s strategic plans and tactical program planning. This is not the situation in large, consumer brand companies.
Here is an example of the influence of search on a topic I think demonstrates how influential search results are to spinning, not crafting a story. I hope it sparks leaders to begin questioning how search works and how it may not be working for their organization or their stakeholders.
Oil Spill: BP#1, Our Health #3, and Wildlife #4
What is a third grade student searching YouTube on the term oil spill seeing these days and what are they likely to click on? Why should we be concerned how search results architect knowledge and information, influencing how our citizens perceive local, regional, national and world events?
Youtube is the second most popular search engine.
Let’s follow up on the Gulf Coast oil spill and see what impression you are left with.
BP is in the prime spot on what is called a SERP – search engine results page – followed by the second promoted video a YouTube Channel, Vision Victory, which seems to be a real estate and financial video blogger named Daniel of crushthestreet.com. Organic (unpaid) search begins with a news report on health concerns of the spill by AlJazeera English with National Geographic in fourth place with a video about penguins and the oil spill. Check out the view numbers.
The BP click through is to their YouTube channel and the first video features “Ike Williams, owner of Ike’s Beach Service in Gulf Shores, Alabama, who’s been in business on the beach for 27 years. His staff is getting ready for what is expected to be a busy tourism season this year along the Gulf coast, now that the area is returning to normal.”
How many people out there think the Gulf Coast is returning to normal? If enough people believe it, does that make it true? How reliable of a source is BP?
How can you engage the third grader and the other 3.3M searchers (monthly U.S. out of 4M worldwide) when you can’t be found or seen and when searches on keywords ranging from cameras to oil spill to sustainability are increasingly being dominated by large corporations who buy their way to the top?
Time to start paying attention to what’s happening with Google and YouTube search and learn what’s under the hood.