If there’s one major issue of significant public interest today that’s shrouded in fear, uncertainty and doubt, it’s fracking. If you believe the supporters of this mining process to extract natural gas and petroleum deposits from shale rock – formally known as “hydraulic fracturing” – it could be the salvation of our energy needs for the foreseeable future, maybe for the next forty years or more. If you believe the opponents of fracking, it’s a major threat to the environment …
Category: Climate Change
The ability for people to be connected via the internet is no more valuable when it comes to crises and disasters of one type or another, natural or otherwise. Hurricane Sandy – the super #Frankenstorm on track to hit the US East Coast today – is a perfect example. The latest advisory from the US National Hurricane Center is sobering: ..SANDY STRENGTHENS…EXPECTED TO BRING LIFE-THREATENING STORM SURGE…COASTAL HURRICANE WINDS AND HEAVY APPALACHIAN SNOWS… Being able to find out what’s happening, …
As someone who drives into and out of central London quite frequently, I’m as conscious as any road user of the huge traffic congestion that’s a feature of a typical journey, along with consequential environment issues like exhaust emissions and air quality. So many vehicles, an overloaded transport infrastructure – these are points to ponder as you sit in a rush-hour traffic jam with engine idling, windows shut to insulate you from all that stuff out there, and probably with …
You’ve seen the news reports about the humanitarian disaster in East Africa. Famine and drought on a massive scale. Millions could die in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya. As communicators, what can we do to help? Well, how about supporting the call to action from our friends at Communicate Magazine and #CommsChat: This week’s #CommsChat was scheduled to be on measurement. But something came up that we felt was more important. Amid the anger of News International and the vacillations of …
On Saturday March 26 at 8.30pm, we’ll be turning our lights out at home for about an hour as we support Earth Hour 2011. It’s our small part in supporting a grassroots environmental campaign that aims to bring attention to climate change. From the Wikipedia description: Earth Hour is a global event organized by WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature, also known as World Wildlife Fund) and is held on the last Saturday of March annually, asking households and businesses …
The mainstream media has been full of photos of the ash cloud from the Iceland volcano eruption that’s the cause of a complete shutdown of incoming and outgoing flights in the UK – and now nearly 20 European countries – since last Thursday. Here’s one that I think epitomizes the scale of this natural phenomenon possible more majestically than other pics. Quite a dramatic photo, isn’t it? (It was posted to Twitpic by burritojustice who says “via an Icelandic friend …
As I write this post, Earth Hour 2010 gets underway off the coast of New Zealand, when the diesel generators on the Chatham Islands are turned off, as the first of 125 countries and territories sets in motion a 24-hour wave of hope and positive action on climate change that the organizers hope will sweep the world for Earth Hour. As the video explains, Earth Hour is designed to focus attention on climate change and the environment: […] Earth Hour …
I haven’t seen or heard much about the Climate Camp environmental get-together that’s been taking place in south London since last week. Spotting this tweet from the Metropolitan Police over the weekend saying that their mobile police station is closed as there’s no demand for it made me curious to see what was actually going on. After all the fanfare last week, I would have expected to have seen some TV coverage on at least one of the days. Maybe …
So London’s Metropolitan Police is now on Twitter. Not for reasons you might think, though. No reaching out to engage with the public at large. Not to connect with Londoners to talk about issues of common interest that might be on people’s minds in a very large city. Not even to provide citizens with information that might be useful as well as create positive impressions of the police service with people inclined to engage via a channel like Twitter. No, …
