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<channel>
	<title>the Clean Air blog: media</title>
	<link>http://www.iwantcleanair.com/</link>
	<description>the Clean Air blog</description>
	<language>en-us</language>
	<managingEditor>blog@iwantcleanair.com</managingEditor>
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	<pubDate>Fri, 09 Nov 2007 11:01:56 PST</pubDate>
	<lastBuildDate>Fri, 09 Nov 2007 11:01:56 PST</lastBuildDate>
	<ttl>15</ttl>
	<copyright>copyright (c) 2007 the Clean Air blog</copyright>
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		<title>the Clean Air blog</title>
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	<item>
		<title>American Journalism Just Got a Whole Lot Better</title>
		<link>http://www.iwantcleanair.com/index.cfm?CommentID=526</link>
		<description><![CDATA[Bill Moyers is returning to TV.   This is great news for the environment and the planet.  We can surely expect Mr. Moyers to do clear-eyed investigative reporting on the top issues we face as a Democracy and a species.The Bill Moyers Journal starts with a special on Wedensday, April 25th:
&amp;quot;Buying the War&amp;quot;: Bill Moyers Journal kicks off on Wednesday, April 25 on PBS (check local listings) with a 90-minute documentary that explores the role of the press in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. Watch a preview and comment at The Moyers Blog.
The companion blog will have ample opportunity to participate in the discussion.]]></description>
		<category><![CDATA[media]]></category>
		<author>blog@iwantcleanair.com (IwantcleanAir)</author>
		<pubDate>Tue, 17 Apr 2007 13:47:00 PST</pubDate>
		<comments>http://www.iwantcleanair.com/index.cfm?CommentID=526&#35;comments</comments>
		
		
		
	</item>
	
	<item>
		<title>Arctic oil drilling documentary</title>
		<link>http://www.iwantcleanair.com/index.cfm?CommentID=124</link>
		<description><![CDATA[Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to spend some time with one of the producers of Oil on Ice, an insightful documentary investigating impacts on the area of the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve (ANWR) that Big Oil companies want to be given access to.  It is kind of a cool DVD that has lots of web features if you play it on your computer.  

The producers are dedicated to changing energy policy by changing the way we use media.  They are visionary in their approach to making high-quality video that is enhanced by the type of interactivity that we have come to expect from an online and connected world.  I can get behind that.

OilonIce.org]]></description>
		<category><![CDATA[media]]></category>
		<author>blog@iwantcleanair.com (IwantCleanAir)</author>
		<pubDate>Fri, 09 Jun 2006 13:00:00 PST</pubDate>
		<comments>http://www.iwantcleanair.com/index.cfm?CommentID=124&#35;comments</comments>
		
		
		
	</item>
	
	<item>
		<title>Living With War</title>
		<link>http://www.iwantcleanair.com/index.cfm?CommentID=107</link>
		<description><![CDATA[Neil Young has released a new album called Living With War. It is a highly topical and political album that critiques the current ruling party in Washington and its reasons for going to war in Iraq.

And while Neil does not explicitly connect the dots betweeen America's addiction to oil and the war in Iraq, we know that they are connected.

I have not felt more hopeful about America in years. 

Thanks to Neil for standing up and speaking truth to power. It is real and it rocks. The first track is called After the Garden, which asks where people will go after the garden of earth is destroyed. The album is full of insight and strong patriotic statements like 

 Looking for a leader   
To bring our country home  
Reunite the red, white and blue  
Before it turns to stone 


from &amp;quot;Looking for a Leader&amp;quot; which calls us to unite around our shared values (this song was &amp;quot;most added&amp;quot; in US radio airplay for the week).

What makes the album work so well, in addition to the awesome musicianship, is the way that Neil is unafraid to speak truth. Lets hope the Democrats give a listen and learn the lesson. Be real. Talk Peace.  Give hope.  Stand up for what is right. This is what Neil has done. And is resonates with such clarity, in sweet harmony and is right in time.

Living With War on Amazon.com   

Listen to the full album online]]></description>
		<category><![CDATA[media]]></category>
		<author>blog@iwantcleanair.com (IwantCleanAir)</author>
		<pubDate>Thu, 11 May 2006 10:46:00 PST</pubDate>
		<comments>http://www.iwantcleanair.com/index.cfm?CommentID=107&#35;comments</comments>
		
		
		
	</item>
	
	<item>
		<title>More Cape Wind press coverage</title>
		<link>http://www.iwantcleanair.com/index.cfm?CommentID=105</link>
		<description><![CDATA[There has been lots of movement on the Cape Wind project.  The grid operator in New England, the Senate Energy Committee leaders and the White House have all urged Congress to remove the Cape Wind killer provisions from the unrelated Coast Guard funding bill.

Now, columnists and Op-Ed writers are on the beat.

Today's Washington Times Op-Ed piece, Cape Wind and Pork-Barrel Politics, sheds some light on the political maneuvering in Congress.  After labeling Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young, both Republican appropriators from Alaska, as &amp;quot;Congress's two pork-barrel kings&amp;quot; the piece described how these men operate:

 During the conference committee convened to reconcile House and Senate versions of the Coast Guard authorization bill, an anti-Cape Wind &amp;quot;authorizing earmark&amp;quot; initially proposed by Mr. Young was so troubling that it failed Capitol Hill's extremely lax smell test. Then, Mr. Stevens, after consulting with Mr. Kennedy, whose Hyannis waterfront mansion overlooks Nantucket Sound, inserted an &amp;quot;authorizing earmark&amp;quot; into the conference report empowering [Massachusetts Governor and potential Republican presidential candidate] Mitt Romney to unilaterally veto Cape Wind despite the fact that the project would be located solely in federal waters. 


Then the paper slams Governor Romeny...

Statewide surveys show the alternative-and-renewable-energy project enjoys massive popular support. But Mr. Romney, seemingly oblivious to the oil-and-gas energy crisis that financially burdens all the middle- and working-class citizens of the nation he seeks to lead, steadfastly opposes the project. Could this perhaps result from the fact that some of his major fund-raisers own Nantucket mansions and have financed the anti-Cape Wind campaign. 



Jeff Jacoby's Boston Globe column came to our attention through the Wind Farmers Almanac.  In it he blasts Sen. Kennedy for &amp;quot;not playing by the rules.&amp;quot;  The column describes the Senator's normal stance against back-room deals and middle-of-the-night amendments to legislation, and then contrasts that with his current campaign to insert the Cape Wind killer provision into the unrelated Coast Guard funding law.

Bob Novak has entered the fray with his column where he reports:

Kennedy opposes this, explains the buzz on Capitol Hill, because he does not want to despoil the pristine appearance of a natural resource dear to his family and the memory of John F. Kennedy.

The explanation has been spread by an aide to Sen. Jeff Bingaman, the Energy Committee's ranking Democrat. He says Bingaman asked Kennedy why he opposes Cape Wind and received this answer: &amp;quot;This is Jack's sacred sailing ground.&amp;quot; Both Bingaman and Kennedy denied the story to me.


With continued pressure from concerned citizens throughout the country, we can get America's first offshore wind project back on track.

]]></description>
		<category><![CDATA[media]]></category>
		<author>blog@iwantcleanair.com (IwantCleanAir)</author>
		<pubDate>Mon, 08 May 2006 11:48:00 PST</pubDate>
		<comments>http://www.iwantcleanair.com/index.cfm?CommentID=105&#35;comments</comments>
		
		
		
	</item>
	
	<item>
		<title>Public Service For Future Generations</title>
		<link>http://www.iwantcleanair.com/index.cfm?CommentID=83</link>
		<description><![CDATA[Environmental Defense, a leading nonprofit working to &amp;quot;find innovative, practical ways to solve the most urgent environmental problems,&amp;quot; has launched an advertising campaign that highlights the impact our decisions on Global Warming will have on future generations.  

The campaign involves television and radio public service announcements created by Ogilvy &amp;amp; Mather Worldwide and distributed through the Ad Council.  The campaign is a call to action; you can view the ads and find more at the companion website: www.fightglobalwarming.com

Media coverage of the campaign has generally been good.  

MSNBC is praising the campaign for making a &amp;quot;stark point.&amp;quot; 

The San Jose Mercury News discussed the ads in its editorial titled, &amp;quot;Don't wait for Bush on Climate Change&amp;quot;

The Detroit Free Press ran the story from the Bloomberg newswire.
It has an interesting quote from the Royal Dutch Shell in support of the campaign, &amp;quot;Shell shares the widespread concern that the emission of greenhouse gases from human activities is leading to changes in the global climate,&amp;quot; the massive oil and gas company said. &amp;quot;We believe action is required to lay the foundation for eventually stabilizing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.&amp;quot;

On the other hand, the Knight-Ridder service filed a lazy report lacking in journalistic integrity that was picked up by several papers around the country.  Adhering to a &amp;quot;he-said, she-said&amp;quot; style of reporting, they include a quote from someone labeled as a &amp;quot;global warming skeptic.&amp;quot;  When can we start giving accurate descriptions of these guys?  Global warming skeptic?  How about &amp;quot;pro-warming activist&amp;quot;  or &amp;quot;Exxon spokesperson&amp;quot; for starters?  Either would be more accurate.

And why include these voices at all?  In a debate on the shape of the Earth, would you still include the opinions of those who insist it is flat?


]]></description>
		<category><![CDATA[media]]></category>
		<author>blog@iwantcleanair.com (IwantCleanAir)</author>
		<pubDate>Mon, 27 Mar 2006 08:00:00 PST</pubDate>
		<comments>http://www.iwantcleanair.com/index.cfm?CommentID=83&#35;comments</comments>
		
		
		
	</item>
	
	<item>
		<title>Will Journalism Survive?  </title>
		<link>http://www.iwantcleanair.com/index.cfm?CommentID=82</link>
		<description><![CDATA[As someone who recently got laid-off from a national media outlet as part of a plan to boost profit, I found Molly Ivins' recent column on the self-inflicted demise of the newspaper industry to be insightful... and very funny.  

She writes about the state of affairs in the newspaper business... 

&amp;quot;Our product isn't selling as well as it used to, so they think we need to cut the number of reporters, cut the space devoted to the news and cut the amount of money used to gather the news, and this will solve the problem. For some reason, they assume people will want to buy more newspapers if they have less news in them and are less useful to people. I'm just amazed the Bush administration hasn't named the whole darn bunch of them to run FEMA yet.&amp;quot;


I was working at a magazine publisher, not a newspaper.  And, I was website manager, not an editor or writer.  And now I am writing this blog, which probably makes me one of the &amp;quot;opinion mongers&amp;quot; that Molly says, later in her column, should not be allowed to write because I have not spent years as a beat reporter.  

Really?  Not allowed to write?  Anyway, I think Molly has some great points and she is right-on in most of her observations. 

What all this has to do with Global Warming and Air Pollution is this... A healthy and properly functioning media,  comprised of well paid and experienced journalists who are working with the support of available and insightful editors, is an absolute requirement for getting our country to act on these massive issues.  We need the type of journalism that newspapers deliver.

I don't pretend to be a journalist, but I do have a critical eye toward how the media covers ecological issues.    I have praise for efforts like Salon's series &amp;quot;Early Warnings&amp;quot; and I try to point out how the media have let us down in the past.

Much of the concern about the newspaper business these days is a result of the forced sale of Knight-Ridder.  Wall Street analysts were not happy with projected negative growth in circulation and advertising revenues.  They also faulted the company's profit margins, which would be very healthy for a company in most other industries.   So investors forced a liquidation sale.  

McClatchy Inc., a relatively small newspaper company based in Sacramento, CA,  is the buyer.  Unable to swallow all the Knight-Ridder papers, they have announced that they will turn around and sell off some of the papers that they just bought.  Many of the employees, local leaders, and customers of these papers are concerned that prospective buyers may follow the &amp;quot;suicidal&amp;quot; cost-cutting path described in the Molly Ivins column.  

I am sure there are local groups organizing on this issue around the country.  Here in the Bay Area we are blessed with a project called Grade The News, which operates in affiliation with Stanford and San Jose State universities, as a kind of &amp;quot;Consumer Reports for local news&amp;quot;.   (Use our comments section to send us links to your local media watchdog group.)

Meanwhile, workers at the San Jose Mercury News have a campaign to gather community support through, ironically enough, a website (www.savethemerc.com).  They are urging their local community to send a message to potential buyers that says, &amp;quot;We do not want the sale of the Mercury News to lead to a smaller, less ambitious newspaper.&amp;quot;

One of the alternatives is having the workers, through the Newspaper Guild and the Communication Workers of America, purchase and run these papers.  To this Molly Ivins says, &amp;quot;It is a most hopeful development.&amp;quot;
Yes, indeed.]]></description>
		<category><![CDATA[media]]></category>
		<author>blog@iwantcleanair.com (IwantCleanAir)</author>
		<pubDate>Fri, 24 Mar 2006 11:48:00 PST</pubDate>
		<comments>http://www.iwantcleanair.com/index.cfm?CommentID=82&#35;comments</comments>
		
		
		
	</item>
	
	<item>
		<title>Early Signs: Reports From a Warming Planet</title>
		<link>http://www.iwantcleanair.com/index.cfm?CommentID=81</link>
		<description><![CDATA[The folks at the U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism noticed that reporting in the U.S. on Global Warming tends to fail, in part, due to journalistic laziness.  So, they created a curriculuum that encouraged students to explore the story with honest skepticism. 

&amp;quot;We intended to avoid the pitfall of creating a false balance of 'dueling experts,' which gives equal weight to unequal sides,&amp;quot; said course creator Sandy Tolan in his introduction to the series.  &amp;quot;This did not mean that we wouldn't learn all sides of an argument, but that in our pursuit of knowledge and story ideas... we'd place such skepticism in scientific and political context.&amp;quot;

In partnership with two other great journalistic enterprises, Salon and NPR's &amp;quot;Living on Earth,&amp;quot; the student's work will be published in a series titled Early Signs: Reports From a Warming Planet on Fridays through May 5th, 2006. 

The first intallment, The Bears of Churchill brings us to what local Churchill, Canada residents call &amp;quot;The Polar Bear Capital of the World.&amp;quot;  We learn how the bears are suffering from a warmer climate... later winters and earlier springs... and how this is affecting the people of Churchill.

Looks to be a great series.

]]></description>
		<category><![CDATA[media]]></category>
		<author>blog@iwantcleanair.com (IwantCleanAir)</author>
		<pubDate>Fri, 17 Mar 2006 09:58:00 PST</pubDate>
		<comments>http://www.iwantcleanair.com/index.cfm?CommentID=81&#35;comments</comments>
		
		
		
	</item>
	
	<item>
		<title>Green Festival - Media Sponsors</title>
		<link>http://www.iwantcleanair.com/index.cfm?CommentID=51</link>
		<description><![CDATA[Another Green Festival media sponsor that I spent some time with is Yogi Times.  

Published in Los Angeles and San Francisco, this well-written publication is offered for free at Yoga studios, cafes and healthy lifestyle locations.  

In addition to covering Yoga asana (poses and postures), there are great departments and features that cover lifestyle and community which often are quite green in their perspective.

A new title from Yogi Times is Yogi Times Business  which is a quarterly trade magazine for &amp;quot;yoga teachers, studio owners and holistic entrepreneurs.&amp;quot;  In it you will find great ways that Green concepts can support a Yoga business and how a Yoga business can support Green issues.

]]></description>
		<category><![CDATA[media]]></category>
		<author>blog@iwantcleanair.com (IwantCleanAir)</author>
		<pubDate>Wed, 16 Nov 2005 05:34:00 PST</pubDate>
		<comments>http://www.iwantcleanair.com/index.cfm?CommentID=51&#35;comments</comments>
		
		
		
	</item>
	
	<item>
		<title>Green Festival - Media sponsors</title>
		<link>http://www.iwantcleanair.com/index.cfm?CommentID=46</link>
		<description><![CDATA[While at the Green Festival, I was lucky enough to meet Gar Smith the Associate Editor at Common Ground.

Common Ground is a free monthly published in the Bay Area by Dragonfly Media, a national alternative media company.

Gar's writing is funny, insightful and always engaging.  Just check out the warmth and loving humor in this story about &amp;quot;pastafarians&amp;quot; who are espousing belief in a noodle-god from outerspace.  In person, Gar was equally delightful and warm.

The great thing is when the wonderful stuff you read is written by nice people who work for a company that walks-the-talk.  Dragonfly Media publishes monthlies in Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Vancouver and San Francisco.  They each are locally crafted and are obviously given the resources to comission great wrtiting and design.

Their mission statement says:

Dragonfly Media provides a variety of venues for the exchange of ideas          among individuals, organizations, and businesses working to create more          spiritual, sustainable and equitable communities. 


Yet they do so much more.  By being a shining example of how a business can be socially responsible they are leading the publishing business to higher ground.]]></description>
		<category><![CDATA[media]]></category>
		<author>blog@iwantcleanair.com (IwantCleanAir)</author>
		<pubDate>Mon, 07 Nov 2005 00:00:00 PST</pubDate>
		<comments>http://www.iwantcleanair.com/index.cfm?CommentID=46&#35;comments</comments>
		
		
		
	</item>
	
	<item>
		<title>Green Festival - San Francisco</title>
		<link>http://www.iwantcleanair.com/index.cfm?CommentID=45</link>
		<description><![CDATA[This weekend was the annual Green Festival in San Francisco.  Each fall there they do an event in Washington DC and one in San Francisco.

It is a was a wonderful event and was so much to learn, see and do.  It is put on by Coop America and Global Exchange and they do a great job.

I will be writing a series of posts about some of the people I met and things that I learned at the Green Festival, so stay tuned.]]></description>
		<category><![CDATA[media]]></category>
		<author>blog@iwantcleanair.com (IwantCleanAir)</author>
		<pubDate>Sun, 06 Nov 2005 00:00:00 PST</pubDate>
		<comments>http://www.iwantcleanair.com/index.cfm?CommentID=45&#35;comments</comments>
		
		
		
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	<item>
		<title>Magazines, paper and clean air</title>
		<link>http://www.iwantcleanair.com/index.cfm?CommentID=42</link>
		<description><![CDATA[This week in New York City, the magazine publishing world is gathering for the annual Folio Show.  This year, in addition to awards for editorial and design excellence, there will be  awards given for enviromental leadership.

The Aveda Environmental Awards will honor magazines that demonstrate &amp;quot;best practices in environmental sustainability within the magazine production processes.&amp;quot;

Aveda is a cosmetics company whose vision is to &amp;quot;connect beauty, environment and well-being.&amp;quot;  They have a large advertising budget, and they have used that budget to push the typically destructive magazine publishing business toward more sustainable practices.

Joel Makower has written eloquently about this over at WorldChanging.com.  Check it out and follow the links.  You will learn something.  I especially endorse the Coop-America page where you can thank publishers who have led the industry toward more sustainable practices.  

In my work at Yoga Journal (Folio gold medal winner for editorial excellence) I have seen first hand how positively impactful the Aveda campaign can be.

Some facts from &amp;quot;Turning the Page,&amp;quot; a Coop-America study:



    Less than 5% of magazine paper has any recycled content, and even these recycled content papers generally contain only 10-30% recycled fiber.
    
    
    35 Million trees are cut down to produce magazines, reducing the Earth's capacity to reabsorb the greenhouse gas CO2.
    
    
    Non-recycled paper uses more energy and creates more pollution than recycled paper.
    

Magazines Nominated for the Aveda Environmental Award:

New Launch:

    Breathe
    Ode
    Plenty
    Sustainable Industries Journal

New Environmental Commitment:

    Body and Soul
    Frontiers in Ecology
    Natural Health
    The Nature Conservancy

Long-time Environmental Leader:

    Earth Island Journal
    The Green Guide
    Utne
    VegNews



]]></description>
		<category><![CDATA[media]]></category>
		<author>blog@iwantcleanair.com (IwantCleanAir)</author>
		<pubDate>Wed, 02 Nov 2005 07:41:00 PST</pubDate>
		<comments>http://www.iwantcleanair.com/index.cfm?CommentID=42&#35;comments</comments>
		
		
		
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	<item>
		<title>Has the media finally woken up?</title>
		<link>http://www.iwantcleanair.com/index.cfm?CommentID=39</link>
		<description><![CDATA[Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said that the real obstacle to good environmental policy, especially on Global Warming, is the media.   

Journalists have been either too lazy, too timid or too beholden to their corporate employers to do their jobs right.  On Global Warming, they have sheepishly relied on the &amp;quot;he said, she said&amp;quot;style of coverage, and therefore provided equal weight to the extremely few scientific skeptics of Global Warming.   This, in turn, has distorted the public perception of the problem.

Along comes Sandi Doughton and the Seattle Times with an article called &amp;quot;The truth about global warming&amp;quot; which does an excellent job of exposing the truth about the scientific consensus around Global Warming.   Finally an article that goes into depth about the overwhelming scientific evidence which demonstrates that Global Warming is real, is man made and is getting worse.

Yet, the paper wonders why the public and policy makers have not caught on to the seriousness of the problem ...

As one study after another has pointed to carbon dioxide and other man-made emissions as the most plausible explanation, the cautious community of science has embraced an idea initially dismissed as far-fetched. The result is a convergence of opinion rarely seen in a profession where attacking each other's work is part of the process. Every major scientific body to examine the evidence has come to the same conclusion: The planet is getting hotter; man is to blame; and it's going to get worse.
&amp;quot;There's an overwhelming consensus among scientists,&amp;quot; said UW climate researcher David Battisti, who also was dubious about early claims of greenhouse warming.
Yet the message doesn't seem to be getting through to the public and policy-makers.  (emphasis added)
The message has not gotten through because the media have not covered the issue.  The public is not in a position to wade through the scientific publications on Global Warming.  This is the job of journalists.  Where have they been?  

I once saw Robert F Kennedy Jr. speak, and a member of the audience asked why Global Warming was not discussed in the 2004 election.  Mr. Kennedy said he was perplexed about this as well, and asked Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry about it.  Mr. Kerry's response was that he did talk about it, but never got any coverage on the issue.  Journalists ignored him.

This is why media reform is the such an important issue in America today.

]]></description>
		<category><![CDATA[media]]></category>
		<author>blog@iwantcleanair.com (IwantCleanAir)</author>
		<pubDate>Sun, 09 Oct 2005 13:05:00 PST</pubDate>
		<comments>http://www.iwantcleanair.com/index.cfm?CommentID=39&#35;comments</comments>
		
		
		
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