Thinking About Nashville On Route Home
30,000 feet over Europe -
Front page of today’s International Herald Tribune: “Brit Unit Foresees 2007 as Hottest Ever – In Europe more worry than in US”. Article goes on to attribute this to global warming and El Niño. It also mentions that Europeans take global warming more seriously than we Americans. For example 40% of French, Germans and Spanish think global warming is the MOST serious issue facing the planet. Compare this to 30% of Americans. Article ends by saying, “It’s going to take more that just an Al Gore movie to get American’s to take global warming seriously”.
Same IHT also has an article about how Exxon Mobil is being paying millions of dollars to churning out fake “scientific” reports and setting up so called climate change “non-profits” (Advancement of Sound science Coalition) to of course, LIE or manipulate the truth about global warming.
These articles and two more years of Bush underlines that we have our work cut out for us.
That is why I am so excited about going to Nashville in three days.
My almost 10 days in Europe have been relaxing, and frustrating at the same time. Unfortunately, the holidays was interrupted by my daughter picking a fine time to get strep throat, and I also learned that while southern France might have the fastest train in the world, and the best wines and cheese anywhere, but their WIFI capabilities suck. So I have been unable to get on-line for most of my stay in France. For those who know me, it has been an extremely frustrating experience.
But when I did, I finally heard from my mentor and trainer of the GREEN group, a Mr. Ken Riley.
He and his wife teach science and attended the first Al Gore training sessions. He said it was “an experience of a lifetime.”
He first reminded me that we have to give at least 10 presentations a year!
Apparently, the two-day training session starts with Mr. Gore (how Ken refers to him – actually one of my questions to Ken will be how do you address Al? Mr. Vice President? VP Gore? Mr Almost President? Mr Gore or just Al?) giving his “slide show” presentation followed by Q&A. The sessions are given by both Mr. Gore and a scientist (Dr Henry Pollack, a Climate Scientist from the University of Michigan).
Ken goes on to say that he felt that best part of the experience was the networking, as you meet a lot of really cool people. And, of course, he says bring a camera, as you “will want to share this experience with your friends and family!” So even though Ken doesn’t say much, it does sound pretty cool. I am hoping to be able to touch base with Ken this weekend to find out if there is anything else I will need.
In the meantime I have been brushing up on my An Inconvenient Truth book, which of course I intend to get Al to sign!
Ken also asked me to send him some background info on everybody in the GREEN group. Here’s what I sent him:
Dear Ken,
You asked for a brief bio and why I wanted to join the Climate Project:
I am president and founder of Green Team Advertising, an agency that specializes in environmental and social issues. In fact Green Team opened its doors in 1993, shortly after the 1992 elections and the Clinton/Gore victory. I felt that with Gore in the White House, green issues were going to be at the top of the agenda, and there would be an opportunity in environmental issues.
Well as you know, green issues didn’t really become top of mind in the American mindset until fairly recently. Various events including 911, the Tsunami, Katrina and finally, last year with An Inconvenient Truth we have seen a culmination of the environment and “green” in all the mainstream media.
So as Friedman points out in the NYTimes article you sent us, in 2007 the color will be GREEN!
In Green Team’s 14-year history we have been fortunate to work with over 30 social and environmental non-profits and great causes, including a global warming campaign with the Environmental Defense (undoit.org).
So global warming and climate change are dear to my heart. That, my passion for the environment, and the fact that Al Gore “inspired” me to found Green Team Advertising is why I will be traveling to Nashville next week!
OK, that’s all for now. My laptop is quickly running out of gas, besides I have to get back to my inflight movie: An Inconvenient Truth. Yep, you better believe it! It’s one of about 6 movies being offered by Alitalia - at least one airline seems to get it! (What’s pretty cool is that my daughter Alice is also watching it again.)
More tomorrow – hopefully will have touched based with Ken and also spoken to ex Green Teamer Jen Giroux who attended this week’s session – she may actually be more insightful that Ken.
Front page of today’s International Herald Tribune: “Brit Unit Foresees 2007 as Hottest Ever – In Europe more worry than in US”. Article goes on to attribute this to global warming and El Niño. It also mentions that Europeans take global warming more seriously than we Americans. For example 40% of French, Germans and Spanish think global warming is the MOST serious issue facing the planet. Compare this to 30% of Americans. Article ends by saying, “It’s going to take more that just an Al Gore movie to get American’s to take global warming seriously”.
Same IHT also has an article about how Exxon Mobil is being paying millions of dollars to churning out fake “scientific” reports and setting up so called climate change “non-profits” (Advancement of Sound science Coalition) to of course, LIE or manipulate the truth about global warming.
These articles and two more years of Bush underlines that we have our work cut out for us.
That is why I am so excited about going to Nashville in three days.
My almost 10 days in Europe have been relaxing, and frustrating at the same time. Unfortunately, the holidays was interrupted by my daughter picking a fine time to get strep throat, and I also learned that while southern France might have the fastest train in the world, and the best wines and cheese anywhere, but their WIFI capabilities suck. So I have been unable to get on-line for most of my stay in France. For those who know me, it has been an extremely frustrating experience.
But when I did, I finally heard from my mentor and trainer of the GREEN group, a Mr. Ken Riley.
He and his wife teach science and attended the first Al Gore training sessions. He said it was “an experience of a lifetime.”
He first reminded me that we have to give at least 10 presentations a year!
Apparently, the two-day training session starts with Mr. Gore (how Ken refers to him – actually one of my questions to Ken will be how do you address Al? Mr. Vice President? VP Gore? Mr Almost President? Mr Gore or just Al?) giving his “slide show” presentation followed by Q&A. The sessions are given by both Mr. Gore and a scientist (Dr Henry Pollack, a Climate Scientist from the University of Michigan).
Ken goes on to say that he felt that best part of the experience was the networking, as you meet a lot of really cool people. And, of course, he says bring a camera, as you “will want to share this experience with your friends and family!” So even though Ken doesn’t say much, it does sound pretty cool. I am hoping to be able to touch base with Ken this weekend to find out if there is anything else I will need.
In the meantime I have been brushing up on my An Inconvenient Truth book, which of course I intend to get Al to sign!
Ken also asked me to send him some background info on everybody in the GREEN group. Here’s what I sent him:
Dear Ken,
You asked for a brief bio and why I wanted to join the Climate Project:
I am president and founder of Green Team Advertising, an agency that specializes in environmental and social issues. In fact Green Team opened its doors in 1993, shortly after the 1992 elections and the Clinton/Gore victory. I felt that with Gore in the White House, green issues were going to be at the top of the agenda, and there would be an opportunity in environmental issues.
Well as you know, green issues didn’t really become top of mind in the American mindset until fairly recently. Various events including 911, the Tsunami, Katrina and finally, last year with An Inconvenient Truth we have seen a culmination of the environment and “green” in all the mainstream media.
So as Friedman points out in the NYTimes article you sent us, in 2007 the color will be GREEN!
In Green Team’s 14-year history we have been fortunate to work with over 30 social and environmental non-profits and great causes, including a global warming campaign with the Environmental Defense (undoit.org).
So global warming and climate change are dear to my heart. That, my passion for the environment, and the fact that Al Gore “inspired” me to found Green Team Advertising is why I will be traveling to Nashville next week!
OK, that’s all for now. My laptop is quickly running out of gas, besides I have to get back to my inflight movie: An Inconvenient Truth. Yep, you better believe it! It’s one of about 6 movies being offered by Alitalia - at least one airline seems to get it! (What’s pretty cool is that my daughter Alice is also watching it again.)
More tomorrow – hopefully will have touched based with Ken and also spoken to ex Green Teamer Jen Giroux who attended this week’s session – she may actually be more insightful that Ken.
posted by An Inconvenient Hugh at
12:03 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home