It seems that David Suzuki never proposes humanely reducing the human population because he is afraid of reducing his incoming donations from corporations.

For more info, check out The Suzuki Watch: http://suzukiwatch.wordpress.com

Sincerely,

Brishen Hoff
President of Biodiversity First

Hmm..

I was thinking more like a ‘join in’ kind of thing, but now that I just googled his Take the Challenge
site and looks like he’s got some good stuff there with 364,000 ppl or so already in the community, able to connect, share stories, etc. He’s also got some blogs and videos (ex. “Queen of Green” blog etc. This all seems to be better than the power one.

However, I do wonder about the effectiveness. Do people just sign up, perhaps forget about it, and then get monthly newsletters?

My ideas… off the top of my head…

It would be kind of cool if they had competitions for chic/cheeky/funny etc. video ads about what simple things can be done around the house. And then put it up for voting by the community. Or go through the schools? Kids want attention, are creative and they can pressure parents to buy eco-friendly products.

Or, if posted the province’s energy consumption as a meter on a website and could watch it go up and down as the day went on — maybe make it so that you could see the various consumption (i.e. just households, just industry, whole thing etc.) and then instead of having the normal fundraiser-like meter of having a target at the top – have our provincial target at the bottom so that the campaigning is for lowering the red meter… (make sense or am i blabbing?)

(who knows if this could actually be done…i have a feeling that the OPA prob wouldn’t go for it)

but it would bring people to the site to see what consumption is really like. And then once there, there could be other videos/blogs links to other sites etc.

The meters could also have one for a general house and then show how making simple changes (i.e. Jay’s comments above) can reduce the reading – again watching the meter go down.

Or, once people join in to the community, they can decide if they want to be ‘known’ in that community and then they can have little get togethers within the communities.

just ideas….

thanks for asking:) forces me to think…

Hmm..

Plenty of food for though…here goes.

The marketing is irrelevant unless there is something of value to the consumers. The fact is that environmentalists have been marketing for years (I’ve heard it since the 1970s) on the various merits of doing this and that to help the environment. Most of it is to no avail. The only reason that David Suzuki has succeeded with the compact fluorescent (CF) bulbs is because there is an easily quantifiable economic advantage to using them for the average consumer. The case has improved greatly over the last 8 years because energy prices have doubled, and because the costs, lighting quality, and form factors of compact fluorescent have become much more bearable. I switched to CF about 4 years ago because it made sense for me then even if they were too expensive. For me the convenience of not having to change 30 bulbs every year was worth it. (I now change about 4 CF bulbs per year).

The other factor is that environmentalists tend to advocate ideas that require inconvenient changes of lifestyle (e.g. taking buses, buying hemp clothes, running the house cooler, walking, using reusable diapers & menstrual supplies…etc). Needless to say, the uptake is minimal. The CF light bulb represents a convenient change in that for a slight increase in up-front cost, a greater decrease in power costs, one gets the convenience of not having to change light bulbs as often.

Although it is true that “the medium is the message” (Marshall McLuhan), if you want traction, you have to have a marketing message with a clearly profitable economic value proposition, and one that does not require inconvenient lifestyle changes. Suzuki did it with the CF bulbs.

If Suzuki wants traction, here are some products/technologies that have immediate value, and no lifestyle changes:
1) Hybrid cars and engines with load-based cylinder activation.
2) LED-lighting – uses about 50% of the power of CF lighting and lasts even longer.
3) Ground-source heat pumps. Canada’s real energy advantage (although it presents builders with an inconvenient change of behaviour).
4) High-efficiency furnaces with DC fans. (Inconvenience of slightly higher up-front costs).
5) LCD monitors for computers.
6) Side-loading washing machines which use less energy and less water.

None of these technologies are sexy or earth shaking, but each will deliver huge energy changes, with or without a naked Suzuki.

As for your comment on governments getting up to speed on Web 2.0, that is very very hard. Here’s why. The old style media figures and broadcasters worked in the mode of a broadcast monologue. They craft, control, and deliver the message, and critics are disorganized and irrelevant. With Web 2.0, they lose control of the crafting and the delivery. They also risk being shown up by intelligent and articulate 20-something (or even 40-something) people making public comments. They have not figured out how to handle the loss of control.

Web 2.0 will be the dominant mode of communication when today’s 25-35 year old journalists become the dominant media figures in 10 years.

I’ll see you there…