Wednesday 18 January 2012

What's your point, what do you want?

I stumbled upon an interesting New York Times Dot Earth article by Andrew Revkin. The article describes communication strategies to affect change. The theme relates to a shift from the cerebral (no shortage of that in the blogosphere or elsewhere) to the visceral. Two presentations are linked from a recent WWF event. I've embedded them below.

I do not know the position of either on nuclear power and to be honest, I don't believe either is relevant. It is not their position I am advocating here, it's their method. Both speak from experience. Ideas that have been proven effective in the field deserve recognition and consideration going forward.

Intellectual appeals for reason - experience would suggest - are getting us nowhere fast.

The first is from Martin Palmer from the Aliance of Religions and Conservation. He advocates an approach that engages religious leaders worldwide as a means to affect real change.



The second is from Randy Olson - Wikipedia bio here. The short version is that he is a Harvard alumni with a PhD in Biology turned filmmaker. He speaks of the visceral and gives some good examples.