Hey, Catch Today’s ClimateMinute!

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2015 Goldman Prize Winners from Scotland, Kenya, Myanmar, Canada, Honduras, Haiti
Inspiring 2015 Goldman Prize Winners from Scotland, Kenya, Myanmar, Canada, Honduras, Haiti

What if every morning, you got that invitation? You, the climate hawk, activist, educator, scientist, entrepreneur, or the civic, corporate or political leader.

And then you and millions could click on and pass along a free, eye-opening quick video climate message: moving, funny, inspiring, alarming, ridiculous, thought-provoking, urgent, galvanizing.

Rationale & Evolution

ClimateMinute.org will be a bottom-up, informal, open-minded ecumenical collaboration, ignoring all turf, because, as 50 million people just heard spoken word activist Prince Ea memorably say, “Whatever you’re fighting for…it won’t matter in the least, because if we don’t all work together to save the environment, we will be equally extinct.”

After a transparent, day-long selection and development process, at 9PM PT/midnight ET, a diverse young team of curators and producers will unleash tomorrow’s climate news flash, sound bite, image, insight, or comeback. It will start as a low-tech, narrated, mainly radio minute with accompanying still photos and video of memorable speaker quotes. We’ll email, text, and Tweet a link plus optional transcript to subscribers.

Tip submissions will come from everywhere. Growing numbers of us will share what we were moved to do after watching or reading a ClimateMinute.

ClimateMinute can become a wellspring for the climate world. Its archive and extras will enlighten and energize newbies and challenge and expose deniers. Making life easier for journalists, it will turn highlight breaking news, with transcripts.

Who (Part 1)

We don’t need a traditional pathway, with savvy climate veterans and experienced media professionals as curators/producers/promoters. The urgent climate crisis presents the opportunity for a more sustainable way!

We’ll recruit enthusiastic, committed, diverse climate activists. People aged 15-25 are eager to have their first public impact — and the hours will work for them. Paired teams with members in different time zones can ease some deadline pressure. And those stellar climate and media experts will be mentors and advisors.

A sponsoring group will make available stipends or honoraria to teams or their institutions. Prizes and awards can go out as subscribers vote on top weekly and monthly ClimateMinute picks.

Distribution

ClimateMinute will appear in a regular spot on the blogs, streams, and home pages of individuals, groups, campaigns, governments, and online, social, and traditional media. Executives at firms eager to show their commitment to go beyond “business as usual” can take an important no-cost step by featuring the feed on their companies’ home pages.

Launch

Will you help shape and build ClimateMinute? Will you help create the prototypes that will start making it real?

First steps? Get a few advisors on board; reach out to organizational and academic watering holes where our first team members hang out; secure philanthropic seed funding; create illustrative pilot ClimateMinutes.

BY THE WAY: We don’t care who gets the credit or takes the lead; we just want ClimateMinute to happen. (Felix Kramer, initiating this idea, at CalCars.org conducted a popular truth-telling for the auto industry in 2005-2007 as part of the successful 10-year campaign to keep the pressure on auto companies to build plug-in hybrids.)

Who (Part 2)

Core players start with:

  • Hosting sponsor(s)
  • Curatorial/editorial/production teams
  • On-screen anchors and voices
  • Advisory board
  • Crowdfunding, crowdsourcing and distribution teams

Possible players

We welcome your suggestions!

  • Hosting candidates/distribution partners (alphabetically): 350.org, Buzzfeed, Citizen Engagement Lab, Citizens Climate Lobby, Climate Nexus, Climate One, Climate Progress, Climate Reality, Earthweek, EcoAmerica, Facebook, Forecast The Facts, Grist, Guardian, InsideClimateNews, NextGen, TED, Vox.
  • Curator team: send us suggestions or contact us to see our initial working list.
  • Advisors: send us suggestions or contact us to see our initial working list.

Already in the game

We’re encouraged by what’s been tried. We all share a goal: to galvanize interest and action through urgent, important climate messages. We hope our approach can catch on quickly and broadly. We will learn from, and maybe partner with these and others:

  • “Time to Wake Up” talks: delivered heroically on the Senate floor over 100 times since April, 2012 by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. (These speeches inspired the idea of ClimateMinute.)
  • Climate Connections: a daily 90-second public radio program from the Yale Project on Climate Communications.
  • iChange Competition: 248 university teams from 66 countries competed in 2013 to create 30-second video messages about climate change themes.
  • Climate Cast: a weekly radio show on news, science, and solutions from Minnesota Public Radio.
  • MassClimateMinute: despite its name, it’s actually an extended once-a-week podcast from the Massachusetts Climate Action Network.
  • Earth Focus: a weekly environmental video news magazine on KCET and LinkTV.
  • This Planet: curating and distributing 90-second video stories and a magazine.
  • StarDate: a national radio science show produced daily since 1978 at the University of Texas.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and Pope Francis at the Vatican Climate Summit, April 2015
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and Pope Francis at the Vatican Climate Summit, April 2015

What Climate Experiences Have Packed an Emotional Punch for You?

You might have caught these moments if ClimateMinute had been around for a while. (Most are longer videos from which ClimateMinute would excerpt.) We bet you know and can suggest other outstanding examples (not updated since May 2015):

We hope you can get involved!

You can help — especially if can envision yourself on a ClimateMinute team or can tell people you know who can help. And if you have experience with Quick Response projects. Please contact us! (This page is at http://climateminute.org and at http://beyondcassandra.org/climateminute.)