S.F. Baykeeper Earns Our 1% for the Planet Donation

Published April 15th, 2011 in Thinkshift news | No Comments »

I’m really pleased to report that we’ve made our first contribution as a member of 1% for the Planet. We donated our 1 percent of our 2010 revenue to the very worthy San Francisco Baykeeper.

Making our selection was tougher than we thought it would be. There are a lot of wonderful nonprofits allied with 1% for the Planet. But we love Baykeeper for a number of reasons:

  • They’re local, and they focus on preserving a resource—San Francisco Bay—that’s vital to our city, the entire Bay Area, and the state.
  • Baykeeper uses a combination of science and consensus building to set goals, and then achieves those goals via advocacy, govenmental policy and legal action. We love that—it’s effective, and results in good policies and strong regulations that deliver lasting results.
  • They’re genuinely transparent, with full disclosure of their finances and operations on their website.
  • Finally, they are excellent communicators. Their website is full of news, research findings, stories about their successes and lots more. They know how to make their case and engage readers, using both information and online tools. No jargon (even though they are wonkish) and no fluff. They are completely credible.

What’s not to like?

Help for Communicating Science Is on the Horizon

Published June 18th, 2009 in resources | No Comments »

I just learned about Randy Olson’s forthcoming book, Don’t Be Such a Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style, due out in September from Island Press. (Thanks to Andrew Revkin’s excellent NY Times DotEarth post on communicating climate change.)

Olson wants scientists to be able to tell their stories to the rest of us. I can’t wait to see what he has to say. Here are the chapter titles:

  • Don’t Be So Cerebral
  • Don’t Be So Literal Minded
  • Don’t Be Such a Poor Storyteller
  • Don’t Be So Unlikeable
  • Be the Voice of Science!

You can find out more on the book’s website. Olson is a filmmaker with a Ph.D. in marine biology and a master’s in filmmaking from the USC film school. He  co-founded The Shifting Baselines Ocean Media Project, a partnership between scientists and Hollywood to communicate the crisis facing our oceans. His films include Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus (2006; seen at the Tribeca Film Festival) and Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy (2008).

While we’re on the subject, scientists (and anyone else in a technical field) could also take a lesson from Elizabeth Kolbert, who writes eloquently and plainly about matters environmental for the New Yorker. Her  latest book (highly recommended), Field Notes from a Catastrophe (2006), is about global warming.

Finally, please patronize your local independent bookstore or public library.