RENewsletter | January 25, 2009

 

 

The Free environmental newsletter from RochesterEnvironment.com  

“Our Environment is changing: Keep up with the Change.”

[01/19/09 – 1/25/09]

 

* Need to vent? | Go to my blog: Environmental Thoughts - Rochester, NY

 

    Opening Salvo | NewsLinks | Daily Updates | Events | Environmental Site of the Month | Take Action |

 

[Hyperlinks work by CTRL + click to follow a link]

 

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Opening Salvo:  “What Does It Mean?”

 

This month’s Environmental Site Award [The Last Experiment] highlights a profound change going in our world while all kinds of profound changes are now going.  President Obama comes into office promising to overhaul our country’s attitudes towards war, terrorism, our economy, and our environment. While that goes on profound changes ripple through the media.

 

No longer does network TV or even the mainstream media rule. They not only failed us by becoming the exclusionary voice of the corporations at the expense of the minority, the majority, and our environment, they have failed themselves.  Not content with a twenty-five percent profit margin, and squashing most of their competition—leaving most communities a one-paper town—they have failed to even stay afloat.  No, they haven’t gone begging to the government (yet) but they are starting to shift from paper to the Internet.  Note the bankruptcies in several newspaper chains and online versions of which once were corporeal newspapers that you could hold in your hands.  Note too, that while many networks remain broadcasting throughout the day, look what they are polluting the airways with—infomercials, a full twenty-four hours of happy idiots struggling for your legal tender.

 

The Internet is beginning to rule. Though, it’s getting kind of crowed here with us fish. The little fish are struggling to stay alive (note “Net Neutrality”) as the big fish shark at us with their powerful money jaws.  Hard to compete when the guy in the next domain has a zillion bucks to spend on advertisement, eye-catching JavaScript, and a level of interconnectivity (like send their articles instantaneously to another shark’s blog) that rivals a pandemic.

 

So, what it all means is that the little fish can still complete for public attention on the Internet—for the time being.  Rather than accept the corporate propaganda that the wars are going great (and so is the environment by-the-way so don’t worry your pretty little heads) we can surf around and through the miasma of Internet gobbledygook and the aggregation of substantiated and unsubstantiated claims to find the truth.  It’s messier that the good ole days where Walter Cronkite just gave it to you straight, but ultimately it’s the new paradigm.  Like it or not, the Internet will define the future media because it’s cheap, everywhere, connected to everything (probably to even your refrigerator soon) and limitless in its ability to bang away at your attention.

 

It all means that the once dominant media outlets controlled by the few have given way to the dominant media dominated by the many.  It’s like a Democracy.  The informed become more informed by turning off their radios and Televisions, refrain from the movie theater with it’s half-hour of maddening sales-o’mercials, and read their emails—that they have subscribed to. We can create our own network of staying informed by following the treads that lead to Truth—eventually. That truth, say, what the implications of climate change in our area will be, will not come from the corporate media that wants your dollars at any cost.  It will come by those tenacious enough to tell the truth despite a gadget-addled audience and use the powers of the new media to get that message out.  Getting that message out to the public may be easy, like this newsletter, or hard like the film The Last Experiment, but the result will be that you’ve digested a good substantial meal, instead of indulging in a nonpurge binge episode.

 

 

FrankRegan@RochesterEnvironment.com  (Click on my email for feedback)

 

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NewsLinks – Environmental NewsLinks – [Highlights of major environmental stories concerning our area from the past week]

 

·         Opposition to Lake Erie Wind Turbines

·         Getting the Bottle Bill Closer

·         Frequent Pharmaceutical Waste Collections

·         Delaying Digital TV signal

·         NYS Brownfield Program

·         Radon Reminder from NYS Dept. Health

·         Winter & Farmer's Markets

·         Irondequoit Wind Towers

·         The NYS DEC Budget

·         NYS AG Cuts Mercury Pollutions

·         Cardboard Recycling Market Tanks

·         Time For Great Backyard Bird Count

·         No One Tree Chopping Proposal in Brighton

 

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Updates – Daily Updates – [Connecting the dots on Rochester’s environment. Find out what’s going on environmentally in our area—and why you should care? Clicking on -DISCUSSION – will take you to my blog “Environmental Thoughts, NY, where you can add your comments.]

 

 

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Events – Rochester Environmental Events Calendar – [The most complete listing of all environmental events around the Rochester, New York area.]  If you don’t see your event, or know of a local environmental event, please send me the info: FrankRegan@RochesterEnvironment.com with (EV event) in the subject line.

 

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Action – Take Action - Often, I receive request to pass on alerts, petitions, Public Comments on local developments, and environmental items needing action by the Rochester Community and around the world. I’ll keep Actions posted until their due date. 

 

 

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Award – Environmental Site of the Month Award – [Each month, included in the RENewsletter goes out an environmental award for the best Rochester-area environmental web site or blog that best helps promote the need to protect and offers solutions to our area's environmental issues.] Award to be made on the Last Sunday of each month.

 

Much of what I have learned about the Iraq War and about our environment in the last eight years has been from small, independent films.  Here in Rochester, we have an amazing film about how climate change will affect us here, in Rochester, in our own backyard.  Don’t wait for mainstream media to come to your local theatre for this kind of documentary focused on our environmental concerns, or you’ll be disappointed.  So, don’t be disappointed, check out the January 2009 Environmental Site of the Month.

 

*** The Winner of the January 2009 Environmental Site Award goes to The Last Experiment. ***

 

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