Global Warming

Apologies for my blogging break. I took an unexpected business trip and am now back in my New York basement office. For those of you who are also in New York, I’ll be having a memorial weekend office party so please mark your calendars. I’ll be sending out invitations shortly.

Last night Al Gore announced a new publicity initiative on global warming. It took over a year after recruiting staff to make this announcement. Gore claims he will spend $300 million on an “advertising blitz” in an attempt to recruit 10 million names. The website is impressive, you can check it out wecansolveit.org.

One of the major calls to action is media advocacy on global warming. The effort hopes to get massive numbers of supporters to pressure political reporters to make global warming a key issue in the presidential race. Included in the call to action is this analysis of the electoral coverage:

“A League of Conservation Voters’ study found that ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked presidential candidates more than 767 questions — only 5 of which were related to global warming. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked more than 402 questions — only 5 were about global warming. Sadly, other political commentators and reporters have shown a similar disregard for this key issue.”

The campaign also reaches out to bloggers, offering to send “breaking news” to those who sign up.

It’s an impressive communications strategy, I’ll be tracking to see how well it works.