Wild Society

Once upon a time, in a special place in northwest Oregon, a group of passionate dreamers armed with conservation strategies, biodiversity guides, and GIS mapping tools set out to make the world a better place. By accepting a challenge -- to unite hippy tree-huggers in Portland with farmers in rural Clackamas County and soccer moms in Forest Grove -- the Intertwine Alliance set out to enhance OUR COMMON GROUND.

And they all lived happily ever after. Well, not quite. Actually this is just the beginning of the Intertwine story. Because unfortunately, when disparate groups disagree on priorities and perspectives, sometimes all the scientific facts and reason in the world result in little to no impact or lasting influence.

Peoples’ beliefs and behaviors can, however, be swayed through effective storytelling. Stories make an emotional connection, whereas facts and figures can be easily forgotten. Great stories can change people and the world. And today’s multimedia technology is creating new possibilities for how they're told.

"Tell me a fact and I’ll learn. Tell me a truth and I’ll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever." – Proverb

So you’ve got a great story to tell? Should you create a video? Write about it on a blog? Post links on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram? Yes, yes, yes and yes!!

The average Internet user watches 186 videos each month on mobile devices and computers. And 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. To capture the average internet user’s incredibly short attention span -- and make a lasting impression -- the goal should be not just be to make an entertaining and interesting video, but to have that video go viral. You want as many people as possible to see it, love it, and share it with their friends.

Golden Rules for creating a viral video

Rule 1: Make it simple and great.

To create a viral video, simpler is better. Overproduction distances us from the action and makes it less involving and consequently less contagious. In 2012, nine out of the top ten viral videos on YouTube were professionally created. Check out the Adopt a Gorilla video that Earth Protect Productions created to drive viewers to click on our website www.earthprotect.com.

Rule 2: Be short and sweet.

Minimum set up, maximum payoff. It introduces the concept and gets right down to business. One to three minutes in length will cater to the short attention span of the average Internet user. California Wildlife Center is an animated commercial that we created to be shown on public television and online. This video that helped increase awareness, funding and donations for this non-profit. Talking animals are always great. We love them.

Rule 3: Go for authentic and unforgettable.

This is where the video falls short in an interesting way. Candid Camera-style videos are at their best when showing us joyful human reactions. It’s active, positive emotions, after all, that are most contagious. Touch the Wall is a documentary on Missy Franklin, the teenage swimming sensation, that Grant Barbeito is just wrapping up. It’s a great story, inspirational, authentic and super entertaining.

Rule 4: Promote it like crazy.

The key to going viral is to get a bunch of people to see it. Be proactive, and start emailing journalists and bloggers personally at least one week before release. Then upload it to YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter, Facebook, blogs and anywhere else you can. And if all else fails, make a video with adorable animals or kittens! Everyone loves kittens.

THE END!

“The difficulty lies not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds.” – John Maynard Keynes

Mark reduced his contribution to the landfill by ending his use of disposable coffee cups. Carrie saved money, saved water and eliminated environmental toxins by cutting her meat consumption in half. When Liz ditched her car for commuting and errands, she also saved money, while getting fit, reducing her carbon footprint, and enjoying more sunrises.

These are the stories of simple changes that collectively add up to big changes; of citizens aligning their behaviors with the values they hold. To a growing degree, citizens recognize the need to change, but what we call the “Say-Do Gap” (the gap between what we say and do) continues to be too large to drive change on the scale that our current predicament requires. A 2011 Ogilvy Earth study found that “82% of Americans have good green intentions but only 16% are dedicated to fulfilling these intentions, putting 66% firmly in what we’re calling the Middle Green.”

Humans, just like our non-human brethren, are creatures of habit. So, along with new policies, new technologies and appropriately-aimed market forces, how do we help this 66% align their intentions and actions? Not with more information! The “Middle Green” have already experienced that; hence their positive intentions.

“The volume of education continues to increase, yet so do pollution, exhaustion of resources, and the dangers of ecological catastrophe. If still more education is to save us, it would have to be education of a different kind: an education that takes us into the depth of things.” – E. F. Schumacher

At the Northwest Earth Institute, we use a change process we refer to as Connect, Reflect, Act. Here are few thoughts on the context and application of our process:

• Help people connect to others. We are social creatures. The data shows what we think and do is largely influenced by our social connections – even more so than what experts tell us. New behavioral norms emerge from what we see others do and say whom we perceive to be “like us.” Therefore, we provide opportunities for shared learning and storytelling, in person or through other forms of media.
• Make change fun. We try to tie change to values of both altruism and self-interest. As noted in the Ogilvy study, most people want to do the right thing. When we connect doing the right thing to competition (our social nature) or incentives (self-interest), we move past the “Say-Do Gap” into action.
• Help the participant get focused. We’ve noticed that a barrage of messages over a short period of time will, like those inspirational quotes that hang in the hallway, become just that: wallpaper. With busy schedules, Americans are more likely to commit to changes for a defined and relatively short period of time. So while we offer participants many options to find a change linked to what they most value, we also encourage them to keep it simple (one behavior at a time).

Are you and your team ready to move past the “Say-Do Gap” and transform your values into action? Check out the 2013 NW Earth Institute EcoChallenge: a two-week campaign for change launching in less than a week!

Thousands of your peers from across The Intertwine have already chosen a change to implement from Oct. 15-30 – from taking 5-minute showers, to buying drygoods from the bulk bins, to powering off electronics at night. As EcoChallengers, collectively we’ll prove that small actions can create real change. 

It’s happening in our urban and rural forests, in and around our buildings and streets, on our farmland, and in the seagrass meadows, salt marshes and mangroves along our coasts. It’s fostering new connections between public, private and academic institutions. Done right, it just might stem the tide of runaway climate change.

What is it? Biocarbon! And the communities of the Intertwine are at the forefront of this quiet revolution.

With each passing year, scientists such as David Montgomery are learning and communicating the true power of plant life and healthy soils to contain and absorb atmospheric carbon, helping to reduce climate-destabilizing pollution. Where are we in this new campaign against climate change? Well, there’s bad news, good news, and great news.

The bad news: As a direct result of humanity burning fossil fuels and transforming landscapes, atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) is higher now than at any time in at least 800,000 years and probably longer. Increasingly, scientists are pointing to 350 parts per million as the target to restore a “safe operating space for humanity.” If we fail to make the shift from fossil fuels to clean energy, CO2 levels in the atmosphere will continue to climb further into the extreme danger zone.

The good news: The concept and practice of biocarbon is gaining ground. As a key Climate Solutions program, the Northwest Biocarbon Initiative (NBI) is galvanizing the region’s top biocarbon innovators – farmers, foresters, community leaders, and thinkers – to demonstrate the essential role that natural systems can play in reducing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. Check out our Innovation Partners from across the Northwest.

The great news: Intertwine communities are ahead of the curve, implementing new, cost-effective innovations to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, remove existing carbon pollution and build resilience to withstand climate impacts. Here are just two examples:

• In Portland, Linda Dobson and others at the City of Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services are leading the way on natural infrastructure to save City money, capture carbon, and enhance neighborhood vitality. Mike Houck and the Urban Greenspaces Institute work diligently with BES to promote the integration of urban green infrastructure with the built environment.

• In Tualatin, Clean Water Services (CWS) restored streamside habitat along 35 miles of the Tualatin River watershed calculated that over 100 years the program will remove about 135,000 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. In addition, by investing in natural infrastructure, CWS avoided the need to build a cooling facility for the water it discharges into the river, saving the community about $100 million while also avoiding the energy consumption and carbon emissions.

You can read more about the climate, economic, and environmental benefits of natural infrastructure approaches in The Intertwine and beyond through a new NBI report released in August. In Natural Infrastructure: A Climate Smart Solution, we describe how different natural infrastructure solutions for forests, farms, cities, watersheds, and the coast can:

• dramatically cut back on the need for carbon-intensive energy generated by fossil fuels; 
• capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere; and 
• help build resilience in the face of our changing climate.

The challenge we face is bringing biocarbon to scale in the Northwest. If we are to counter runaway climate change, we’ll need to see these principles, practices, and positive solutions instilled in natural resources agencies, design-build and architecture firms, and planning offices at various level of government. Maybe you’re the next step? Please get in touch and help us make the biocarbon revolution quiet no more.

Twenty-five years ago, Jack Churchill, public administration prof at PSU, called to offer some advice. It wasn’t plastics, like Dustin Hoffman's mentor in The Graduate. No, it was CLEAN WATER ACT!  Park and wildlife biologists, he yelled, had neither the power nor funding to clean up the Willamette River and bring nature back into the city. I had just taken the position of Urban Naturalist at the Audubon Society of Portland and both of these were my primary goals.  “Thanks for sharing,” I said and hung up, wondering what the Clean Water Act had to do with my mission.

It took me a few years to get it. Sewer and stormwater agencies had immense potential to protect the region’s streams, rivers and watersheds.  They had a federal mandate -- the Clean Water Act. Despite the fact that in the early 1980s they focused virtually exclusively on piped, engineered gray infrastructure solutions to water quality problems I realized the potential they held for moving the dial on urban greenspaces by integrating their mandates and mission with those of park providers and fish and wildlife agencies.

Three decades on, and Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services (BES) is one of the most progressive, innovative stormwater agencies in the country. Thanks in part to the federal Clean Water Act, and to progressive leadership in the city, BES has broadened its mission. To be honest it took a lot of nudging and cajoling from local nonprofits like mine. But they have embraced green infrastructure and creative approaches to stormwater management.

So what?, you might say. You should care a lot about BES’s green approaches to stormwater management. Your sewer rates will decrease. For example, the Tabor to the River project will cost $63 million less by combining gray and green infrastructure. Care about fish and wildlife?  BES is restoring salmon and wildlife habitat, not in some distant river but right where you live. They are buying and protecting headwaters and replacing invasive species with native plants. These lighter, greener, smarter, cheaper approaches will result in healthier waterways and watersheds. Our streams will run with cleaner water at less cost to you.

Unfortunately, no good deed goes unpunished. Some of our worst polluters and opponents of the city’s environmental programs have launched an initiative that would gut these programs and wrest control of BES from the city. Who would control their special “water utility"? The very same people who have polluted our waterways. BES is where we need it now: an important part of Portland’s collective efforts to protect nature in the city. The agency is accountable to us, not an obscure board, outside city control.  Don’t Sign That Petition! It’s bad for the environment.  It’s bad for public involvement.  It’s bad for our water.

For more information, and to get involved in opposing this ill-conceived Water and Sewer District initiative, contact me or Bob Sallinger, Conservation Director, Audubon Society of Portland.

Most Sunday mornings, I lace up my trail shoes, strap on my Nutcase, and pedal my rusty Peugeot across the Broadway Bridge towards Forest Park. Over coffee with my motley running crew -- scientists and beekeepers, grocery clerks and retirees -- we leisurely debate the day’s route: Wildwood or Maple? 53rd or Upper Saltzman? A few hours later, begrimed and wheezy, we again debate: Bridgeport Brewery or Deschutes? Pyramid or Rogue?

But more than earning my suds, and more, even, than enjoying the lush morning hush of these trillium-framed runs, I treasure this Sunday tradition for expanding -- to borrow Mickey Fearn’s phrase from last week’s Our Common Ground Dialogue on Race and the Environment -- my “cultural tribe.” From the shared love of an outdoor run, strong friendships have sprung, along with startling ideas, empathy, and new paths.

On June 12, here at Intertwine HQ, we launched a new tradition: the Wednesday publication of this blog, Outside Voice. With weekly guest writers like Mickey, above, as well as arborist Todd Prager, conservation educator Traci Price, extreme kayaker Sam Drevo, and so many others to come, the aim of Outside Voice, like The Intertwine Alliance itself, is to enhance the canopy under which we gather, celebrate shared loves, and debate our next steps.

We’re pleased to report, just six weeks in, that Outside Voice is taking root. Web traffic is growing, and we’ve fielded many comments, pro and con, responding to our writers’ stances. With organizing themes like Fit City and Trail Watch, Biofiles and Family Green, Outside Voice shows early signs of becoming the vital forum we envision. After all, with over 100 Alliance partners, our coalition clearly has much to discuss.

As The Intertwine’s cultural tribe grows, our big tent will accommodate your many voices. In the past year alone, we've added multiple new Intertwine community platforms, from 2013’s Our Common Ground Report and promotions campaign, to Outside Voice and dialogues, like last week’s, that bring the conversation face-to-face.

But whether these platforms work -- to both challenge and unite our diverse community, with partners spanning healthcare and sportswear, architecture and education, park groups and public utilities -- well, that depends on you. Are you ready to chime in, carry the conversation forward, celebrate both the shared loves and split hairs that characterize our cultural tribe?

If so, lace up. We’ll meet you here next Wednesday. And bring your nutcase...