Video: Introduction to 24 Hours of Reality

Between September 14th and 15th, the event 24 Hours of Reality saw people around the globe calling attention to the climate crisis and working to solve it. By the time former Vice President Al Gore finished his presentation on the evening of September 15th, the 24 hour long event had 8.6 million views.

There are countless stories of impressive grassroots mobilization for the event. A company in Tel Aviv hosted a watch party at their headquarters. A group of graduate students in Athens, Georgia rented out a popular local movie theater. People across the world joined hands to say: Climate change is real, it’s happening now and the time to act is now.

But this is just the beginning. There are important actions you can take today:

Request a presentation: There are more than 3,000 trained Climate Presenters around the globe. Organize an event and invite a Presenter to come to your community.
Go local: Team up with our partners around the world and help solve the climate crisis. Visit our website to find a partner organization near you.
Moving Planet: On Sept 24, hit the streets with http://350.org for a global day of action. Find an activity near you.
Check our comprehensive video library to watch highlights from 24 Hours of Reality.

It is up to all of us to continue to stand up for reality and share the truth about the climate crisis. We will succeed because we must.

For more information click here.

© 2011, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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24 Hours of Reality

This event is a 24-hour worldwide marathon all about the reality of the climate crisis. 24 Hours of Reality will be broadcast live online, over 24 hours, representing 24 time zones and 13 languages. The Climate Reality Project will host the live streaming event, which begins on September 13 at 8 p.m. EDT and ends at the same time on September 14.

A different climate activist will speak each hour on the effect climate change is having on his or her community and "connect the dots" between human emissions and more frequent and extreme weather, the group says. The event will conclude with a multimedia presentation by Gore live from New York City.

This global event designed to help people to make the connection between extreme weather, climate change, and the need to push the planet beyond fossil fuels.

Around the world, people will use the power of the Internet to present their stories of living with climate change, and make clear the connection between extreme weather and the corporate carbon pollution that's changing our climate. All the presentations, which will be in multiple languages, and in every single time zone, will be streamed live at ClimateRealityProject.org. 24 Hours of Reality is being spearheaded by Vice President Al Gore.

24 Hours of Reality is a worldwide event to broadcast the reality of the climate crisis. It will consist of a new multimedia presentation created by Al Gore and delivered once per hour for 24 hours, representing every time zone around the globe. 24 Presenters. 24 Time Zones. 13 Languages. 1 Message.

Each hour people living with the reality of climate change will connect the dots between recent extreme weather events — including floods, droughts and storms — and the manmade pollution that is changing our climate. We will offer a round-the-clock, round-the-globe snapshot of the climate crisis in real time. The deniers may have millions of dollars to spend, but we have a powerful advantage. We have reality.

From Tonga to Cape Verde, Mexico City to Alaska, Jakarta to London, people living with the impacts of climate change every day will tell their story. You can experience as much as you like without even leaving your home. Click here to find the location — or locations — where you would like to watch a presentation. Due to logistical considerations, three of the presentations will be broadcast remotely from New York — Tonga, the Solomon Islands and French Polynesia — but will include local footage and information. All other presentations will be filmed on location around the world.

For more information click here.

© 2011, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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Social Network for Sustainable Development

The number of social networks is rapidly growing and for the sustainably minded networker, there is enviMotion. Some members compare enviMotion to a mix between Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Groupon. This social network is designed to bring together all those interested in sustainable development. The network welcomes businesses and NGOs involved in sustainability, industry experts, and others committed to sustainable development.

enviMotion allows everyone to be a part of information sharing and discussions on sustainable development related topics, news and special offers.

Members can share their sustainable development commitment and get the latest news on environmental policies and processes. The platform is well suited to creating partnerships. Specialists (companies whose activity is directly linked with sustainable development), can communicate on their activity, projects, and sustainable development policy. Specialists can also add jobs and internship listings.

More than 460 companies, associations and communities from 20 countries have already joined this social network.

To find out more or to join click here.

© 2011, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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Social Media and Toyota's Greener Cars

Car manufacturer Toyota has developed a private social media platform know as the “Toyota Friend” service. This social media platform will enable drivers of Toyota's electric and plug-in hybrid cars to use their smartphones, tablets and computers to access their car's data.

The Toyota Friend service will allow these drivers to share diagnostic information about their cars with dealerships and relevant servicing personnel. The information include things like driving habits, car performance and battery level.

Drivers of Toyota's greener cars can also connect the network to existing well-known social networks like Twitter and Facebook to share stories and improve efficiency. Toyota is not the first to develop social media platforms for their vehicles. Ford has worked with Microsoft to create Sync, an on-board wireless system that lets drivers access the Bing search engine and a number of interactive online features.

Toyota is developing this social presence along with Salesforce, a provider of web-based software for large companies. Salesforce.com will invest $2.7 million in Toyota Media Service, which oversees Toyota’s cloud computing projects like Toyota Friend. As part of the deal. Toyota will also invest $5.4 million in its media subsidiary to fund the private social network.

Toyota will benefit from Salesforce.com's private enterprise social network known as Chatter. This network feeds into its customer relationship management (CRM) software and is designed to streamline collaboration and internal communication. Like Yammer, chatter is a mainstream social networking site for large enterprises. The service will first be available in Japan in 2012.

© 2011, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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Social Media is Mobilizing the Youth Vote

Social Media is Mobilizing the Youth Vote in the Canadian Federal Election

Social media has been driving the environmental movement to new heights and encouraging businesses to be more sustainable, now it is being used to challenge Canada's federal government. As the first social media influenced election in Canadian history, the 2011 Canadian federal election seems to be poised to produce dramatic results.

Due to fragmented nature of Canadian politics pundits predicted a Harper majority even though the majority of Canadians do not support him. Organizations like LeadNow are working hard to mobilize the youth vote in the face of historic voter apathy. In 2008, just 58.8 percent of Canadians voted and only 37.4 percent of the 18- to 24-year old demographic bothered to vote.

Leadnow is using the power of social media to encourage a Vote Wave and social media campaigns like Vote Mobs are connecting with the young voters and mobilizing youth which is increasing support for the New Democrats.

Flash mobs are well known to supporters of the environment and now we are seeing a more organized event known as a “vote mobs.” In a vote mob, university students use social media to encourage their peers to get out to advanced polls. Leadnow asked people to host 'voter socials' during advanced polling between April 22nd and the 25th. Organizers of voter socials invited friends and family to meet at an advanced poll, vote, and then celebrate together afterwards.

These vote mobs are getting Canada's youth involved to help energize and encourage them to vote and engage in the political process. The first vote mob appears to have taken place at Ontario’s University of Guelph, at the end of March. There are now 38 separate vote mobs listed on the website of LeadNow.

Whether or not social media and initiatives like vote mobs will actually get more young people to the polls depends on whether they shed their tendency towards slacktivism. (Slacktivism is the tendency express interest but not follow-up). There is reason to believe that young people will actually vote on May 2. Voter turnout at the advance polls this year set records, rising 34 per cent over 2008 numbers.

On May 2, we could see a radically different outcome than the one predicted by the pundits. The polls are suggesting that a big turnout for the under-35s could end in unprecedented gains for the NDP. This would be of immense benefit to Canada's environment.

© 2011, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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Greenpeace Campaign is Asking Facebook to Unfriend Coal and Befriend Renewable Energy

Greenpeace has been peacefully defending the planet since 1971, now they are asking Facebook to unfriend coal by Earth Day on April 22, 2011.

Greenpeace has played a pivotal role in huge environment victories including:

- Commercial whaling moratorium
- Ban on toxic waste exports to less developed countries
- Bans on dumping radioactive and industrial waste at sea
- 50-year moratorium on mineral exploitation in Antarctica
- An end to large-scale high-sea driftnet fishing
- Establishment of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary
- Ban on all nuclear weapons testing

Today, the fight to save the planet has grown more serious than ever. The threat of global warming, destruction of ancient forests, deterioration of our oceans, and the threat of a nuclear disaster loom large. Greenpeace is actively working to address these and other threats.

Greenpeace's newest campaign is encouraging Facebook to drop coal and commit to 100 percent renewable energy, cutting its carbon footprint and helping in the struggle to prevent catastrophic climate change.

Facebook announced in February 2010 that it is building a massive data centre in Oregon, using the latest energy efficient computers. But the Facebook data center will run on electricity made by burning coal which is the dirtiest source of energy and largest single source of global warming pollution in the world.

Greenpeace wants Facebook to run their massive data-centres on renewable energy, and ‘Unfriend’ dirty coal and dangerous nuclear. Greenpeace also wants to see Facebook be a climate leader and push for strong clean energy and climate policies in the US and around the world.

According to Greenpeace, Facebook uses about 55 percent coal power while Google uses 34 percent and Yahoo uses just 12.7 percent.

Join others in demanding that Facebook commit to stop using coal and choose renewable power for all its servers as soon as possible.

To support this campaign, join Greenpeace's Facebook group and help Greenpeace to get the social networking website to go green. You can also share this post on Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites.

Greenpeace is also trying set a Guinness World Record by getting more than 50,000 comments for Renewable Energy in 24hrs on April 13, 2011. Add your comment by simply following the steps below:

1. To comment on this post you must first ‘Like’ Greenpeace's Unfriend Coal Facebook page.

2. Click here to leave comments for Facebook staff, in support of renewable energy.

3. Repeat! You can comment more than once - it is still counted in the record attempt!

4. Share this note on your profile to spread the word among your friends!

Greenpeace is displaying your comments today directly outside FB headquarters in California. The best 50 commenters worldwide will get a ‘Facebook Unfriend Coal t-shirts. For more information on this campaign click here.

UPDATE

Greenpeace International has succeeded in setting a world record for getting the highest number of comments on one of its Facebook pages in a single day. According to an email blast to subscribers/members, the world record consists of no less than 80,000 comments in at least 11 different languages on the Facebook Unfriend Coal page. The initial target of 50, 000 comments was met just 11 hours after the call for posting comments on the page was sent out to members.

© 2011, Richard Matthews. All rights reserved.

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