24 hours of Powerpoint

Last week Al Gore’s Climate Reality project, went live for 24 hours over the interweb; involving thousands of viewers and 24 presenters from around the globe. As it states on the website

 “The Climate Reality Project is bringing the facts about the climate crisis into the mainstream and engaging the public in conversation about how to solve it. We help citizens around the world discover the truth and take meaningful steps to bring about change.”

and it did. I saw a Powerpoint presentation which showed the facts and how climate skeptics get the facts wrong, there was also video containing footage from recent natural disasters and speeches focusing on the fact this is our one planet and we have to look after it.

Issue is , this presentation was repeated every hour…

I understand that we are a diverse world and we all sleep at different times plus speak different languages and for that, some things need to be repeated. However in my mind this opportunity of 24 hours of reality fell short of what it could of been.

• Everyone has seen An Inconvenient Truth and everyone remembers it being very influential but also a long-arsed Powerpoint show. At times Climate Reality felt like an uncreative follow-up especially with its hourly repetition.

• It was aimed at educating those climate skeptics and climate denialists that it is not sun spots, volcanoes or government conspiracy but real and you couldn’t help think it was also meant for those who live in the USA. (But wasn’t An Inconvenient Truth doing the same?) Now a question can be, how many of these types of people watched the event? was there any way of persuading them to watch it? or did it turn out to be a ‘preaching to the converted scenario’.

• Also the live video feed itself did not give much more then hourly repetition of “climate change is happening and here is the proof via graphs and natural disasters, so now is our chance to deal with it.”  They was no bullet points on what can be done now on the large and small scale, what action was specifically happening in the host country or even a chance to donate to climate aid charities.
  Even though the website gives you links to action and you can donate to the project itself, though its not specifically aid.

• The studio presenters in the USA seemed to be a bit on the botex-side and their guests were of the old/male/white type. Whilst the 24 presenters from the world showed more diversity of backgrounds and all came from respectable climate action backgrounds.
  Myself being 25, I just wished more youth were present, after all it is our future and the amount of incredible things some of us (predominantly woman) have achieved in our short lives makes us worthy of presenting with balding, bearded white guys.

Thinking of other global live events- Band Aid, Live 8 and Live Earth spring to mind and each has followed the live music concert set up and each Band Aid follow up (sorry Al Gore) has been less successfully.

A Climate Reality 2.0 really needs to not follow the same format and needs to step up a gear. You can’t yet again go into stating the obvious to everyone, you need to call for action, donation being one part but als0 creating the opportunity for it to be a real social media event.

– People sharing local/national/international action of all types collaboratively using hashtags or simple maps – which could then be forwarded on to friends who live in those areas.

– Using the 24hours to actually come out with a positive step forward. For example a collaborative statement. It can start as a zero-draft then via a wiki within 24 hours a global Climate Reality deceleration on what needs to be done.

– Plus giving the webcast a more dynamic scope. It can start with the same presentation, but then has to flow onto a continuing narrative, making people want to watch the whole 24 hours (not in one go of course)

Any other ideas?

Also if Climate Reality or Al’ steal any of these 3 ideas I will sue you for trillions of chocolate digestive biscuits.