Intro Paragraph:
No campaign to
combat climate change has been quite as successful as 350.org. Formed in 2007 at
Middlebury College in Vermont, 350 has made use of a variety of emerging digital
media technologies in order to engage Americans and those around the world in
the fight. Described by its founders as more of a movement than an
organization, their mission is to “dismantle the influence and infrastructure
of the fossil fuel industry, and to develop people-centric solutions to the
climate crisis.” The program’s website offers educational tools, blogs and
online news stories, which are each in their own small way working to reach
people in all corners of the world, and it’s working; 188 countries currently
have active groups inspired in part by this movement. 350.org is a model for the ways that
digital media can be used to effectively connect people on a global scale to
foster the discussion of climate change.
Paragraph 2: Who is Bill McKibben, and why has his influence been so important to this cause?
Paragraph 3: What does “350” mean? How has it been used in a digital media context to educate people?
Paragraph 4: 350 has become a global movement; here I will talk about its reach and its impact on other countries as made possible by new media technologies.
Paragraph 5: Importance of Youth: it is argued that youth are the force behind ending dependence on fossil fuels. 350 makes use of Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc. Young people also have a higher rate of social/digital media use, and as new forms of media are developed, younger generations are the ones who will adopt them faster and hopefully use them in the context of discussing issues like climate change.
Paragraph 6: The website for 350 offers many tools that can be used to educate people about climate change. There are pamphlets and other educational materials, tips for starting your own group, interactive maps showing the locations of upcoming meetings, etc. The website wants people to “use online tools to leverage [their] power, to
help those people see themselves as one movement, and to facilitate strategic
offline action.”
Paragraph 7: Other climate/digital media groups and
effectiveness. What media tools are they using that 350 could adopt, and why have they not been as successful?
Paragraph 8: Conclusion, looking to the future of 350 and the importance of a tool like this movement in combating climate change. I might bring in the environmental destruction present in the futuristic society of Feed to show the necessity of 350.
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