in the community

Familiar with the term NIMBY (the acronym for “Not In My Back Yard”)? New Brooklyn-based nonprofit ioby.org turns that model on its head, by connecting donors and volunteers directly to green projects in their communities. Designed to redress decades of policy that placed environmental hazards in low-income areas, ioby.org also reminds us that city streets and sidewalks are as much part of “the environment” as the Amazon or Arctic.

Search a map on the ioby site for a project that appeals. Click “donate,” or walk down the street to find out how to get involved. The average price of a project is $410, which might plant a few trees, or buy a rainwater harvesting system, or design a green roof nearby. As co-founder Erin Barnes points out, “A small amount of money can go a long way.”

Have a good idea for a green project in your neighborhood? Does it fit the criteria explained on the site? (It has to be local, help the environment, be site-specific, and make no profit -— and small and simple are a plus.) Apply online, and connect directly to the money and manpower you need to make it happen.

Trademarked by the nonprofit BrainShift Foundation, the phrase captures the spirit of a movement that’s making headway across the country: ecologically conscious homeowners are competing to see who can reduce carbon emissions the fastest. Now in its second season, the Energy Smackdown™ uses television and a webcast to document the energy-saving efforts of teams of households from three Massachusetts towns. Ten cities are following Sacramento’s example by sending out monthly utility bills that compare energy consumption among neighbors. Efficient consumers get a smiley face. (Frowns turned out to be too upsetting.)

As this New York Times article documents, harnessing a little healthy competition turns out to be a really effective way to raise awareness and change behavior. Are you keeping down with the Joneses? How would you feel about comparing utility bills over the back fence?

Last week the Museum hosted an energetic discussion about the role of the media in public understanding of climate change. Moderator Bud Ward, of the Yale Forum on Climate Change & the Media, asked a panel of journalists to consider what they’d learned from decades covering global warming. “Let’s assume that journalists didn’t do a flawless job,” he asked. “What have we learned?”

Much of the response focused on how the issue has long been politicized, with the New York Times’ Andrew Revkin pointing out many people benefited, and that the Bush administration was a great target. “But this masked the underlying story,” said Revkin, describing it as “energy, energy, energy. Climate is a symptom of this much larger problem,” he continued. “Current energy choices do not remotely match what the world will need in 2050 to give nine billion people reasonable lives—and there’s nothing on the table.” Nor do most Americans seem inclined to rise to the challenge. Despite signs of progress like the box-office success of An Inconvenient Truth, a survey conducted last April by the Pew Research Council showed that less than half of Americans understand that pollution is causing the earth to warm. We’re also out of step with the international community, “where climate change is a major part of the Green platform,” as American University professor Matthew Nisbet pointed out. “Here the two-party system polarizes the debate, with most Republicans rejecting the idea that climate change is real, and most Democrats relegating it to a second- or third-tier policy issue.”

One reason global warming is easily viewed through a partisan lens is because it’s still pretty abstract for most of us. Panelists were optimistic that more targeted media coverage could change that. “It’s a political issue, like many others,” said ABC News reporter Bill Blakemore, “but it's a remarkably transformative event story, a foreign relations story, a trade story...The challenge is defining the new ‘beat.’” Ward concurred: “This story has to get off the science desk. Show me a beat that doesn’t have some connection to climate.” And Nisbet had a bunch of practical suggestions for reframing the issue to emphasize the local and the personal: as a moral and ethical and imperative, through a story on a local religious group; from an economic perspective, through a story about a local green-energy initiative; as a public-health story, but relocated from the poles to the suburbs. “The public should see climate change as a major political and personal priority, and see ways that they can act.”

What media source do you trust to give you the real scoop on climate change?

Thanks to so many of you on Facebook for donating your status to climate change. Now, another request. The American Museum of Natural History is asking people who care about the health of the planet to join our Facebook cause. Our goal is to get at least 5,000 people to join up and to learn more about the history and impact of global warming. The exhibition It explains not only the risks associated with global warming, but the many small- and large-scale options we have when it comes to reducing carbon emissions.

Visit Facebook to see how to join up and spread the word.