A recent article by Annie Jia in ClimateWire reporting from the third annual Behavior, Energy and Climate Change Conference, nicely summarizes what we need to stay focused on to create culture change for conservation, and a better, healthier planet for all.

Understanding people is the key, and it's why we invest so much in market research and making the findings and implications widely known for our Partner network and the wider conservation community to take advantage of in order to become most effective. As the article states, "Thinking does not equal doing" and it discusses how critical it is to move beyond thinking that helping people understand the issues and changing people's attitudes will translate into action.

Doug McKenzie-Mohr, a guru in community focused social marketing, discusses how effective programs are designed to change behavior surrounding climate change and other issues, by first understanding and addressing the barriers to action. Knowing the exact barriers can help you tailor programs to address them.

One critical barrier is people not knowing what actions to take in order to help. This is also a key finding from our recent market research: It is clear that, zoos, aquariums, and museums (ZAMs) are trusted messengers for information on environmental issues. The public is increasingly looking to our Partner ZAMs to provide solutions that people can incorporate into their daily lives.

The article also discusses how social networks are a powerful way to affect people's behavior.

You can read the whole article, reprinted here in the New York Times.
 

Copenhagen talks are entering the final phase as we publish this issue of our newsletter and many of our Partners have been actively engaged. Certainly, our Partner zoos, aquariums, and museums (ZAMs) have a huge role to play. ZAMs are much more than just another voice asking for an agreement; ZAMs can also play an important role in reaching out to the public about how to support any agreement reached at Copenhagen and beyond.

It is extremely clear from our national (US and Canada) market research that ZAMs are trusted resources for conservation information and, moreover, the public is more likely to adopt a prescriptive behavioral recommendation coming from a ZAM than from other sources. The Ocean Project is working on developing a global collaborative effort with our Partners to help better link climate change, oceans, and personal action. Stay tuned to The Ocean Project blog for more information on this soon.

In the meantime, one of our Partners, the Zoological Society of London, working in collaboration with GLOBE International, produced a powerful 12-minute video for the Copenhagen summit. The film shows the devastating effect of climate change on the world's incredible, diverse coral reefs, and people. It paints a disturbing picture of a world that has lost its reefs forever - our world in 2065. We encourage our Partners to share this widely with your visitors and the public; there are no restrictions to screening it on websites, in aquariums, etc. You can download and screen a two-minute version or the longer full high resolution film.

Also, for added inspiration, just a few weeks ago, President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives, a nation facing the very real threat of being overwhelmed by rising seas due to climate change, gave an impassioned speech that you might like to watch or read. In it he challenged the nations most vulnerable to climate change to demonstrate moral leadership, and join a "global survival pact" by committing to carbon neutral development. It's an inspiration for all nations to ramp up their efforts. Read the speech via link above and/or watch some of it here.
 

ACID TEST, a film produced by NRDC, was made to raise awareness about the largely unknown problem of ocean acidification, which poses a fundamental challenge to life in the seas and the health of the entire planet. Like global warming, ocean acidification stems from the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution.View the film (22 minutes) and learn more about "the other CO2 problem." You can also watch Sigourney Weaver deftly steer an interview on Fox News toward this important topic and film, rather than focusing on her blockbuster-to-be movie, Avatar.
 

Thanks to those who have participated in the Ocean Picture Of the Day (OPOD) service that we launched on September 1st. Contributors from five continents have used the OPOD service to share their feelings about the ocean (we need African contributions). All you need to do to contribute is take a digital photograph of the ocean or Great Lakes and provide a caption as to what emotions the photograph evokes. To contribute, digitize your favorite ocean-themed photograph as a JPEG- or PNG-formatted image (to which you have copyright), and upload it using our OPOD form. Bookmark the OPOD home page and visit the site daily for a colorful reminder of how we all enjoy and appreciate the ocean and inspire us to do more for ocean conservation.
 

In October, NOAA announced 11 grants totaling more than $9 million that will create new education projects in aquariums across the nation. Congratulations to our Partners who were awarded prizes! The projects will educate visitors about the ocean, climate change, and encourage better stewardship of our planet. Read NOAA's full news posting.
 

We urge all Partners to finish the year with a advocacy push for environmental literacy!

Join the following Partners: Aquarium of the Pacific, Binder Park Zoo, Buffalo Zoo, Chicago Zoological Society/Brookfield Zoo, New York Aquarium, Oregon Coast Aquarium, Santa Barbara Zoo, John G. Shedd Aquarium, Toledo Zoo, and the Wildlife Conservation Society who have already signed a letter to US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader John Boehner asking them to urge the House to pass H.R. 3644, The Ocean, Coastal, and Watershed Education Act. This bill authorizes and strengthens NOAA's existing regional Bay-Watershed Education and Training (B-WET) and national Environmental Literacy Grants (ELG) programs, which are helping to advance coastal, ocean, and watershed environmental education in formal and informal education systems.

The B-WET and ELG programs have funded many valuable activities including The Ocean Project’s recent public opinion research – America, the Ocean, and Climate Change. Without NOAA funding, our Partners and other friends would not be receiving the latest - and ongoing - market research providing insights into how to more effectively reach and engage Americans for conservation.

How Partners can help: We are collaborating with the Campaign for Environmental Literacy (CEL) and others to secure strong support for this bill by getting organizational signatories to the aforementioned letter to congressional leaders. Please email Jim Elder, executive director of CEL at JElderJR@aol.com, with the name of your organization and the name of your director.

You can see a list of co-sponsors, learn more about this bill, and track its progress at the govtrack.us website, which has lots of valuable information and resources to improve civic involvement.
 

World Oceans Day 2010 will be here sooner than we think. We look forward to working with you to make WOD 2010 the biggest and best one ever for our ocean planet!

For the last seven years The Ocean Project has been helping to promote and coordinate this event with the World Ocean Network, with steady growth each subsequent year. Now, with official UN designation, we expect this event to grow rapidly, as there is already much planned for 2010. For instance, with the WOD 2010 theme focused on the great diversity of life in the ocean (final details being worked out), we are excited that the Census of Marine Life will release the results of their massive 10-year ocean census next year. Moreover, 2010 is designated as the International Year of Biodiversity. Continuing with the diversity theme, we are working closely with Dr. Seuss Enterprises and AZA to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Dr. Seuss's book, One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish, complete with Seussian birthday parties at participating institutions on WOD 2010.

Click www.WorldOceansDay.org to learn more. Enter your event and connect with others! Come back for the new website and much more early in 2010!
 

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