2009 – Page 2 – Learning from Dogs

There’s a new power on the streets and it may make politicians feel very uncomfortable!

gordon-brown-worried — The Rt Hon Gordon Brown

Like me, you probably haven’t heard of Greg Craven. I hadn’t until about 24 hours before starting to write this Post (that would be Friday afternoon, Mountain Time, on the 11th December).

I was doing some research for an earlier Post about Copenhagen and came across a YouTube video created by Greg. More details and links later after making a more fundamental point.

This video of Greg’s has had 2,704,000 viewings! The information on that YouTube ‘page’ has had over 7,500,000 viewings. Greg has now written a book and so on, and so on.

In other words, the personal message that Greg is conveying has reached an unbelievable number of people. That would have been impossible without the power and reach of modern social media software systems: YouTube, Facebook, Linked-In, Twitter, MySpace, Digg, at al.

In the past, information has flowed outwards in a much more ‘top down’ way. Hierarchical, as it is called. That has suited those that wish, in some way, to control the message. While individuals would always chatter and gossip with their peers, there was a finite limit to that before “Send reinforcements, we are going to advance” morphed into “Send three and fourpence, we are going to a dance”!

The example of Greg Craven shows only too well how information can now flow. Out of anyone’s control, spreading virally.

Having made my point, I want to return to the subject matter that Greg is championing – but will include that in a separate Post.

Politicians! Be very careful what you say. We are all listening now, in one way or another, and ready to pounce if we don’t trust your words!

By Paul Handover

Will we ever know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

It’s a week since the start of The United Nations Climate Change Conference – Copenhagen, 2009 and it’s clearly been a media success if nothing else.

My instinct has, for many years, been the assumption that mankind behaves in many ways that harm our environment and that, ultimately, harming the very planet upon which our survival depends could happen. Stupid, yes! But in line with some of the more strange behaviours of homo sapiens.

But like millions of people, I do not have either the scientific background or the time available to test the statements made by so many governments and other ‘wise’ bodies as to whether the science of climate change, global warming or whatever, is real and irrefutable. One thinks that would be relatively easy to do and that after all the years and millions of dollars spent on climate research, the proof would be there. Cause and effect were perfectly understood.

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