The Big Switch – Watch Out Energy Companies, The People Are Coming

After yesterday’s post about how the Climate Justice Collective is planning to take on the Big Six energy corporations – 38 Degrees have also launched a new campaign to take them on.

The Big Switch looks like an interesting one – partnering with Which? and a famous face (Jonathan Maitland). In their own words –

he Big Switch is a new way for us to take the power back from big gas and electricity companies. We’ll bargain as a group with gas and electricity companies to persuade them to give us the lowest price.

First you sign up using the form above to register your interest in taking part in The Big Switch. Then expert negotiators at Which? will start bargaining with the energy companies using a ‘reverse auction’.

Companies will compete to give us the cheapest electricity and gas. Once the deal has been secured, you’ll be notified via email and you can choose whether or not to accept it.

Link Loving 09.02.12

• Mahfam Malek is my new favourite person-I-vaguely-know in the world.
• Imagine that – an organisation that puts a graph of it’s theory of change on their website. Awesome. h/t Amy Mount.
• Four inspiring examples of digital storytelling. Layla Revis.
• A year after the worst oil disaster in US history, BP made $3 million an hour. Rebecca Leber.
• The evil brilliance of Komen’s Karen Handel. Ilyse Hogue.
• Obama gives his blessing for a super PAC. Dan Eggen.

Meet The Climate Justice Collective

Climate activism is back – and we need you to be a part of it.

18-19 February in Oxford.

Details – here.

 

Link Loving 08.02.12

• How Walter Neagle, the late Bayard Rustin’s partner, is re-introducing his story to the world. Robert Samuels.
• There is now a reality TV show about wind turbine workers. Hello green economy! Christopher Mims.
• The London borough of Southwark has 77 betting shops – with more to come. Rowenna Davis has had enough.
• Conference calling across the Occupy rhizome – and how learning spreads. Joan Donovan.
• The Chinese Marshall Plan. Eliot Gao.
• Look To The Stars – all the news you want about celebrities and charity fundraising. h/t Shiftlabs.

10 Tips On Writing From David Ogilvy

1. Read the Roman-Raphaelson book on writing. Read it three times.

2. Write the way you talk. Naturally.

3. Use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.

4. Never use jargon words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally, judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass.

5. Never write more than two pages on any subject.

6. Check your quotations.

7. Never send a letter or a memo on the day you write it. Read it aloud the next morning — and then edit it.

8. If it is something important, get a colleague to improve it.

9. Before you send your letter or your memo, make sure it is crystal clear what you want the recipient to do.

10. If you want ACTION, don’t write. Go and tell the guy what you want.

h/t Maria Popova.

Link Loving 07.02.12

• The awesome team at 350.org are hiring.
• What good is Wall Street? John Cassidy with a fantastic piece in the New Yorker.
• So you think all those online campaigns are useless? Julie Bort.
• Aid doesn’t work: breaking the cycle. Simon Moss.
• Abolish the food industry. Raj Patel.
• A beautiful short video that’s gone viral about mothers and daughters in relation to cancer.

Why You Should Watch TV

“We live our lives through media – people spend around 5-7 hours a day watching TV. It’s a place where we learn who we are, and who we are with. We figure out what’s important to us. On the one hand, it’s easy to trivialise TV, because it’s part of this corporate structure and we know that the programmes are just there to sell us the advertisements, but on the other hand, for better or worse, it is the place where many of our basic core symbols are enacted, and where we really think about what it means to be human in the twenty-first century.”

Diane Winston is the Knight Chair in Media and Religion at the University of Southern California. In this fascinating conversation on my new favourite podcast ‘On Being‘ (h/t Vanessa Reid), she discusses monsters, myths and religion in TV. Unexpectedly interesting listening!

Climate Campaigner Jobs With 10:10 And 350.org

Some great climate campaigning jobs coming up –

• 10:10 are hiring a campaigns-director – absolutely fantastic opportunity with someone with experience + big ideas
• 350.org is hiring an online campaigner to help move the world past fossil fuels.

Link Loving 06.02.12

• Romania gets it’s protest on. Alexandru Predoiu.
• The public are fully behind taking on the finance industry. Sunny Hundal.
• Meredith Alexander explains why she resigned from the London Olympic committee.
• Leading Conservative blogger Tim Montgomery backs marriage equality. Stephen Grey.
• Tom Baker analyses The Times’ cycling campaign.
• Every windfarm mapped – and the MPs who hate them. Simon Rogers.

Emerald City

Great introduction to the work of Emerald City, one of the key players in the US Green Jobs revolution. If you’d like to find out what’s happening in the UK – keep an eye on the East London Green Jobs Alliance.