Thursday, April 10, 2008

“Deferred Prosecution”: Monsanto and Other Beneficiaries

Advocates of so-called "deferred prosecution agreements" rightly point out the many difficulties and inefficiencies of presently available legal channels. However the fact that it is not expedient to initiate litigation against corporations guilty of social violations is suggestive of a need to overhaul the system, and not a justification for deferring and often truncating prosecution.

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Rethos: Agents of Social-Political Sustainability in Action

Witness the approach that an Alternative Channel affiliated organization has adopted to the social-political dimension of the sustainability project.

Monday, April 07, 2008

Social-Political Sustainability: The Human Element

It is commonly accepted that the project of sustainable development is conceptually composed of three constituent parts. These parts are (1) environmental sustainability, (2) economic sustainability, and (3) social-political sustainability. The United Nations 2005 World Summit refers to the “interdependent and mutually reinforcing pillars” of sustainable development as environmental protection, economic development and social development. The interdependency of the first two is evident; it is perhaps the greatest challenge of our time to satisfy the needs and wants of burgeoning populations within the binding constraints imposed by our physical environment. But what is this great hoopla about social development and sustainability of politics, and what exactly is its place?

Click here to read the entire article

Climate Change: Beyond the Emissions Debate

"In an article in the journal Nature last week, researchers concerned with the economics, politics, and science of climate ... argued that technology policy, not emissions policy, must dominate."

This article from the Interational Herald Tribune forcefully demonstrates how the discourse of climate change is attaining a new focus.

With input from McGill University's Chris Green and Joseph Romm of the Center for American Progress.

Mr Romm is also the editor of the blog Climate Progress.

Sunday, April 06, 2008

AC Forum 2008: Environmental Filmmaking at its Best!

This is the third of our series profiling all the workshops held this year at the Alternative Channel Forum on Social Networking and Responsible Media. Each workshop features leading experts on the most interesting and controversial issues related to the new media's responsibility to social awareness and humanitarian causes. Register to attend now, or join us for LIVE BLOG coverage beginning with the first panel and lasting all day.

At 12.00 Robert Lamb will open the only workshop of the day to be conducted entirely in English and without translation. How to Make an Impact with Environmental Films? Few should know better than Robert Lamb.

Mr Lamb began his career in television as a graduate trainee with the BBC. He later joined the Earthscan team at the International Institute for Environment and Development and established, with Anil Agarwal, the first environmental news features service. At the beginning of the 1980s Lamb was with the International Union for Conservation of Nature in Switzerland as a communications chief; by the middle years of that decade he was a senior policy advisor to the UN Environment Programme. TVE Television Trust for the Environment was developed under his stewardship, and during his tenure as director there its films and news features won over 300 awards, including a Prix Italia and a Peabody Award.

His most recent projects include the annual World Challenge competition and the emerging Nature Inc. Click here to see a pilot of its new series.


Have an opinion, or a question you'd like to ask Mr Lamb? Leave a comment, and we'll seek answers on 30 April in Barcelona.

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Video Exclusive! 40 Million Trees and a Nobel Peace Prize: One Woman’s Story

Founded in 1977 by the brilliant and deeply compassionate Kenyan activist Dr. Wangari Maathai, The Green Belt Movement has profoundly changed the physical and social landscape of Kenya...and it all began with planting trees.

See how Wangari Maathai became the first African woman, and first environmentalist, to win the Nobel Prize for Peace. Alternative Channel is proud to host this exclusive excerpt from the powerful and inspiring documentary Roots of Change: The Vision of Wangari Maathai by Lisa Merton and Alan Dater.





An exclusive interview with The Green Belt Movement's leader Wangari Maathai will be presented at the Alternative Channel Forum 2008.

Can't make it to Barcelona on April 30th for the Forum? Join us for a live blog of the event starting at 9am CET (3am EST) and lasting all day. Will include complete coverage of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Rigoberta MENCHÚ TUM's special lecture on communication and social transformation.

AC Forum 2008:  Marketing Humanitarianism

This is the second of our series profiling all the workshops held this year at the Alternative Channel Forum on Social Networking and Responsible Media. Each workshop features leading experts on the most interesting and controversial issues related to the new media's responsibility to social awareness and humanitarian causes. Register to attend now, or join us for LIVE BLOG coverage beginning with the first panel and lasting all day.

Our first video-focused panel of the day will be going live from Barcelona at 13.00 local time under the theme Advertising Strategies to Raise Public Awareness. Featured panelists will be Aziyadé Poltier of the United Nations Development Program, Celia Ramon of Amnesty International and Géraldine Aragou of ACT Responsible, a non-profit advertising community initiative. The panelists will be asked for their insights into the use of promotional material, particularly video content, by non-profit and humanitarian organizations, and to comment on the present and future capacity of such material to raise awareness and catalyze change.

Alternative Channel invites you to an early screening of selected video spots.













Have an opinion, or a question you'd like to ask our panelists? Leave a comment, and we'll seek answers on 30 April in Barcelona.

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

AC Forum 2008 Featured Debate! Citizen Journalism: Future or Folly?

Throughout the month of April, I'll be profiling all of the workshops held this year at the Alternative Channel Forum on Social Networking and Responsible Media. Each workshop features leading experts discussing some of the most interesting and controversial issues related to the new media's responsibility to social awareness and humanitarian causes. Have a question you'd like to ask our panelists? Leave a comment, and we'll try to get it answered at the Forum.




Two men, one destiny: THE ALTERNATIVE CHANNEL FORUM on Social Networking and Responsible Media, Barcelona, 30 April 2008!


At 10.00 Vicente Verdú and Thierry Maillet will be the first to melt the ice as they kick off the day’s first panel on the theme The Participative Society: Limits and Opportunities of Citizen Journalism. Each will give their thoughts on the present state of the discourse and their visions for the future of this new popular mobilization.

The emergence of new mediums of communication which is marking our century, and the preference for increasing internet use over engagement of more “classic” forms of media, are remodeling our modern society and redefining its channels of information.

These new technologies allow for a great democratization of knowledge and its distribution. At a time when thousands of new blogs appear each day on the roll, and when mobile devices have become indispensable, how can we define this new participative society and what are its limits?

Vicente Verdú, editor and columnist, is recognized for his lucid analyses of social trends and phenomena. He holds a doctorate in Social Sciences from the Sorbonne and is a member of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. His columns are published in the prominent Spanish daily El País.

Thierry Maillet is the author of La Génération Participation in which he investigates the relationship between consumption and participative citizenship. He writes in his blog that his past has forged in him a strong interest in the interaction between the citizen and the corporation. He shares his time between consulting and research activities and instruction at the Universidad Carlos III, Madrid.

In a Barcelona state of mind? Register to attend now!

If you prefer to take in the heat from afar, please join us for a LIVE BLOG, beginning with this opening panel and continuing all day. The intellectual face-to-face is not to be missed.

Have an opinion about the opportunities and limits of citizen journalism? Would you like to ask our panelists a question? Leave a comment and we'll seek answers in Barcelona on 30 April.

Dangers and Opportunities: The Future of Greenwash

The phenomenon of “greenwash” can be viewed from various angles. TerraChoice’s “Six Sins of Greenwashing” have become widely circulated and well known. Additionally, three variations on its definition in increasing order of severity are useful—“Greenwashing is the unjustified appropriation of environmental virtue by a company … to create a pro-environmental image, sell a product or a policy, or to try and rehabilitate their standing with the public and decision makers after being embroiled in controversy” (SourceWatch Encyclopedia). However for a richer understanding of the issues at play it is necessary to consider the direction in which “greenwash” may be heading.

Click here to read the entire article