Read the polls and it’s clear that a big percentage of Americans regard environmental issues as important. Few, however, cast votes based on those concerns. People care about the environment but not more than they care about jobs, taxes, safe communities, national security, and health; the issues that drive voting behavior.
But here’s the fact: green initiatives already underway throughout America are working better than the status quo to deliver on all those issues. The opportunity is to tell those stories – green successes happening on the local, state and national level.
That’s how you transcend the blue-red divide on environmental issues. Not with studies and reports and moral appeals but with hard evidence of how green is already here and working for the American people. A green economic study or report is only words on paper. Too theoretical and thus too easily distorted or dismissed.
On the other hand, wind turbines on a Texas cotton farmer’s land is irrefutable evidence. So are the jobs of formerly unemployed Western Pennsylvania steelworkers who now build those turbines.
So is the Twin Lakes Elementary School in Elk River, Minnesota where test scores may be up as much as 25% thanks to the new green school building that provides better air quality and more natural daylight. So is a new green skyscraper in midtown Manhattan that scrubs pollution out of the surrounding air that pedestrians breathe. And so is a Pepsi bottling plant in Columbus, Ohio where advanced environmental technologies are cutting costs and saving jobs by saving thousands of gallons of fuel and water per day.
Across America evidence is mounting of how green initiatives already work better than the status quo to help Americans earn more, live better, and achieve their goals. Josh Dorfman’s green communications consulting services is where you’ll find it, and learn the best way to frame the environmental issues that are important to you and your audience.
WATCH Josh’s Keynote Address “7 Principles of Effective Green Communication” at the 2010 SWACO Emerald Awards in Columbus, Ohio.
