2007 - What Could You Do to Make a Difference?

December 30th, 2006

Planning for 2007 - What Will You Do To Make a Difference in 2007?
Laura Thieme, December 30, 2006

As some of you know, I have been recovering from some surgery I had a couple of weeks ago.  Well, almost a couple of weeks - at two weeks I get to drive my car.  It’s a four week minimum recovery.  That’s a big deal for a somewhat Type A like myself.  Confine me to a bed and I’m even worse off - so look out, I’ve got a laptop and a wireless connection - thank God.  I learned about the possibility of my surgery in early November, and did some research and got second opinions.  I hoped I could avoid it, but could not.  So, I chose to do it during the holidays when fewer people were looking for help, and I could take advantage of the time off that everyone else would be taking off.  They found more inside of me than they expected, but don’t worry it’s not cancerous.  So recovery has been a near hell at times.  My cat is climbing over as I write.  It is amazing how protective animals can be when they know you’re down for the count.  My dog won’t go two steps away.

I’ve had the chance to catch up on the PBS special, Emperors of the Ice.  How many of you watched March of the Penguins last year and bought it on DVD?  I know I did, and gifted it to others when it came out on DVD.  I loved that movie.  I’ve been interested in the plight of the penguins ever since.  There have been a couple of Penguin features that provide disturbing insight into the plight of the penguins, which alludes to an even greater issue and that is the environment.  I’ve also seen um, hem, yes, um, shhhh, Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth.  Uh oh - you’re afraid I’m going green, right?

In the search marketing industry, as in any growing industry, we have a few excesses, so the question is now that you’re making money, what are you doing to help others, and perhaps, yes, help on a global scale, with the environment?  Could you pledge to make a difference in 2007?  Would your contribution make a difference in 2007?

We are viral marketers, bloggers, and have the reach into society through Google and other leading search engines.  We post to Wikipedia.  We can look up anything about everything.  So, I’ve utilized that power to learn a little more about the plight of the penguins in the Antarctica and it actually got me out of bed this morning.  That and a promise from my petsitter that she’s bringing me a Starbucks Frappucino - I hope I don’t have to give those up.   Occasional slips, they’re allowed, right?

March of the Penguins alludes to penguin issues and how far they have to travel to get food and bring it back, regurgitate it to their penguin chicks.  Morgan Freeman narrates - a powerful voice indeed.  But they don’t talk too much about the environmental impacts causing penguins to go further and further to get their food.  And, will they die in their return trek to get to their chicks?

As a result of watching the PBS special, on WOSU, Emperors of the Ice, and further Web research, I’ve learned about B-15 and other significant ice shelves in the Antarctica and North Pole that have broken off, and crashed into other parts of Antarctica causing hundreds of thousands of penguins to die.  They don’t tell you that in March of the Penguins, that’s for sure.  You see a couple die.  If lots of penguins died in that movie, in the mainstream, it probably wouldn’t have been such a sensation. 

In the first half hour of the PBS special, you learn about the scientists who have tracked penguin activity in the Antarctica for 20 years or more.  In the second half hour, you see some very disturbing sites, hardly one I bet is mentioned in Happy Feet.  These are hardly Happy Feet (reference to the most recent penguin craze).  In fact, hundreds of thousands of penguins were killed when B-15, which was an arctic mass the size of Jamaica, crashed into their path, keeping the parents from returning with food to their chicks.  Now, if you have any compassion at all in your heart, and you liked March of the Penguins and for that matter, Happy Feet, saving the chicks seems important, right?

What was more disturbing is that when I went online to research this issue, I learned that B-15 broke off the Antarctica shelf in 2000, and has been creating problems since then.  It was covered by mass media, although I never saw it, in 2001, 2003.  See clips below (which I’ll add shortly):

In fact, last night while I was researching online, I came across a link that another ice mass has broken off in Northern Canada and could cause serious problems.  So the question is why should you care? 

The last two years - the holidays have represented some amazing environmental catastrophes - first it was the Tsunami - were you glued to CNN in 2004?  Then it was Katrina in 2005.  But after we give our money, and the press dies down about it, we go back to our regular lives.  At least I do.  I admit it.   Because it’s not affecting me personally, I can turn a blind eye to what’s happening to the south and north of me.  But that has to change in 2007 and here’s what I want to do.

Click here to learn more.

Posted in Uncategorized.

 

Related Posts

One Response to “2007 - What Could You Do to Make a Difference?”

  1. Bizresearch - Search Marketing Blog » Blog Archive » Is Link Building Necessary? Says:
    March 17th, 2007 at 7:10 pm

    […] I wrote about Emporers of the Ice, and misspelled it by the way.  Lycos News picked up my blog and they wrote: "AN excellent review on "Emperors [stet] of the Ice" with research links on the subject found here: http://www.bizresearch.com/searchmarketingblog/?p=96 […]

Leave a Reply