As you've probably guessed by now, we here in the Greenpeace UK web team love our animations, particularly if they're funny. If they're funny and they have something to say that's relevant to our campaigns, we like them even more. If they're funny, relevant and have a surreal twist to them, then we start to get over-excited and have to go and lie down for a while. Which is kind of what happened when we saw the following during Live Earth. Made by our long-time collaborators at Airside, 'a beginners' guide to giving a damn' gently ridicules some of the more excessive aspects of the western lifestyle while pointing out the positive benefits of reining in unnecessary consumption.
And that's not all folks! We have another little gem for you. Normally I'm known for the extreme lengths I'll go to to avoid watching TV ads - I dislike being insulted on so many levels simultaneously. But if there were more ads like this one on German TV (produced for renewable energy company Euron) I might just be persuaded to change my mind. This one's not an animation, but it's as relevant and even more surreal than the 'beginner's guide' in my opinion.
What a great way to get the message across. I love it when creative people use their talents to give us useful information in an original way, don't you? So much better than when they attempt to bully us into buying something we don't want by trying to make us feel inferior, and so much more likely to succeed!
It's so crucial at the moment that we get the word out to as many people as possible that yes, climate change is real and the affects may well be devastating, but that we CAN do something about it provided we act while there's still time. And we need to do it not only across the UK but around the whole world - a huge task, but one that looks slightly less intimidating thanks to the rapid rise of global communications and the world wide web.
Because the message is definitely starting to get through to a mass audience, in the UK at least. Read the paper today and the latest figures show a drop in sales of gas-guzzling 4x4s (down 7 per cent on last year) and energy-hungry tumble dryers, and a rise in journeys by bike (up 15 per cent in the last year) and clothes-pegs (dryer manufacturers take notice - ASDA sold 1.2 million pegs in the first three months of this year, up 1,400 per cent on 2006). All completely anecdotal I know, but good news none the less.
And now the ball is rolling we have to keep it on the move, and make sure that as many people as possible know how they can help to make a difference. Which is why we need to tell these stories in as engaging and informative way as possible. So if you're trawling YouTube, Dailymotion or similar sites and you come across an engaging film or animation that helps to illustrate an aspect of the climate change story, tell us about it and we'll post a link to it on our Youtube site.
