*Managing Editor, Fired Up Media

Fired Up Media is hiring a Managing Editor to lead our flagship blog: It’s
Getting Hot in Here – dispatches from the youth climate movement.

In 2005, leading youth climate campaigners came together at the
International Climate Negotiations to start ItsGettingHotinHere.org. In the
last six years, the site has been recognized as a Best Green Blog, a Top 10
Climate Blog by Climate Progress, a “Suggested Source” by NYtimes.com. With
a legacy of over 300 writers, 2 million readers, and 4,000 articles, It’s
Getting Hot in Here has left an indelible mark on the online climate
community.

With a dynamic and newly empowered youth movement fighting against the tar
sands, mountain top removal mining, fracking and the corruption of our
democracy and media by the corporate polluters profiting from the
plundering of our collective future, Fired Up Media is seeking new
leadership to cover the most important story of our time: The generational
struggle for a just and sustainable future against the wealthiest and most
entrenched interests in the history of money. Are you up for the job?

The Managing Editor’s role will be developing a new content strategy,
recruiting a new cohort of youth climate bloggers and reporters, soliciting
community input of the site’s editorial voice, and reinvigorating It’s
Getting Hot in Here as a leading online community covering youth resistance
to dirty energy and movement-building for sustainable solutions on campuses
and in communities across the country.

We are looking for someone who has experience in new media, is an
entrepreneurial self-starter, and is passionate about using the web to both
inform and inspire young people to take action on climate change.
Preferred location is Washington DC, but telecommuting is an option for
the right candidate.

Primary Responsibilities:

- Establish and maintain site-wide content strategy and editorial tone.
- Manage a team of volunteer editors overseeing more than 300 bloggers,
maintaining regular communication and editorial oversight and providing
advice on everything from headlines to writing topics (little copy editing
is required – most bloggers publish content immediately without going
through an editorial process).
- Recruit additional editors and reporters to cover priority issue
categories: (ie. Tar Sands, Coal, Fracking, Green Finance, Clean Energy).
- Maintain and expand relationships with student media, advocacy groups,
other online media organizations and the press.
- Oversee strategy for distributing content through relationships with
other bloggers, syndication, listserves, and social media.
- Representing organization and site at media appearances, public
speaking, and partner meetings.
- Soliciting sponsorships from partner organizations and meeting
sponsorship obligations.

Requirements:

- Experience with new media and social networks
- Demonstrated success in managing daily flow of digital content,
managing website development, implementing social media strategies and
growing website traffic and user engagement.
- Experience leading and managing teams of writers, producers and
multi-media content developers for web or other platforms.
- Strong, proven leadership skills.
- Excellent writing ability and patience with editing contributor
content.
- Demonstrated record of creativity, innovation and success.
- Ability to work under pressure and deliver content on deadline.

Education and Experience
Bachelor’s degree or equivalent education and experience in journalism, new
media, or communications preferred. Knowledge of climate advocacy, campus
organizing, and/or renewable energy ideal.

Compensation and Benefits
The position will start at half-time (20 hours per week), with the
potential to expand to full-time after a six month evaluation. Salary is
commensurate with experience. Benefits include a professional development
budget & paid training, free access to conferences, and referrals for paid
speaking and reporting for partner organizations, such as the Earth Island
Journal and Bioneers.

To apply, please send a resume, cover letter, and links to two writing
and/or links to multimedia samples to: jobs@firedupmedia.com

What are people saying about this book?

“Organizers spend decades developing tools and learning systems that Sharon Smith puts at the fingertips of young activists within a weekend.”—Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, CEO, Green for All

“If you ever thought about wanting to change the world, but didn’t know where to start, then buy this book. It’s an inspiring and practical guide for young people who want to take the first steps toward finding real solutions for the planet.”—Michael Brune, executive director, Sierra Club

Well, that is really exciting to hear, as Fired Up Media staff and supporters helped edit and contribute to the book. Richard Graves, the founder of Fired Up Media, was a significant contributor to the Making Media Headlines chapter. In fact, it took almost a decade to learn a lot of these tools and skills and we are super fascinated to see what the next generation of youth environmental activists are able to do with a clear and effective guide like this one to guide them.

Guess what, we will be covering them on It’s Getting Hot in Here, Check the Weather, and all the other amazing youth climate activists. So, if you want to make an impact, pick up the book, get reading and get out there and change the world.

Just don’t forget to drop us a line and tell us your story, because we want to hear it.

Over the last two years, it has been my pleasure to work with Shadia Wood and Madeline Kovacs, who started working with Fired Up Media several years ago. We had some terrific successes together, covering the Poznan Climate talks for LinkTV, training dozens of young journalists at Power Shift 07 and 09, and especially – the launch of Project Survival Media.

Now, after getting the program launched in the chaos of the lead-up to the Copenhagen Climate talks and bringing incredible youth journalists from countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America to report on the negotiations – Project Survival Media is now standing on its own (Support them!) – an independent project of the Earth Island Institute.

Shadia has had a lot of experience with Earth Island, as  a Brower Youth Award winner, one of the first staff members working with the Energy Action Coalition and at the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative, and lately, with Fired Up Media. It is going to be exciting watching her take on the challenges of coordinating a network reporting from the front-lines of climate change. f you have questions about PSM’s program, media content, or being a Team Leader or Team Member, please contact Shadia.

Madeline has likewise had a lot of experience in the field, dating from our time together at MacCARES at Macalester College, to her work with Focus the Nation, Working Films, and now as the co-coordinator of Project Survival Media. If you would like to donate to the project, have questions about PSM’s website, or are an organization looking to partner with us, please contact Madeline.

It is exciting to see their success and I hope you check out their new effort, Solutions for Survival. It is going to be awesome. If you agree, support Project Survival Media today and just wait till you see the impact of a global youth journalism network dedicated to broadcasting stories of survival and ingenuity in the face of climate change.

I will be involved as a board member and I will be working to raise money, help where I can, and find opportunities to connect Fired Up Media platforms and training programs with Project Survival Media’s reporting teams.

-Richard Graves

Devil’s Bargain: How the BP Disaster Sank the Climate Bill

—Excerpt
A week after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded, entertainer Rush Limbaugh suggested that environmentalists had caused the disaster in order to pass cap-and-trade legislation that wouldn’t include new offshore drilling or loan guarantees for the nuclear industry. A massive environmental disaster, on the eve of the fortieth Earth Day celebration, right before the planned introduction of the Senate climate bill — the timing, as Limbaugh noted, seemed too pat. And, in fact, toward the end of the failed Copenhagen climate talks last December, some despondent green campaigners privately confided to each other that they thought only a major disaster could build the public pressure to enact policies sufficiently ambitious to tackle global warming.

If only. Because four months later, the Gulf oil spill, rather than putting anti-environmental senators on the defensive and coalescing the movement for climate legislation, has shattered the fragile alliance that environmental advocates had built in the US Senate. In July, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that the climate bill was dead, saying, “We know we don’t have the votes,” and suggesting instead a package that lifts the liability limits on oil companies and contains some relatively minor energy initiatives.

How, exactly, did the BP blowout frustrate the assumptions of both right-wing radio shock jocks and progressive environmentalists? The counterintuitive result grew out of the byzantine politics of the Senate and the increasingly desperate compromises many environmental groups have felt forced into as time runs out to tackle climate change. The big green groups — frantic to pass a bill before the mid-term elections — thought they could use a proposed expansion of offshore drilling to attract the votes of senators hesitant to put a price on carbon. With the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon, that scheme backfired and sunk, too.
Read the full article at the Earth Island Journal.

Project Survival Media

Local Solutions

As governments fail to take necessary action on climate change, ordinary people the world over are becoming innovators. People are finding real solutions that empower communities and ensure their survival. Over the next 18 months, www.projectsurvivalmedia.org will document and share these solutions via regular “updates from the field,” from five continents. Stories will focus on a variety of areas related to sustainable community development.

For example, you might read about how small-scale solar technology in Africa is being adapted and used in ways that most people in the United States don’t even know about. Or, you could hear a personal account from a woman in India who is leading the fight to secure food and water for her family in a region plagued by drought. Stories are being reported and written by young journalists, aged 15 to 30, who are documenting local leaders in action and sharing inspirational stories and best practices. These writers are on the ground, reporting directly from their own regions.

These stories will not only illustrate best practices, but will also direct viewers to helpful resources, connect real people with each other, and call on world governments to do more.

— Madeline Kovacs

Images ©Robert vanWaarden

Project Survival Media‘s new website launched at the Copenhagen International Climate Conference and it looks great! Check it out and get dispatches from Project Survival’s media teams around the world.

©Mihai Giurgiu

Romania was a land of diversity. We used to have four seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter. Now we are having two seasons. So, what can be the reason of changing? It could be a natural transformation, just a temporary phenomena or the global warming. All Romanian people are affected by this change: their lands are not that good as before, their fruit production has problems and people have to fight more against the floods. The Romanian scientists say that we can’t prove yet if one of the causes is global warming or not and if the human race is responsible of it.

©Mihai Giurgiu

Săcel Mountain is a little village in Romania. Here, farmers used to have more than 600 sheep, 300 cows, lots of pigs and other animals. Now, they don’t have sheep anymore, and a family has maybe a cow and no more than two pigs.

The agriculture was strongly based on potatoes, corn and tomatoes. The altitude (771- 1125 m) of the village didn’t give people the possibility of having something else. But now, they are concerned because of the harder conditions to grow their vegetables and fruits compared with 20 years ago.

Asking people if they noticed possible changes regarding the four seasons, their answers are simple and complex at the same time. However, they are not surprised about the question, because those facts affect every corner of their life. Why? Their food and their entire activity are limited on agriculture and farming. Therefore agriculture means land, weather, rain, snow, ice, sun and a good connection between all these natural phenomena.

“Nothing good is happening anymore”

Older people (their ages are between 60 and 80 years) are concerned. They have lived enough to have an experience of appreciation about good or bad results of “their agriculture”. The Oneţ family has lived in Săcel Mountain for almost 55 years. They had a little farm in the past with sheep and cows. Now they have one cow, two pigs and ten chickens, and they practice agriculture for their own use.

©Mihai Giurgiu

“I remember when I was younger and the snow was so big that I could hardly go out just in the neighborhood. Since a few years ago, winters are warmer and it’s rarely snowing hard. I saw on T.V. that in places where it has never snowed, last years they had snow. As I can see, the snow left us and moved to other places, which is bad, because the land is freezing and it’s losing its good properties. When spring should be here and have good rain, it is freezing again and after few weeks of warming we lose our fruits. We have less and less vegetables and fruits. All the time when it should be raining is drought. When it should be warm is raining too much. Nothing good is happening anymore”, Ms. Oneţ.
Last ten years, people lost their crops because of ice rain: “This ice rain was rare when I was young and I never heard my parents complaining about it, but now… a big part of our cultivation is destroyed. We don’t know what to do about it. We are old anyway and our children live in the city” says Ms. Oneţ.
Missis Oneţ showed us some corn from the past year and gave us a gift: a pocket of walnuts.

Changes produced by man, still a supposition

Florin Moldovan, scientist and teacher at Geography University from Cluj Napoca, has a balanced opinion about the weather changes in Romania: “It is too soon to say something that big like climate changes are caused by human behavior. Until now we just can say that dangerous phenomena are more frequent and intense. You have to understand that we don’t have enough proof in this way and we don’t have relevant statistics about it”.

The floods made them change the road trough the forest

©Mihai Giurgiu

In summer of 2005 Săcel Mountain was affected by floods, created by unusual powerful storm and rain. The weather devastated some lands, a bridge and a few houses. About that time, people have bad memories: they were isolated and helped with provisions by Romanian Government.

The oldest people from the village remember that floods like these began in last 20 years, but the worst was four years ago: “We couldn’t use our cars to get aliments to the village and we had access to the other communities only through the forest”.

©Mihai Giurgiu

Virgil and his parents are saying that things are changing: “The summer is dry now, but in the same time we have floods. The rain is not enough to naturally irrigate our lands, and we have a big storm during the year that makes bad things happen. And that’s it. It rains often in autumn and spring, but this will never help the land. It will destroy it. Those situations are totally different than 20 or 50 years ago”.

People from Săcel Mountain feel some changes about their weather and scientists approve those opinions. A tendency of increase in average temperatures is clearly visible and demonstrated. Romanian scientists are declaring that the stats are clearly showing an increase in frequency and intensity of meteorological risk phenomena during past years. They are reserved in saying for sure if this is human fault or if Mother Nature is doing its circuit, but anyway a change in human mentality concerning climate change is a must.

]]> http://firedupmedia.com/2009/12/01/the-snow-left-us-and-moved-to-other-places/feed/ 0 rvanwaarden children and sheeps 2 Sacel Mountain madame Onet flood 2005 III Virgil with his mother http://firedupmedia.com/2009/11/18/round-up-people-covering-fired-up-media-project-survival-media/ http://firedupmedia.com/2009/11/18/round-up-people-covering-fired-up-media-project-survival-media/#comments Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:53:48 +0000 Madeline Kovacs http://firedupmedia.com/?p=293 ]]> “The Youth Climate Movement’s Global New Media Push for Survival” by Kyle Cassidy – Wend Greenery & The Huffington Post – November 17, 2009

“Just in Time: Youth Journalists Take on Climate with Project Survival Media” by Celia Alario – Huffington Post – September 16, 2009

“Project Survival Media” Video by Michael Montalban – Project Green Generation – August 19, 2009

“Richard Graves: The Scoop on Climate Justice” Interview by Adam Waxman – WireTap Magazine – August 3, 2009

Then, teams are distributing content through youth blogs in 15 languages, online and offline news outlets. We will be showing delegates what is happening on the front lines of the climate crisis in their region, what it is doing to the people they are sworn to serve and protect. We are taking the message to our delegates at Copenhagen: As you negotiate our planet’s climate, “Survival is not Negotiable.”

Team leaders have compiled a media pitch that we are using to approach hosts and syndication partners, as well as some outlets who want to pay for original content. It’s awesome. We also made this video, 350=Survival, with Jon Warnow of 350.org. Read the conversation below the YouTube post – a prime example on how a video like this can help educate on climate change.

Fired Up Contributors: This fall, Richard was hired as the online campaigner and blogger for the TckTckTck campaign, which is run by the Global Campaign for Climate Action. The campaign’s highlights include organizing the Global Wake Up Call, with 2600 events in 134 countries, as well as serving as the liaison with Change.org for Blog Action Day, single largest social change event on the web, with 13,600 Blogs in 156 Countries participating, collectively reaching an audience of 18,085,076 people.

Richard also wrote a series of articles for Grist Magazine on climate policy and healthcare, and an article for the US State Department’s eJournal USA, “International Youth: Fired Up About Climate Change“ which was featured together with articles by Dr. Pachauri and fellow It’s Getting Hot in Here editor, Zoë Caron. Richard is also now a contributor to The Huffinton Post. Lastly, Mara MacKinnon, a friend of Fired Up, recently wrote a noteworthy piece on the American Pika and implications for US climate policy for SolveClimate.

Photography: Fired Up and PSM Europe Team Leader Photographer Robert Van Waarden was accepted into the International League of Conservation Photographers as an Emerging Photographer. A collection of his photos on the youth climate movement was also on display at Bonn – Presently, we are seeking donations to help get this amazing display of artwork in place for climate negotiators to view during their next meeting in Barcelona.

Consultancy and Connections: Shadia worked closely with 350 in New York, pulling together thousands of photos from climate actions around the globe. Fired Up also made contact this summer with It’sHotInHere, an awesome environmental campus news show out of Ann Arbor, MI. Madeline appeared on the show! (That’s right, after the Nelly song 20 minutes in). Madeline has also been working for the last four months part-time as a Communications consultant with www.ourtask.org. She helped them film a new video, and will be taking some information about OT with her to Copenhagen, including resources about the global outlook studies and strategies that shape our future.

We are the new project of the Earth Island Institute: Lastly, but certainly not least, we are very proud to announce that Fired Up Media is the newest project of the Earth Island Institute. We have been accepted into a wonderful family of environmental organizations, including the Energy Action Coalition, Baikal Watch, Women’s Earth Alliance, and the Sacred Land Film Project. We had our orientation in early October, and can’t wait to keep growing our capacity.

Young people from the developed world have pioneered uses of new media for advocacy and partnered with youth networks around the the world to build platforms, like YouthClimate.org. However, UNICEF and the other Unite for Climate partners have developed appropriate technology to connect young people without access to the internet and computers or in low-bandwidth areas, by using SMS polls and other online-to-mobile technology to reach youth in the developing world.

Another focus of the effort is online video, with low cost video-camera manufacturer FlipCam, YouTube, and the 1 minute to save the world contest coming together to provide equipment, host content, and screen video. Alongside the online video initiative, the site will have social networking tool available on the Unite for Climate site, for young citizens engaged in facing the challenge of climate change.

The platform was unveiled at the TUNZA International Children and Youth Conference in Daejeon, Republic of Korea, which is organized by the youth network affiliated with the UN Environment Program, TUNZA. Children and youth from some 110 countries participated in the launch of United for Climate, as well as released a statement they are delivering to world leaders.

The statement, titled “Listen to Our Voices”, led with this statement

We, young people – 3 billion of the world population – are concerned and frustrated that our governments are not doing enough to combat climate change. We feel that radical and holistic measures are needed urgently from us all. We now need more actions and less talking.”

The statement also made commitments by young people to work for sustainable solutions, work to green schools, campuses, and communities, as well as mobilize around the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen, this fall.

To support this youth commitment on campuses and schools, Unite for Climate will connect at least 150 schools around the globe from September 2009. The Connecting Classrooms project will foster dialogue on climate change between school children, and is supported by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), the Earth Institute at Columbia University and the Mediterranean Center for Sustainable Development.

For more information:

United for Climate:  www.uniteforclimate.org

Youth Climate Debates: www.youtube.com/youthclimatedebate

Youth Climate: www.youthclimate.org

It’s Getting Hot in Here – dispatches from the youth climate movement – www.itsgettinghotinhere.org