The number and mixture of comments that we have received since releasing the New York Emissions film through YouTube, Twitter and email has been a very useful as a means of assessing its impact. And generally helping us to evaluate what we do.
Some exchanges have been technical questions, on the use of data and how to visualise complex information. To have had this interaction is great. Ensuring a good and effective visualisation of scientific data is key to our work. The detail of what we do is very important. Our Creative Director Adam Nieman has spent time responding to these questions and comments. We hope this has helped people with their own work in the area of carbon reduction and responding to climate change.
In some of the posts and tweets people talked about the political and personal issues associated with emissions, and reducing them. We know that emissions and climate change are evocative issues. We hope that in actually seeing emissions, whatever political or social background, people are better informed. From there, they can make decisions as individuals, communities and companies about what they do.
We were delighted with the people that told us they were impressed by the video (‘awesome’ in some cases). Nice to hear. But more constructively - the diversity of sources for these comments was key to us. This was a video that was meant to appeal to a range of audiences. Not just the technically minded, the political or the scientifically knowledgeable.
To date the film has appeared in blogs, articles and interviews in 7 countries as well as international press. This means it has been given national context as well as global relevance. Hopefully this means a wider influence of the film, outside anglophile countries.
We want to make something invisible, visible. There is an urgency to this work. In this there is also an imperative to involve as many people reducing emissions as possible. This is a large scale communications and education project involving many people and we know our role. Empowering people to better understand emission is fascinating and necessary.
Thanks to everyone who responded to the film. Your comments are very valuable to us. And watch this space for the next North American city…