Green Photo Contest and PR Pollution

The month of October this year is looking green. For one thing the leaves on the trees seem to be denying fall just as adamantly as everyone else, then we’ve got an environment-themed blog action day coming up on the 15th, and finally the Greenest Photo Ever contest on Flickr, which is open til October 1st.

Unsurprisingly, most of the photo contest entries are pictures of bucolic green pastures, lush green jungles, and luminous green leaves. As a big proponent of urban sustainability, this entry, snapped in downtown Vancouver wowed me:

Fortunately, DeSmogBlog, who are hosting the contest, encourage photographers to get creative with the theme:

What does that mean? Whatever you want it to.

It can be literally a really green photo (but not of a green dress, that’s cruel). Or it can be a metaphorically green photo, whether that’s ecological or ‘green with envy’ or any other angle you can think of. In short, be creative!

I checked out contest hosts DeSmogBlog, whose tag line reads “we’re here to clean up the PR pollution that clouds the science of climate change.” The group, founded by the president of a large PR firm, contends that “a well-funded and highly organized public relations campaign is poisoning the climate change debate.” They aim to fight PR with PR.

My favourite part of the site is a an investigation that debumks the 60 supposed-scientists who sent an anti-climate change petition to PM Stephen Harper in April ‘06. Unsurprisingly, DeSmogBlog finds that most of the signatories are either not scientists (no peer-reviewed publications), scientists in areas not related to climate change (previous research in tobacco is suspiciously common), and/or funded by oil companies. Check it out here : it’s intriguing as a conspiracy theory and leaves you feeling all warm and righteous inside.