Messaging Strategy for Nature Advocacy & Environmental Solutions

 
IdeaLocation.org is a soon to be formed not for profit that focuses on environmental solutions
 
While the site will utilize content and advocate for a few big national nonprofits that are doing tremendous work we plan is to leverage Google Grants so we can promote smaller Non-For-Profits.  We believe think globally but act locally.
 
We want to encourage local engagement and awareness with small local nonprofits.
NOTE: while it is not integrated into the site yet. There will be a national directory of 1500+ environmental nonprofits so people can connect with local solutions.
 
in 7 primary areas
our land *
our food
our water
our building *
our energy
our ecosystems
our children – our tribe – our humanity – ourselves
 
* our land and our building would be future entry points for my interested in land use land conservation and responsible real estate development
 
One of the core messages of ideallocation.org beyond creating awareness for environmental issues and solutions  Globally is promoting and advocating for the smaller underfunded LOCAL NonProfits We want to encourage people to think globally but act locally.  They can act locally by picking one local non profit that is focussed on one of the areas you are most connected to. Be it land, food, water, building, energy, ecosystems or nature.
 
Likewise, there is nothing more local than your own body . Thus part of Ideal Location’s philosophies that connect in and underlying tone in all 7 areas encouraging is our human need for a  connection to Nature.  For kids and adults alike to get out on a trail or park, to get hands dirty in a garden, to feel that water in the ocean, lake river or stream, to bathe in the forest of the climb that mountain or to simply experience that sunset sunrise or sun on your face. Nature heals us and is a natural antidepressant.
 
 
Some of Our Messaging Influences 
Books
Paul Hawken – The Ecology of Commerce & Project Drawdown
Yvon Chinoard – Let My People Go Surfing
Florence Wilimans – The Nature Fix
Richard Louv – Last Child In the Woods ( the concept of Nature Deficit Disorder )
 
 
Marketing Neuroscience
Human behavior is moved in two ways.
Manipulation ( fear Based ) or Inspiration
 
Inspiration creates loyalty. The IdealLocation.org messaging around climate change needs to be inspirational.
 
It needs to somehow “connect” with the readers ” Feelings.  We want the reader of the landing page to FEEL something a connection and identify t with some “ideal” that their own personal  “ideal” in nature past present or future.
 
To identify with being part of something greater than themselves in the solution.
( To Register or To Join the Ideal Location Tribe as an Ambassador or to connect with one local non for profit and start making a difference in their community.
 
In Story Crafting ( See Book or Website StoryBrand ) there is the concept of the Heros Journey. If somehow the reader identifies with their personal Ideal Location or their children not having the same connection to nature then hopefully they want to be part of the solution.
 
 
 
Columbia University sponsored REPORT Connecting on Climate Conversations 

***PROJECT CONTENT NEEDS

1. Polish and craft the introduction under the Edward Abbey Quote describing various moments people may have experienced ( or aspire to experience ) to connect with their “ideal”
 
2. The Seven Areas
Note these are not exactly aligned perfectly with the areas on Project Drawdown but are close. World Wild Life Fund has 4 or 5 areas.
 
These Philosophies should while can talk about the problem/challenges a bit 20% should talk about the solutions 80% …
 
I’d like to have 2-3 Paragraphs of content under each Parallax Image section on the home page. Then we would have a “read more button” to learn about solutions.
 
I would create a new page where we repeat the 2-3 paragraphs then add 2-3 paragraphs more ( which would be very similar to the summaries on appropriate summary on ProjectDrawdown
 
So 4-6 Pargaphs Total for each of the seven philosophies. Only 2-3 of which would show up in the appropriate section on the home page. then I would create pages for ideallocation.org/land ideallocation.org/water  etc
 
1. Land
I want to be sure the terms Land Conservation and Land Use are used ( as this will tie into a future project see RRED graphic)
This goes beyond the Project Drawdown in that
we want to encourage Land Conservation efforts of wildlands and Land Use to encourage social impact development
Land Conservation in rural and wild areas needs to be encouraged
Land Use reforms In urban areas needs to also be encouraged to develop socially and eonvirnmentally building ( this topic also can be repeated in building
Land Regenerative Agriculture also can be introuduced here and in Food
 
3 Our Buildings.
While we call this ( Our Buildings .at moment perhaps its better as Out Built Environemnt but trying to keep the first areas as one word )
 
I want to be sure we use the Term Responsible Real Estate Development. as this ties into a future project also see RRED Graphic at bottom.
how the man-made “built-environment” can most effectively create impactful places for people.  Resposnible real estate developments can be designed and sustained in ways that increase people’s health and well-being, educational advancement, economic opportunity, human interaction, and overall quality of life.
 
 
 
Project Drawdown has a section for MAterials we would put these Materials sections under Our Buildings ( Built environment ) section
 
4 Our EcoSystems
I want to make a couple of connections here
Personal EcoSyetm  & PlanararyEcoSystem
 
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/ecosystem
II would like to discuss FInancial EcoSystems and have a negative or positive effect on the environment
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/money-is-the-oxygen-on-which-the-fire-of-global-warming-burns
 
This is part of the concept of concious capitalism …just like we should not support coporations that create environemntal damaging products like round up …we should be concious of the financial system and how the big banks supprot environmental degredation
 
FROM Project Drawdown Solutions Identified under ideallocation.org 7 areas
To the extent any ( or all ) of the solutions are mentioned in our summaries we will include direct links to Project Drwadown pages )
 
WorldWildLife Fund organizes their advocacy under 6 main categories ( See below ) their solutions to where they fit into our 7 areas )
 
WorldildLife Fund MISSION STATEMENT 
 
Our mission is to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on Earth.
 
We organize our work around these six areas:  
 
1. Food ( Our Food )
2. Climate ( Our Ecosystems )
3. Fresh Water ( our Water )
4 Wildlife ( Our Eco Systems )
5 Forests  ( Our Land )
6 Oceans  ( Our Water )
 
WorldWildLife Fund How to Save the Planet Video 
Areas of Focus 
 
1. Food Revolution 
2.Energy Revolution 
3.Manage Our Oceans 
 
 
 

CONCEPTS

 

Health of Planet & Health of the Individual: Wellness and sustainability are teaming up

We’re seeing a developing awareness about how our health and the health of the planet are inextricably tied, and 2020 will be the year that the wellness industry starts taking sustainability to a new level. From the health of our soil to low waste packaging, sustainability will play a leading role in the wellness industry in 2020, with a rising awareness that the health of our planet is fundamental to our individual health.

We saw the rise of the wellness industry’s focus on gut health in 2019, and in 2020 consumers and brands alike will be exploring how our soil impacts our health as well as the planet. Organizations like  Kiss The Ground are emphasizing the importance of regenerative agriculture for our soil— and healthier soil means more nutritious, healthier food as well as a healthier planet. They provide leadership training to help individuals become soil advocates, as well as training for farmers and ranchers to help to reverse the effects of climate change. Brands are integrating soil health into their priorities as well.

 
 
 
Influencers
Yvon Chinoard Patagonia, One Percent For The Planet makes a strong case for environmental solutions that are often best solved and engaged by local organizations and not necessarily by better-funded national organizations.
 
This will be fundamental to the Ideal Location.org strategy. Phase 2 of the site will create a national directory of 1000+ local environmental nonprofits.
 
 
 
 
John & Molly Chester
Biggest Little Farm: Award-Winning 2019 Documentary (Watch on Hulu )
  •  
  •  

    Concepts from filmmakers that are also foundational to developing an Ideal Location philosophies

  • no political or religious side owns the conversation around the planet
  • all of us innately know that we are dependent upon the finite natural resources of this life-giving blue marble floating in space
  • allow yourselves to be made fun of for desiring a vulnerable reconnection back to nature
  • when some tries to bring the conversation around economics or practicality or logic we must stay focused on the reconnection
  • It starts with the reconnection to nature and then to each other
  • we wanted to believe everything has a purpose
 
 
 
 

 

Nature will be the new medicine

While wellness is becoming more and more commoditized, in 2020 we will see the rise of using nature as a form of self-care. Doctors in Scotland are now allowed to prescribe nature as medicine to patients for conditions such as diabetes, stress, heart disease, mental illness, and more. We’re also seeing the rise of forest bathing, a Japanese-created exercise that encourages people to get out into nature (even if it’s a park in an urban setting) and use their senses to connect to the trees around them. The activity has shown documented benefits in its stress reduction as well as even the ability to increase “natural killer” (NK) cells that fight off diseases such as cancer.

Richard Louv Last Child in the Woods
has this concept of Nature Deficit Disorder in KIds and the connection to ADHD increases and Autism as the latest generations spend less and less time in nature
Florence Williams Nature Fix
Numerous studies on how Humans are more and more disconnected from nature. and the more we are disconnected from nature staying indoors, sitting 9-5 for work, eating a processed diet our society gets sick.  Yet Connection to Nature and a natural diet can heal the afflictions of modern society.  NOTE This is a message I would like to weave into the landing page.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Nudge:” Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness
From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, Richard H. Thaler, and Cass R. Sunstein: a revelatory look at how we make decisions-
* New York Times bestseller
* Named a Best Book of the Year by The Economist and the Financial Times
 
Every day we make choices—about what to buy or eat, about financial investments or our children’s health and education, even about the causes we champion or the planet itself. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. Nudge is about how we make these choices and how we can make better ones. Using dozens of eye-opening examples and drawing on decades of behavioral science research, Nobel Prize winner Richard H. Thaler and Harvard Law School professor Cass R. Sunstein show that no choice is ever presented to us in a neutral way, and that we are all susceptible to biases that can lead us to make bad decisions. But by knowing how people think, we can use sensible “choice architecture” to nudge people toward the best decisions for ourselves, our families, and our society, without restricting our freedom of choice.
 
Chapter 12 mentions how it is an important responsibility for everyone to care for our planet.  It distinguishes between choosing from available options and telling people to follow the rules.
IMPORTANT NOTE: on IdealLocation.org we wrote Our philosophies for our lands, our foods, our water, our buildings, our energy, and our ecosystems are written not as rules but instead as guidelines.
That is what we need to develop for the 7 areas guidelines to strive for or “ideals” not rules.
 
Saving the Planet EXCERPT From Book NUDGE
Governments all over the world have been trying their best to protect the environment by implementing different means to lessen pollution and improve human health. Unfortunately, many regulatory efforts proved to be wasteful and costly, and some of them even made matters worse. In recent years, governments have shifted their focus to global environmental problems, including the sorry state of the ozone layer. Through international agreements, ozone-depleting chemicals have been banned. However, effective international controls have yet to be implemented to mitigate climate change, an issue that concerns people around the world.
 
Can improved choice architecture and nudges help reduce greenhouse gases? It definitely can. How- ever, governments have gone beyond nudging in their attempt to protect the environment and their constituents, as regulators preferred command-and-control regulation over designing an effective choice architecture.
 
Rather than nudging people to do what is right to protect themselves and the environment (which seems ineffective), governments have decided to impose rules and regulations.
 
Better Incentives To help the environment, two broad approaches have been proposed:
1) penalize or tax on polluters, and
2) implement a cap-and-trade system where polluters are allowed to pollute in exchange for a certain amount. Most specialists believe that these incentivized approaches are more effective and efficient than command-and-control regulations.
 
People feel better knowing that they can do what they want by paying a certain amount than if they were to be forced to follow rules. They have the freedom not to do something if they think that the price they need to pay is too much. The choice architect must present choices that makes the choosers prefer something that would give them an economic advantage. Feedback Information It is important to divulge information that informs people how pollution- causing agents and practices can harm the environment and other humans. Information is sometimes a strong motivator.
 
People tend to fear nothing when they are unaware of the danger that a certain decision, act, or substance can bring. At first, no one knew how dangerous smoking was; today, people are aware of the harm it does to the body, all thanks to the information that has been disseminated. Although there are still a lot of people who smoke, that number has significantly decreased as information about the effects of smoking is increasingly circulated.
Offering incentives, such as the ones presented earlier, do not restrict the freedom of the choosers and gives them the confidence to decide what is best.
 
Due to some economic constraints, most choosers would likely decide not to further pollute the world. The choices also allow people to think about what is best for themselves and the environment. Designing effective choice architecture may require careful planning to create choices that people cannot resist choosing while at the same time making them abandon the idea of polluting the environment.
 
Paul Hawken
Paul Hawken is very careful in the language that he uses that we want to emulate. This is the tone we want when we are talking about climate.
 
” Global Warming is a gift b/c all systems have a feedback loop. Thus we the feedback n opportunity to do something “
 
“Right now, the attitude is that climate change is happening to us…instead of the idea that actually climate change is instead happening for us,”
Throughout the talk, Hawken noted the confusion of terms that swirls around the topic of climate: decarbonization, negative emissions, climate change, global warming. There’s a need for an accessible, simple vocabulary, Hawken said, and also a need to move away from the typically violent rhetoric that surrounds the topic: the war on carbon, slashing emissions, combating global warming.
“Any time you have a military metaphor, you’re saying there’s an enemy or other,” Hawken said. “That’s dualistic thinking; that got us exactly where we are.”
Plus, Hawken noted, you can’t “battle” climate change. The climate is always changing in response to chemistry on earth and always has. When we refer to “climate change” as the problem, we are talking about its dramatic changes on a planet warmed by excessive greenhouse gas emissions in a very short period of geologic time.
In summary: We want to reverse global warming to reduce the effects of drastic climate change. (Final answer.)
“What if global warming is not an obstacle but an opportunity to innovate and reimagine everything we make and do?”
There’s one more language issue: the generally guilt-inducing and apocalyptic tone that much climate writing assumes. Often, popular articles present global warming as an evil force we are unwittingly causing every day just by existing in the systems of our society, or is something happening to us that we are powerless to affect.
This strips people of both agency and responsibility, unintentionally forcing readers into a victim role, simply through language.
“When you put gloom and doom together with guilt, you get apathy,” Hawken noted. “Which precludes seeing global warming as an opportunity.”
What if global warming is not an obstacle but an opportunity to innovate and reimagine everything we make and do? This was a thought Hawken voiced near the conclusion of his speech. What if we viewed our circumstances not as daunting, but as a worldwide cue that it’s time for something different?
“Climate change isn’t a curse,” Hawken said. “It’s feedback

“If you’re going the wrong way, you need to stop and turn around. Slowing down just means you’re going the wrong way more slowly.”

When he said this, audience members laughed, and Hawken smiled, but he was serious. He was talking about the need to not only arrest greenhouse gas emissions but the equally important goal of pulling them out of the atmosphere. This is what the term “drawdown” refers to — the point where atmospheric greenhouse gases peak and begin to decline year-by-year as more carbon is sequestered back into the earth.
 
 
 
 

 

 

ideal

adjective
ide·​al | \ ī-ˈdē(-ə)l
, ˈī-ˌdē(-ə)l \

Definition of ideal

 (Entry 1 of 2)

1a : of, relating to, or embodying an ideal ideal beauty
b : conforming exactly to an ideal, law, or standard: perfect an ideal gas — compare real sense 1c(3)
2a : existing as a mental image or infancy or imagination only broadly
b : relating to or constituting mental images, ideas, or conceptions
3 : of or relating to philosophical idealism
4 : existing as an archetypal idea

ideal

noun

Definition of ideal (Entry 2 of 2)

1 : a standard of perfection, beauty, or excellence
2 : one regarded as exemplifying an ideal and often taken as a model for imitation
3 : an ultimate object or aim of endeavor: goal

 

 
The “Ideal” in Ideal Location
The Ideal is first used to connect the reader to their ideal place and hopefully connect to some positive emotion associated with that ideal place. 
Positive emotions and positive feelings lead to decisions and actions.  In the case of ideallocation.org, this could mean taking action with a local nonprofit, registering for a newsletter, sharing via social media, feeling they are part of a tribe , or simply reinforcing things they intuitively know. to get outside to eat healthy natural foods.
 
As Ideal Location evolves into the providing philosophies guidelines around 7 areas that can positively affect global climate change the ” Ideal ” in the sense becomes a guideline for a feeling of a direction to  make a positive impact locally ( in ourselves and in our communities )
 
The Pursuit of Perfect
 
One of the most powerful concepts he shares is the idea that we need to see our ideals as GUIDING STARS *not* distant shores.
We’re never going to attain a level of perfection in anything we do. But, we can use our highest ideals as a sort of North Star that keeps us moving in the right direction! 🙂
As he puts it: “The optimalism ideal is not a distant shore to be reached but a distant star that guides us and can never be reached. As Carl Rogers pointed out, ‘The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination.’”
 
The Ideal Location as it relates to environmental advocacy is also a process. A direction and not a destination. 
 
The Ideal Location parable: A seeker asks an old man that was once an explorer. You have been all over the earth to mountain tops and distant shores tell me where is the ideal location? The old man ponders and replies it is wherever you are and wherever you are going.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Responsible Real Estate Development.