date: Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:25:33 +0100
from: Rob Allan <allarob@googlemail.com>
subject: Fwd: Follow up to NY Times Editorial
to: Fairweather Helen <Helen.Fairweather@climatechange.qld.gov.au>, Helen Fairweather <helen.fairweather@westnet.com.au>, Andrew Lorrey <a.lorrey@niwa.co.nz>, Lisa Alexander <l.alexander@unsw.edu.au>, Brnnimann Stefan <stefan.bronnimann@env.ethz.ch>, Gil Compo <Gilbert.P.Compo@noaa.gov>, Gil Compo <compo@colorado.edu>, Chris Lintott <cjl@astro.ox.ac.uk>, Scott D Woodruff <Scott.D.Woodruff@noaa.gov>, "J.G. Guzman" <jgg29@cam.ac.uk>, Joelle Gergis <jgergis@unimelb.edu.au>, Joelle Gergis <jgergis@gmail.com>, Juerg Luterbacher <Juerg.Luterbacher@geogr.uni-giessen.de>, Phil Jones <p.jones@uea.ac.uk>, Roger Stone <stone@usq.edu.au>, Russell Vose <Russell.Vose@noaa.gov>, Tom Ross <tom.ross@noaa.gov>

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: John Buchanan <JBuchanan@platinumre.com>
Date: Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 1:29 PM
Subject: Re: Follow up to NY Times Editorial
To: "allarob@googlemail.com" <allarob@googlemail.com>,
"R.Crouthamel@iedro.org" <R.Crouthamel@iedro.org>,
"rick.crouthamel@gmail.com" <rick.crouthamel@gmail.com>,
"Catherine.Marzin@noaa.gov" <Catherine.Marzin@noaa.gov>,
"egeary@globe.gov" <egeary@globe.gov>, "Howard.Diamond@noaa.gov"
<Howard.Diamond@noaa.gov>, "rdd@ldeo.columbia.edu"
<rdd@ldeo.columbia.edu>
Cc: "philip.brohan@metoffice.gov.uk" <philip.brohan@metoffice.gov.uk>


Rob. Very timely.

Overall, I don't believe a letter to the editor would have the desired
impact.  I believe a better avenue would be to see if an article can
be written for the Science Times section of the NYT, which appears
every Tuesday.

To that end, subsequent to our conversation two weeks ago, I have been
pulling information together on various related items that have
appeared in the NYT,  and identifying the columnist who would be most
keen to followup with an ACRE based  story.  I was hopefully going to
pull this together this weekend and send over an initial information
pack to him, also hopefully this weekend.

The main thrust would be building off the CORRAL Cook BBC et al
launching but introducing a US flair. As discussed before, I believe a
good (populist) angle would be to have the story include the Franklin
voyages/ACRE video along with Cook etc. Bringing it current and
mainstream, would involve highlighting Ed's Globe Student Initiative
(very timely with the October data collection). For reasons detailed
in prior emails I also thought a good angle would be Stefan's Data
Rescue at Home initiative (for added international flair) also aimed
towards kids but when they are away from school. This has the always
good angle of bridging gap of kids at school vs. home (like the entire
concept of homework and getting them away from video games and into
something productive).  As before, this student driven initiative
could have a good cross generational non-partisan angle of possibly
Michelle Obama and Laura Bush (Laura as you may recall was behind the
Franklin Legacy project from a few years ago of showing relevance of
Franklin to today which is what the Franklin Climate Change video is
all about). Perhaps GLOBEs connections to Gore can be brought in as
well.

As you know, I was also going to follow-up with Google in California
(and maybe NY), about the data visualization angle and their overall
interest. Not sure if this would be something to also make it into the
NYT foray, but please send over whatever you have as update from the
Exeter meeting that could possibly build upon the work that Philip,
Stefan, and I have done.

Let me know if this plan sounds reasonable. Would of course get the
NYT person in contact with you, Ed, or whoever else if indeed they
want to run with the concept. John

----- Original Message -----
From: Rob Allan <allarob@googlemail.com>
To: Rick Crouthamel <R.Crouthamel@iedro.org>; Rick Crouthamel
<rick.crouthamel@gmail.com>; John Buchanan; Catherine Marzin
<Catherine.Marzin@noaa.gov>; Ed Geary <egeary@globe.gov>; Howard
Diamond <Howard.Diamond@noaa.gov>; Rosanne D'Arrigo
<rdd@ldeo.columbia.edu>
Sent: Fri Oct 16 06:34:00 2009
Subject: Follow up to NY Times Editorial

Guys,
        One of the people we're linking with to take ACRE's outreach
and output with visualisations and such to include the social sciences
and humanities at the Centre for e-Research at King's College London,
suggested to me that we might want to respond to the recent Editorial
in the NY Times on the historical logbook efforts by writing a letter
to the NY Times explaining how it all fits into the wider ACRE
picture.

       The NY Times Editorial
(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/opinion/09fri4.html?_r=1&ref=opinion)
was only responding to the media launch of the results of the CORRAL
project, which is one of several international efforts focusing on the
recovery, imaging and digitisation of historical marine and colonial
data that are all linked under ACRE.  One of my colleagues behind the
CORRAL effort always seems to miss the opportunity with such media
events of couching or projecting it to point out how the historical
logbook efforts fit into the wider scope of what ACRE is doing, so we
miss out on 'airing' a much bigger story, and I think potentially
wider impact.

       If it a Letter to the Editor was published, I'm not sure if it
would have much impact, and I'd like to get your ideas as some of
those 'on the ground' in the US as to whether you see this is
something worth doing.  I think my King's College colleague was
wondering if doing this might give us a chance of appealing to someone
benevolent in the US who might consider supporting ACRE and its
activities.

       Rick, in this sort of same vein, did anything come of the
possibility of getting an 'in' to Al Gore that you mentioned a while
back?   Could we 'use' the NY Times Editorial to get an 'in' to Al
Gore or whoever so as to explain that so far they've seen only the
'tip of the iceberg' in what we are doing?

      Any and all suggestions are most welcome.


                   Cheers,  Rob.
--
Dr Rob Allan,
ACRE Project Manager,
Climate Monitoring and Attribution Group,
Met Office Hadley Centre.
E-mail: rob.allan@metoffice.gov.uk
ACRE WWW Page:  http://www.met-acre.org/
Alternative E-mail:  allarob@googlemail.com
Phone:  +44 (0)1392 886904
Mobile: +44 (0)7545 142536
Fax:    +44 (0)1392 885681
International phone:    +44 1392 886552
Address:  Met Office
FitzRoy Road
Exeter
EX1 3PB
United Kingdom.




-- 
--
Dr Rob Allan,
ACRE Project Manager,
Climate Monitoring and Attribution Group,
Met Office Hadley Centre.
E-mail: rob.allan@metoffice.gov.uk
ACRE WWW Page:  http://www.met-acre.org/
Alternative E-mail:  allarob@googlemail.com
Phone:  +44 (0)1392 886904
Mobile: +44 (0)7545 142536
Fax:    +44 (0)1392 885681
International phone:    +44 1392 886552
Address:  Met Office
FitzRoy Road
Exeter
EX1 3PB
United Kingdom.
