Listen Up People

Today I had planned to write about the recent flare up between Ben Affleck and Bill Maher/Sam Harris  discussing the topic of "Islamophobia."

But I'm postponing that.

For one thing I've covered the the topic before. Moreover, the issue of culture clash and extreme Islamic atrocities isn't going away anytime soon.

Instead I've made room for a more agreeable issue: the stewardship of the planet.

Agreeable in that no matter where you stand on climate change, and I know some very knowledgeable folks (including engineers and scienticians) who contest that notion,  no one disagrees with the idea of reducing pollutants, conserving our natural resources and taking better care of the planet.

Which is why I was so thrilled to receive a call from the Media Arts Lab and my old boss, Lee Clow.

They have been working tirelessly with Conservation International. And prepared a star-studded series of films, voiced by Harrison Ford, Kevin Spacey and Julia Roberts, that began running yesterday.

In addition to the films, Lee wanted to extend the campaign into social media. That's when my phone rang. Because when people think of social media, digital ninja-tude and being on the leading edge of culture, my name is usually the first in the Rolodex. (You kids can use The Google and to look up Rolodex.)

Actually I think my name came up because Lee enjoys my almost daily tweets about the adventures of gout-ridden North Korean Leader Kim Jung Un. And wanted to see if we could spark some similar magic in the Twittersphere.

Yesterday the campaign launched.

And I'm already seeing great press about it. I wish I was more involved with the making of the films, I wasn't, but I tip my hat to the creatives, the producers and all the agency people who put it together.

The social media aspect of the campaign has also started. If you click on over to Twitter, you should start following The Ocean, Mother Nature, Soil, Redwood and the others.

There you will find many tweets on behalf of Conservation International. And some of them are my handiwork.

Make a donation to CI.

Then follow, retweet, and start conversations.

Do it because it's the right thing to do for our planet. And, perhaps more importantly, an excellent and indirect way to defray the cost of my daughter's exorbitant out-of-state college tuition.