Methane and Climate Change

Here's an aspect of environmental news that isn't getting much coverage.

Ten to 15 years ago there were people telling me that global warming (now called climate change) wasn't being caused by people. It was because of belching and farting cattle. And indeed, methane from many sources...not just cattle...is bad for the environment. It is 20 times more potent than CO2. According to an article in the National Geographic, "Burn natural gas and it warms your house. But let it leak, from fracked wells or the melting Arctic, and it warms the whole planet."

Today those same people are saying the argument is ridiculous because the Obama Administration wants to regulate methane emissions. The focus is again on farting cattle...not the whole picture. The language used is derisive and ladled with name calling. Do those who were backing Methane as the leading cause of global warming ten years ago have short memories, or are they just arguments of convenience?

Isn't there a journalistic responsibility here? When these people speak up, they should be called out on this. The truth might not set them free, but the rest of us need to know.

OpenAir Improves Signal

For Public Broadcasting being on the right platforms is really important. Colorado Public Radio's (CPR) OpenAir is moving in the right direction. OpenAir is improving its chances of being heard. They're moving to the FM dial with the purchase of KDSP at 102.3FM.  Since hardly anybody listens to AM radio anymore, this should be a good move. OpenAir will continue to air on 1340 AM (KVOQ). Listening to music on the AM dial is a trying experience even for someone like me who grew up listening to top 40 on a transistor radio.

Cost of the 1000 watt station is close to $6MM. The purchase will be financed through tax-exempt bonds and paid over time through listener contributions. It's a funding model that has worked for CPR for the past 15 years.

Launch of OpenAir on the FM dial is January 27th.


The transmitter is near Golden and coverage includes Boulder and Denver.

Increased Autism Rate - Diagnosis

A study out of Denmark by researchers at Aarhus University suggests the increase is because of the way Autism is now diagnosed.

“This study is important because it shows a large part of the increase has nothing to do with the environment, but rather administrative decisions,” says study author Stefan Hansen.

The CDC estimates that one in 68 children in the United States is on the Autism Spectrum. That represents a 30% increase over 2012.

As always. more study and research is needed. The CDC announced on January 2nd that it is ovesting $20MM over the next four years to better track children with autism spectrum disorder so that the U.S. can better understand what impacts the prevalence of autism.

You can read more about this research at Time Magazine.

How Not to Ask for Money

Getting People to Give - Why not just ask?

I'm constantly searching for ways to motivate people to give. It all started during a radio fund drive. It was one of my first. Nobody was calling. Of course, we reverted to threatening the audience. In radio they have the ultimate free will. I think we annoyed the audience by threatening to keep playing "Dukey Stick." They either hit the off button or went up the dial. We didn't know. We thought it was hilarious.

Big Mistake

We were supposed to be a jazz station. Why on earth would any Jazz Aficionado stick around to listen to any of that? And by playing it back to back to back to back drove the audience to zero within minutes.

We had a legitimate cause. We wanted funding for a public radio station that had a blend of News and Jazz. We were asking for money in entirely the wrong way. We were sending a message that we really didn't believe in our service.

There are at least nine ways not to ask for money according amnesty-volunteer.org. I think we violated four. We weren't really asking. At least, not about our service. We were totally outside our format and the audience we served. Begging, apologizing or demanding. Donors give because they believe in what you're doing. So, we should  have believed too. I still hear apologizing a lot. Making assumptions. We assumed the listener was on the same wave-length. We thought we were being funny and they would get the joke. In a way, the whole pitch was dishonest. We thought we were better off pitching something other than what we had to offer.  What we should have had the courage to do was talk about what we were and the unique qualities of our service.

What we were can been seen in this video. All we had to do was ask.