What if we created a Video Response Team that would be part of our existing DK4 Group of DK Poli. This video response team would debunk a key GOP talking point or meme on any issue.
This DK Video Response team would need video editors; editors to write the text for video; people to research data points from credible news stories, studies or science; and people to find copyright ok pictures for the video or to create our own pictures. I think we could do an excellent job. Anyone interested?
A lot of youtube videos are seen by tens of thousands, even millions of viewers. If we could create a simple message, such as linking Speaker Styrofoam with cruel deaths of marine life, and then repeat with more videos on a range of issues, it could help place Democrats in a better position for 2012 because the cumulative impact will be to illustrate a pattern of lies, disinformation and manufactured facts.
A first issue could be to expose to the public how Styrofoam Speaker Supports Starvation Killing of Marine Life. (This picture of Boehner would be great if we can get permission to use or perhaps a kossack could create a picture for us.) A little play on words as he is both very plastic and his new policy of using Styrofoam cups that many communities are banning is just backwards politics for corporate profit.
During the interview, Mr. Boehner sipped coffee from a Styrofoam cup, the kind that were banished from the Capitol as environmentally unfriendly by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Our response video could have a few key data points about the health and environmental harms of Styrofoam in the foreground against pictures of marine life and seabirds that starved to death due to ingesting plastic, including the Styrofoam particles from cups he supports using. People might not care that Styrofoam cups will still be sitting in landfills 500 years from today, but I think most people love our whales, seals, dolphins, sea turtles, and seabirds. People's hearts broke over seeing our birds and marine mammals soaked in oil from BP– Now we have a petroleum product killing them, and pictures to show what Styrofoam Speaker's policy means in the world trying to live beyond his BS bubble of doubletalk, misinformation and lies.
Warning: This diary includes pictures and videos that are quite disturbing, including a video of a whale as it is dying from ingesting plastic, and pictures of decomposing birds showing the plastic contents that starved them to death. While Styrofoam Speaker wants to be cocky and smirk about environmentally responsible policies favored and implemented by Democrats, the reality is that his policy supports the continued cruel killing of marine life.
Here are some key data points that we could include in this video, but I think the videos might be most effective if we used only 1-3 data points that are simple and easy to understand:
Former Koch Exec Supplies Speaker Boehner With Styrofoam Cups:
House Republicans announced in January that they would end a program to place compostable cups, containers and utensils in the House-side mini-cafeteria, a direct shot at former Speaker Nancy Pelosi's "Green the Capitol" initiative, which did away with styrofoam cups in 2007. Suspending the program resulted in business for Wurtz, a former executive of Koch Industries subsidiary Georgia-Pacific LLC.
GOP leaders did not handpick Wurtz's company, however -- that decision rested with Restaurant Associates, which manages the cafeteria.
Each year Americans toss away 25,000,000,000 Styrofoam cups.
Styrofoam cups are made from polystyrene, a petroleum-based plastic.
Polystyrene is made with Styrene that EPA classified as possible human carcinogen. Rep. Mike Honda (D-Ca) disagrees with Styrofoam Speaker's new policy:
We know that these styrofoam cups, which recently replaced the compostable cups in our cafeterias, are connected with human carcinogens -- just ask the EPA and the International Agency for Research on Cancer," Honda said in a statement. "Or ask McDonalds, who stopped using them years ago. These cancer-causing cups leach toxic chemicals, which threaten our health, our reproductive systems, and our environment as the nation's 5th largest creator of hazardous waste. To claim these cups are part of a cost-cutting measure is completely disingenuous."
Litter and plastic cups travel from streets and landfills via wind or storm water runoff into storm drains and then into rivers that empty into our seas.
(Pictures of Los Angeles River from report by California Coastal Commission)
Plastic in the ocean is concentrated in gyres, which are rotating or converging ocean currents that "keep the trash swirling in a giant whirlpool."
The North Pacific Ocean Gyre or "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" is 10 million square miles large, extending from the California Coast to China and thus larger than the continental U.S.
There are six times more plastic particles than plankton in our ocean garbage patches. The problem is the plastic particles look like food: the jellyfish, squid, fish eggs, and plankton and so the plastic is eaten by the fish, birds and other critters, entering the food chain.
"Marine debris has injured or killed at least 267 species world-wide, primarily through ingestion and entanglement." At least 56 seabird species consume polystyrene balls that are confused with dietary items like fish eggs and crustaceans.
Sea turtles also think the Styrofoam particles and plastic pellets are food so they "eat" it: "Clogging their intestines, and missing out on vital nutrients, the turtles starve to death."
Each year globally plastic "kills more than 1 million sea birds and 100,000" whales, dolphins and seals.
This is a very difficult video to watch of a whale dying from ingestion of plastic shopping bags:
It's not the first time: "Seven sperm whales that beached at Foggia, Italy, died from ingesting plastic in the ocean, a scientist at Tusica University said … ."
This video includes difficult pictures to see of the plastic contents that caused the starvation deaths of baby albatrosses who had lived at "one of the remotest marine sanctuaries on earth, more than 2,000 miles from the nearest continent." Chris Jordan took these pictures, and there are more at his site. It is heartbreaking to watch this video of the harms from plastic on marine life:
Plastics decompose in ocean, releasing "potentially toxic substances into the water."
The plastic from ocean gyros returns from the ocean to beaches and in Japan alone that is 150,000 tons of plastic debris, much of it Styrofoam (picture at link).
Styrofoam is now banned in some communities as some move forward to actually address this issue rather than moving back in time like Boehner. Governments and manufacturers need to take responsibility to stop plastic from suffocating and starving our marine life. Notice all the Styrofoam cups littering these beaches:
The DK Video Response Team fits nicely with DK Poli.
DK Poli is a political advocacy and activism group that works on projects with lawmakers, grass root leaders, progressive organizations, politicians, journalists and activists. The nature of the issue or objective will determine our format. Our first project of GOTV for midterms was a blogathon. Other times, kossacks and guests will post diaries and videos on substantive issues and educational "seminars" that provide practical "how to" information, such as how to run a campaign.
If you are not familiar with us, our first project was the Daily Kos GOTV Blogathon for the 2010 Midterm: This diary lists some of our guests and this tag page has all of the GOTV diaries, as some guests confirmed after the announcement diary.
The DK Poli blog page has heart you can click to follow us.