My idea began with our last election.
I thought the banner for Oregon District 2’s answer to Greg Walden needed to say more, so I added some reasons to vote for Jamie Mcleod Skinner.
In the meantime I had created a presentation about how greenhouse gases do their work. It did not seem to go over very well since people seem to watch it for only about 2 minutes and then abandon it. (Youtube has statistics that tell you about that sort of thing.)
I realized that part of the problem was that I did not have a captive audience and that for someone to watch something educational all the way through was a tough sell. That brings me back to the billboard and banner.
After the election I painted the billboard with the Keeling curve and asked a question meant to elicit curiosity.
The idea behind that was that they would go home and research it and maybe learn something about climate change in the process. The people driving by are a captive audience in a sense unless they are driving with their eyes closed or talking on their cell phone.
That billboard was up for a couple of months or so and it did provoke a reaction from people since some of them would slow way down to look at it. (I live on a dead end road but there is quite a bit of traffic since the end of the road is about 15 miles up a canyon from where I live.) The wind can come barreling down the canyon with some pretty high gusts and that is what did my billboard in. It took 2 gusts to break it up and I saw the second gust pick it up, spin it around and throw it down. Very impressive what the wind can do.
I reassembled it and touched up the paint but then got to thinking I would paint the other side.
This is what I was going to paint on the other side.
The only problem was that the billboard was only meant to have a banner screwed to it originally and I had made it with a piece of OSB (Oriented Strand Board) which is very rough and difficult to paint on. I decided I would have to build a new billboard with a smooth surface that was easier to paint on.
At some point I realized that my end goal of changing peoples behavior in order to help alleviate climate change was going to take a long time since my strategy depended on education. I realized that time is of the essence and that we don’t really need to educate people, we just need to modify their purchasing decisions and so I decided to promote electric vehicles on my new billboard.
This is the side facing traffic coming in to the valley / canyon.
This is the side facing traffic that is leaving the valley / canyon.
I also added more bags of rocks on the base members so it is less inclined to be picked up and destroyed by the wind.
And so, while it appears the government is not going to do enough until it is too late, we can take charge and make it happen sooner rather than later. Cars and trucks account for about one-fifth of CO2 emissions in the US. We can drastically reduce that by demanding electric vehicles from the manufacturers now. With more electric vehicles come more charging stations (leading to stronger demand), more wind and solar farms and less CO2 being produced by vehicles.
If you are in the market for a new vehicle buy an EV. Any other purchase is a waste of your money since the market for used fossil fuel vehicles will tank in the next few years. And if you have the location, desire and ability, make a billboard promoting a climate change solution or environmental education. (And please share this.)