With global warming and climate change currently generating one of the most vigourous of global debates, there are a lot of mixed messages and information out there to digest.

Somehow cutting through the clutter, we came across this simple non-verbal animation from 350.org. We hope you’ll agree 350 is a number really worth spreading.

There have been some big developments over the past couple of weeks. First of all, we have set up a YouTube Channel that can be used by anyone in the UNU to share their video content. Second, we have set up an account with Tube Mogul that enable the UNU to distribute videos to a number of video portals. The idea is to place UNU videos where the audience actually is, rather than hoping people will discover them on our websites.

Third, Citt and Koari have just completed a series of seven podcasts for the UNU Priority Africa project. You can see them on the UNU Youtube Channel and they will be accessible via the UNU main website. An sample video, hosted on Vimoe, is included below to give you a better idea of the themes covered.

PRIORITY AFRICA - Climate Change from UNUChannel on Vimeo.

Here is the 2008 presentation by Al Gore at TED. Lots of new data and some surprises. He points out that we are missing a sense of urgency. How do we start changing this? This is a must see video. Tell us what you think about it.

You may be wondering why the UNU Media Studio is blogging about the Prius Plug-in Hybrid. Well, yesterday morning on the way into work, we discovered this car sitting on the front court of the UNU. The car is still in development and wont be on the market until 2010.
A senior engineer from Toyota was in the UNU giving a presentation on the vehicle and I have to say I was impressed. Plug-in hybrids will offer better mileage and will help reduce CO2. If the main forms of electricity production in your country are renewable, then the potential CO2 reductions are even greater. Also, if more and more countries switch to a mix of biofuels and oil, then that means further CO2 reductions!
Here in the UNU Media Studio, as blogged earlier, we are focusing this year on the links between Climate Change, Peak Oil and Food Security and it is innovations like the Prius Plug-in Hybrid that will help overcome this problems - we hope.

And if you like the plug-in hybrid, then you may find the video below interesting. In it, the Brookings Institution expert David Sandalow demonstrates his plug in hybrid electric car and talks about his book, Freedom from Oil.

Photo by Sean Wood (aka motionid on Flickr).

Happy New Year from the UNU Media Studio team!
We have some new activities planned for this year and next. We are currently brainstorming on a project that looks at the interaction between climate change, peak oil and food security (to name some key issues). It draws lessons over the next few years on how societies like Japan are coping with these powerful trends and, for instance, how it may be possible to meet the targets set out under the Kyoto Protocol. We will tell you more about this as we further elaborate our ideas. By the way, the photo is from Grant Neufeld and covered by a Creative Commons license.
In the early part of this year, we will be working with the World Health Organization to produce an advocacy documentary on aging happily and healthily. We did some scouting at the end of last year and the production team will be doing some filming this month in Kobe (the case study site).
A lot of projects will remain as before. We will continue to support the UNU-Global Virtual University based in Norway and also UNU Opencourseware (a cross the UNU collaboration). The video conference based classes under the Asia Pacific Initiative will continue and grow. Our collaboration with REDMESO and the development of e-case studies (using Fieldtrip) and documentaries will also develop further over the next two years.

Promoting learning on social and environmental issues is a key component of what we do. We are exploring further the role of documentaries in raising awareness on issues and prompting action. Openness is a central facet of how we approach our work and of how we share what we do through open content, open educational resources and Creatives Commons, etc.
But we are also really excited about the prospect of using various web services (Web 2.0) and social media in order to promote more effective communication with our audience and partners. These are just some of the activities, with other new collaborations gradually emerging, for instance with the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the University of Sydney. We will talk more on this later.

“Climate Change is unequivocal.” Those are the words of Dr. Rajendra Pachuari, Chairman of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
On 2 November, as part of the Asia Pacific Initiative, the UNU Media Studio worked with our network of partners to organize a special lecture from Dr. Pachuari via video conference. The title of his presentation was “The IPCC Fourth Assessment and Beyond.”
This lecture was very timely since on 12 October, the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was jointly awarded to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the former US vice-president Al Gore for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.
Students and professors participated from classrooms at the UNU, the Energy Research Institute (TERI - India), Keio University, Tokyo Institute of Technology, the University of the Ryukyus, the National University of Samoa, the Asian Institute of Technology and the University of Hawaii. FASID provided extensive support for the lecture in Tokyo and the University of Hawaii facilitated the video conference component.
The lecture was brilliant and provided deep insights on the work of the IPCC’s, their assessment findings and particularly the impact on the Asia and Pacific region.