BROADCASTERS PLAY VITAL ROLE IN
EFFORT TO REDUCE GLOBAL WARMING

EPA’s Latest PSAs Take a Humorous Approach to Serious Subject

America’s media community – television broadcasters in particular - play an important role in the campaign to reduce energy consumption and lower global warming. Based on the latest survey data, the public is both hearing and heeding the public service advertising messages disseminated by the Environmental Protection Agency as part of its ENERGY STAR public education program.

According to the latest survey, public awareness of ENERGY STAR has jumped to 64 percent of U.S. households. In many major markets where local utilities and retailers promote energy efficiency to their customers via ENERGY STAR, public awareness of the program averages 74 percent.

ENERGY STAR is a dynamic government/industry partnership that offers businesses and consumers energy-efficient solutions, making it easy to save money while protecting the environment for future generations.

In 1992, EPA introduced the program as a voluntary labeling effort designed to identify and promote energy-efficient products to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Computers and monitors were the first labeled products. Through 1995, EPA expanded the label to additional office equipment products and residential heating and cooling equipment. In 1996, EPA partnered with the US Department of Energy for particular product categories and the ENERGY STAR label is now on major appliances, office equipment, lighting, home electronics, new homes, as well as commercial and industrial buildings.

Simple Actions Pay Big Dividends

EPA’s latest TV PSAs take a light-hearted approach to a very serious environmental problem. The leading characters in the PSAs – Mark and Suzanne– pursue a variety of activities to demonstrate that home energy use can cause twice the greenhouse gas emissions of a car. The storyline goes on to show the importance of the ENERGY STAR label when consumers are shopping for home equipment and appliances.

“The public doesn’t have to go to extremes to help protect the environment; simple actions can pay big dividends.”
Maria Vargas, Environmental Protection Agency

“The ‘Mark and Suzanne’ PSAs demonstrate that people don’t have to go to extremes to improve the environment,” points out Maria Vargas of EPA’s Climate Protection Division. “Consumers can make a significant difference in lowering air pollution right at home by looking for the ENERGY STAR label when they shop and taking some minor, but important actions as part of their daily routine,” she said.

EPA’s latest TV PSAs feature seven different executions in a variety of lengths, encouraging the public to visit www.energystar.gov and implement five simple actions to help protect the environment. For example, if every American household took just one of these steps - changing the most frequently used lights in their homes to ENERGY STAR models - they would prevent more than one million pounds of greenhouse gases. This level is equivalent to that emitted annually by eight million cars.

Media Support

Each of the ENERGY STAR public education campaigns undergoes thorough evaluation. The first phase of the Mark and Suzanne TV PSA campaign was used just under 86,000 times on broadcast and cable stations and has generated nearly $7 million in advertising equivalency value. _____% of the stations using the PSAs were in the top 100 markets which is where 87% of U.S. TV households are located. This phase of the ongoing campaign follows the highly successful “Change” PSA effort which was supported by nearly 400 broadcast and cable stations.

Through partnerships with more than 7,000 private and public sector organizations, ENERGY STAR delivers technical information and tools that organizations and consumers need to choose energy-efficient solutions. The program has successfully delivered energy and cost savings across the country, saving businesses, organizations, and consumers more than $7 billion a year. As of 2005, almost 2,000 of the nation's most energy efficient buildings, representing almost 400 million square feet, have earned EPA's ENERGY STAR designation for superior energy performance. The buildings qualifying as ENERGY STAR use about 40 percent less energy than average buildings without compromising comfort or services.

Evidence Shows Signs of Global Warming

While scientists differ on the extent of global warming, there appears to be consensus that it exists and is getting worse. For example:

• Seven of the 10 warmest years on record occurred in the 1990s. 1998 was the hottest year since reliable measurements began.

• Excessive heat is already a major health problem in the U.S., killing more than 8,000 Americans from 1979 to 1999. Warmer temperatures have been linked to increases in asthma rates, increased skin cancer, and increased cases of West Nile virus and Lyme’s disease.

• Many of the world’s glaciers show signs of melting which may result
  in the sea level rising between several inches and as much as three feet during the next century.

• The world’s habitats and ecosystems may be adversely affected due to a rapid change in climate which could threaten plants and animals unable to react quickly enough to survive.

Global warming is caused by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere which act much like the glass panes in a greenhouse. Sunlight enters the earth’s atmosphere, passing through a layer of greenhouse gases, including water vapor, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane. The earth absorbs solar radiation from the sun which is then reflected back into the atmosphere. Some of the sun’s radiation passes through the atmosphere, but much of it remains trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases resulting in a warming effect on the earth’s surface.

SIDEBAR

The ENERGY STAR campaign is based on five simple things everyone can do in their home to make it more energy efficient:

1. Change five Lights. Replace your five most frequently used lights or the bulbs in them with ones that have the ENERGY STAR label.

2. Look for ENERGY STAR labeled Products. Available in more than 40 product categories, including lighting and home appliances.

3. Heat and cool smartly. Have your heating and cooling equipment serviced annually and remember to replace air filters regularly. Use a programmable thermostat, and when it's time to replace old equipment, choose an ENERGY STAR labeled model.

4. Seal up your home. Seal air leaks, add insulation and choose ENERGY STAR labeled windows.

5. Tell family and friends. Help spread the word among your family and friends that they can play an active role in protecting their environment and the importance of choosing products with the ENERGY STAR label.

SIDEBAR

Broadcaster Actions to Reduce Global Warming

There are three simple, but important actions broadcasters can take to help reduce energy use and global warming:

1. Air the Mark and Suzanne TV PSAs as often as possible; schedule them when homeowners are most likely to be watching, and keep them on the air when the weather is warm and energy use peaks.

2. Encourage other departments at your station to get involved in the campaign by using the facts and data in this newsletter to develop news stories and editorials on the subject of energy efficiency and conservation.

3. Implement energy saving procedures at your station and in your own homes; teach your children the important role they play in protecting the environment.

(Note: this layout has to serve in lieu of the storyboard so the images and the copy beneath them must be legible and high-quality.)

Protecting the Environment – A Global Collaboration
What Others Are Doing¹

The Izaak Walton League announced a partnership with the U.S. Forest Service to restore and protect rivers, streams, and important fisheries habitat in the nation’s National Forest system that covers 191 million acres. Conservation International and the United Nations Foundation launched a three-year $15 million partnership to protect and conserve the world’s most biodiversity-rich places. World Wildlife Fund launched the Amazon Region Protected Areas program to save an area of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest roughly the size of California over the next decade. The National Wildlife Federation helped Home Depot stores across the U.S. offer products, information, and expertise to assist Americans in transforming backyards and outdoor areas of any size into wildlife habitat sites. The Rocky Mountain Institute published The New Business Climate, aimed at helping both large and small companies become more profitable and efficient while reducing their global warming impacts. Actor Val Kilmer, a distant cousin of “Trees” poet Joyce Kilmer, planted the 20 millionth tree for American Forests’ Global Releaf Program, which helps communities improve the local and global environment by planting and caring for trees. The Student Conservation Association (SCA) dedicated a new Center for Conservation Service, a conference and training facility from which SCA will launch environmental education and service learning programs for schools, youth programs, and conservation groups from the Northeast and throughout the nation. American Rivers, along with Natural Resources Defense Council and Smart Growth America, issued a report citing sprawl development as making the nation’s drought even more painful by impairing the landscape’s ability to recharge aquifers and surface waters. The Center for Health, Environment and Justice continued its work to promote grassroots action aimed at eliminating environmental health hazards from our schools. The Environmental Law Institute published Healthier Schools: A Review of State Policies for Improving Indoor Air Quality, detailing state policies that prevent school indoor air problems by promoting better facility maintenance and management, as well as better design and construction of new and renovated schools. Across the globe, Earth Day Network continues to bring citizens together to engage in local environmental projects, while keeping global issues in the forefront. Volunteers from the Environmental Alliance for Senior
Involvement work in a variety of campaigns to actively engage their communities in environmental health, environmental monitoring, and watershed restoration. Local chapters of the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy continue to help create greenways as a strategic approach to land conservation, linking open space, providing alternative transportation routes, and preserving land from development. The Trust for Public Land and The Nature Conservancy continue to save open spaces from development with major acquisitions in California, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oklahoma, and other states. Among the Conservancy’s major victories was an unprecedented partnership in which the group agreed to provide low-cost, long-term financing for Great Northern Paper. The company will place a conservation easement on 200,000 acres of forestland in Maine, which will guarantee public access, traditional recreational uses, sustainable forestry, and no future development. The Wilderness Society pressed to increase funding for wild places and wildlife across the country. The group issued a study showing how funding levels fall far below what is necessary to protect and preserve them. In the courts, Earthjustice secured a ruling that added new protections for Steller sea lions and the entire North Pacific ecosystem. Earthjustice also celebrated its collaborative efforts with other organizations to bring the Sacramento River King Salmon back from the brink of extinction.

Design notes:

1. One additional storyboard to come – leave half of a page for it.
   
2. If there is room we want to add an evaluation reply card as part of the design, with the front of it on the 3rd page and the reverse on the back page. It must also be designed as a perf on both sides as it will be removable.
   
3. Please leave space for several photos to illustrate the last story.
   
4. Note to WPG: paper stock must use recycled paper and soy ink; stock
   
must be heavy enough to accommodate the reply card

¹Excerpts reprinted with permission from Sharing News published by Earth Share