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You've been sent a story from New Voices (http://www.j-newvoices.org/): Vermont Climate Witness Pete Land, President, Tamarack Productions http://www.j-newvoices.org/120/ To create a map-based interactive experience to track how residents see climate change affecting the state's economy, from fall foliage and maple syrup to skiing. CONTACT INFO Tamarack Productions 1 Steele Street, Ste. 111 Burlington, VT 05401 (802) 238-5938 E-mail Web site To create a map-based interactive experience to track how residents see climate change affecting the state’s economy, from fall foliage and maple syrup to skiing. Tamarack Productions, a nonprofit environmental awareness organization, will work with the Vermont Natural Resources Council to develop user content and create Google Map mash-ups to help users visualize weather data and real-time weather indicators. Check back for future news and updates. • August 2008 • March 2008 • November 2007     RipeningAugust 2008 Vermont Climate Witness has completed its beta testing phase and is preparing now for a more formal launch this fall.  Is it raining at Lake Champlain? You can now find out by logging on to Vermont Climate Witness, which has added the live National Weather Service Doppler radar feed of cloud cover as a layer to its map. In the meantime, VCW has been doing grassroots outreach to spread the word about the new site, which welcomes citizen scientists and citizen journalists to share their observations about the weather.  VCW exhibited at a recent sustainable living expo in Burlington, and the project was profiled in an article that was published in central Vermont newspapers:  The Rutland Herald and the Barre-Montpelier Times-Argus. Bill Finnegan, VCW project leader, says outreach will continue to be his focus.  “As with any Web site that depends on user-generated content, we know that it is not enough simply to go live with the site and expect people to find it.  Nor is a simple blitz of e-mail lists enough to garner the attention and activity that will sustain the Web site in the long term.” So VCW will work with its partner the Vermont Natural Resources Council’s Energy and Climate Action Network, which consists of community-based teams that are engaging citizens in discussions about climate change. VCW will put together a simple guide for using the site and distribute it through the VNRC. VCW is on the road over the summer and fall to spread the word widely, face-to-face. And to engage new audiences, they’ve reached beyond the environmentalist community to the Vermont Ski Areas Association. If they feel they need an extra push before launch, they may place targeted advertising and a contest through the Front Porch Forum, a popular Burlington-based neighborhood electronic newsletter. “We are also very interested in finding ways to capture the stories of older Vermonters who are less tech savvy but have plenty to teach us about the Vermont climate over the years,” said Finnegan.  One possibility is to create an intergenerational oral history project. Beta Testing 1-2-3 ...March 2008 Vermont Climate Witness went live in beta version in December 2007.  Since then, it has recruited a posse of weather buffs, student activists and environmental educators to test the site and contribute seed content, as site producers fine-tune the back-end systems and the site interface in advance of the public launch. “The transition from concept to actual functioning Web site has been an interesting and exciting process,” says Bill Finnegan of Tamarack Productions, the project leader. “There were many things that we couldn’t fully anticipate - issues that only became clear once we created the site and people started posting.” The testing period has helped producers simplify the site’s location tagging and create a more user-friendly system for setting up accounts, uploading content, adding comments and forwarding posts to friends. Finnegan says the team still has some technical and content challenges ahead. “For the map interface, we are still trying to figure out the best way to represent multiple posts to the same location - we will likely add either a multi-post icon for popular locations or add more specialized statewide, regional, and city/town level views that include different information on the map. We are also working on the best way to integrate Vermont Climate Witness with existing media sharing Web sites, like YouTube and Flickr, so users don’t have to re-upload existing online video clips or photographs.” With heightened awareness of global warming, many people tend to blame all sorts of weather conditions on greenhouse gases and carbon emissions.  So Vermont Climate Witness knows it must proceed cautiously, encouraging people to share weather stories on the site without losing credibility for featuring information that’s not really related to climate change or trends.  Finnegan say they are developing a strategy to recruit and support a social network of regular contributors.  A key partner will be Seventh Generation the national non-toxic cleaning products company which happens to be based in Burlington, VT.  The company is leading a regional “Low Carbon Diet” initiative in which community-based eco-teams post their stories to Vermont Climate Witness as they track their personal progress using a carbon footprint tool developed by the EPA. They have also started a conversation with Greenopolis.com, a social network for green living, about replicating Climate Witness at a larger scale. Vermont Climate Witness had originally planned its public launch for January 31 to coincide with Focus the Nation, a national teach-in, but Finnegan says his team concluded the site wasn’t ready yet. Instead they seized the opportunity to share the Beta version with the 27 schools and other organizations participating in the event around the state. The site will also do heavy promotion at March 4 Town Meeting Day gatherings around Vermont in partnership with community energy and climate groups.  They are also considering touring libraries and community centers around the state to publicly launch the site this spring. Can I get a Witness?November 2007 Vermont Climate Witness is gearing up for a soft launch of the site in late November, 2007. The site will encourage Vermonters to think globally, but act locally, by documenting the impact of climate change on their lives and immediate environment. The site introduction reads: “We all know what Global Warming is. We hear it on the radio, see it on the television, and read about it in the news. Whatever the myths and truths surrounding Global Warming: its causes, its consequences, or possible solutions, ignoring the topic is no longer an option for any conscious individual. This Web site aims to create a unique regional perspective of our climate. By sharing observations seen where you live, we can together build a strong regional view of some rather drastic changes.” Through summer, the Vermont Climate Witness project has been hard at work preparing the digital soil for the new site. Key partners in the project are Legitify, a media firm that specializes in Web development and content management, and the Vermont Natural Resources Council, the state’s leading environmental organization. Project leader Bill Finnegan of Tamarack Productions says, “We are confident we can create a powerful platform for citizen science and citizen journalism with an active community of users and contributors.” Over the past few months, they have been working to adapt Legitify’s “Studio” Web application for a Web site driven by user-generated, multi-media content. They have refined the interface and the interactive map, which Finnegan says “must be intuitively organized to fully engage users ...  In many ways it’s been a reality check in terms of the time it takes to develop a complicated software application that is user-friendly.” A local graphic designer has developed a logo and design for the Web site, including icons that will indicate the different types of content available through the site’s embedded Google Maps:  weather conditions, plants/foliage, wildlife/hunting/fishing, farming/sugaring, outdoor recreation/skiing, and climate action. The project has reached out to a slew of climate experts to advise and participate: Lesley-Ann L. Dupigny-Giroux, the Vermont State Climatologist and a Professor in the Geography Department at the University of Vermont.  Mark Breen, Senior Meteorologist at the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium and Host of Vermont Public Radio’s “Eye on the Sky” weather programming.  Tom Messner, Chief Meteorologist of WPTZ NewsChannel 5 and the ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center.  Alexander Quarles van Ufford, Coordinator of the Climate Witness Initiative at WWF International.During the soft launch phase, the Vermont Natural Resources Council will link to the site and help recruit 50 contributors already interested in climate change, from student activists involved in the Step it Up climate action protests to energy commission members from small towns. “This first set of users will upload seed content while testing the software,” says Finnegan. He expects these pioneering participants to ultimately become active contributors and an important network for promoting the site. “In an effort to get beyond those already interested in this issue, or who represent a particular perspective, we plan to involve weather buffs from the National Weather Service Cooperative Observer Program, as well as Vermont celebrities, such as artists musicians and business leaders.” The public launch is slated for January when Finnegan says the site will be fully tested, chock-full of rich multimedia content, and buzzing with activity from a co-hort of contributors. The launch date is planned to coincide with and ride the promotional coattails of a national teach-in on global warming called Focus the Nation, on Jan. 31, 2008.