Uwe’s weblog

As I write this there have been 1,729,936 people who have lit a candle on the light a million candles website.

Do something positive, today, to help stamp out child abuse. Visit the website and light a candle or copy the text below and send a copy to everyone you know.

Send this:-

The innocent victims of Internet child abuse cannot speak for themselves.

But you can.

With your help, we can eradicate this evil trade.

We do not need your money.

We need you to light a candle of support .

The more candles we light, the more powerful our voice becomes.

This petition will be used to encourage governments, politicians, financial institutions, payment organisations, Internet service providers, technology companies and law enforcement agencies to eradicate the commercial viability of online child abuse.

They have the power to work together. You have the power to get them to take action.

Please light your candle at lightamillioncandles.com or send an email of support to light@lightamillioncandles.com.

Together, we can destroy the commercial viability of Internet child abuse sites that are destroying the lives of innocent children.

Kindly forward this email to your friends, relatives and work colleagues so that they can light a candle too.

Together we can make a difference.

In my previous post about the film An Inconvenient Truth I had linked to the video on YouTube. Alas Paramount Pictures, the copyright owner, has instructed YouTube to take it down as it was published without permission.

I understand that it costs money to produce, publish and distribute these films and I have no problem with people wanting to make a profit and get paid for their work. I also understand that the original poster of the video put it on YouTube without the permission of the copyright holder.

In one of their ads for the film the intro goes something like this:-

IF YOU LOVE YOUR PLANET..
IF YOU LOVE YOUR CHILDREN..

YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS FILM

Which leads me to ask just how much the people behind Paramount Pictures love their planet and their children? What does it take to elevate our future above the profit motive? How much profit is enough? Will Paramount Pictures and their shareholders donate this film to the future of our planet?

Are they more interested in short term profits than they are about disseminating important information for the people of earth?

As they say in their ads “Everyone needs to see this film”.

Is it just another inconvenient truth that not everyone can afford it?

So to all the people at Paramount

IF YOU LOVE YOUR PLANET..
IF YOU LOVE YOUR CHILDREN..

YOU WILL LET EVERYONE SEE THIS FILM

It is late in the afternoon on the last day of 2006 and I am about to have dinner with friends where conversation will flow recapping the last year and contemplating the year ahead.

Will 2007 be a Happy New Year?

Will we wake up to the importance of every living being?
Will we unite with others to avoid climate catastrophe?
Will we help to end hunger, war and suffering?

Every minute of every day brings with it the possibility of change.

Will we change?
Will we seek peace and harmony?
Will we work together?

Or will it be another year of lining up for the next great gadget where the purchase price would feed a family for a month or would provide much needed medicine in the third world?

Will we buy another gas guzzler?
Will we support a government that doesn’t represent us?
Will we reach out to those less fortunate and help?

Or will we sit at home lamenting and believing ourselves powerless?

Will we smile at one another as we walk down the street?
Will we even notice if our neighbour stumbles or falls?
Will we offer help if we do?

Or will we simply wait around for someone else to act for us?

What will you do?

No one can deny that our planet is in crisis. Anyone who has seen the film “An Inconvenient Truth” cannot help but be alarmed by its message.

A quick search (Google December 28th 2006) on relevant topics gives the following results:-

• Global warming – 26,300,00
• Planet in crisis – 4,500,000
• Pollution – 81,500,000

and the list goes on.

With so many people wanting to make a difference why is there so little progress?

My concern is that there are simply too many individual websites and groups asking people to take action, asking us to join and asking us for money to assist that their impact is diluted. Don’t get me wrong – these individuals and groups have the best intentions and want to make a difference. They are also helping to spread the truth about the current crisis.

• There are simply too many pages to visit.
• There are too many stand alone groups to join.
• These groups don’t talk to each other
• Many of these groups allow us to join but don’t allow us to take part in the conversation.
• There is simply no one place for everyone to get together and take affirmative action.

Groups I’ve joined include PlanetExtinction.com and StopGlobalWarming.org that collectively have nearly 600,000 members. There are literally thousands of others I could join. I have taken their advice about the things I can do, personally, to make a difference and I’m spreading the word to everyone I know both verbally and through this blog. It is a shame that the groups I’ve joined do not allow me or others to post a message to their subscribers. In this way they are contributing to the isolation that is contributing to the crisis.

Imagine if all these groups could get together and en mass take a political and social stand. Individually these groups have a few thousand members. Collectively these groups have millions of members. We need to find a way to connect them all to really make a difference.

My friend Hamish had this to say on the preceding paragraph:

I don’t think that is likely to happen — or not, at any rate, over the long term — because such groups are almost inevitably politicised, with everything which that implies in terms of power blocks and power broking, ego trips, competitiveness, and so on. This, I would suggest, is the real issue, and likely a largely intractable one, although that does not mean it cannot be analysed and lamented.

An expansion, for what it’s worth. People talk about ’single-issue’ politics, but there is no such thing as a ’single-issue’ movement, whether in politics or any other field of endeavour. Any grouping of people has at least two goals: 1) to pursue its stated objectives, be they addressing global warming, promoting human sacrifice, expanding or limiting people’s civil rights in one way or another or whatever; and 2) to preserve and promote its identity over and against other groups. And the more closely allied any two groups are in their objectives and their ideologies, the more likely they are to be antagonistic to each other and the less likely they are to make common cause. Such, I fear, is human nature.

If he is correct then we will never speak with one voice. I hope he’s wrong. We need to find a way.

As a concerned person you are probably a member of one or more of these groups already. If we are to survive this crisis we all need to get behind a global movement that will take real action in a unified manner. We need to convince our groups to open the door to each other and to us. We all have a stake in this crisis.

Individually we are concerned and are taking small steps on our own to make a difference. The groups we have joined are helping to make a difference on a slightly larger scale and spreading the word. Collectively, if we all stand together, we can bring about positive change NOW.

If I stated publicly that I will no longer pay taxes until my government does something about the crisis then I’d just get locked up. If I’m lucky I’ll get a mention on page five of the newspaper and a few people will notice.

If the groups I’ve joined take a similar stand then perhaps we’d get to page three in the paper and a few more people will take notice.

If, however, every member of every group and every individual who is concerned with this crisis takes the same stand - all at once – THE WORLD WILL TAKE NOTICE.

I’m not saying we should all stop paying our taxes. I’m not asking you for a donation or asking you to buy a DVD, a T-Shirt or a wrist band. I’m also not promoting any of these groups over any other. They all are part of the equation.

I am asking you to help me find a way to connect these individuals and groups so that collectively our concerns are more than isolated conversations or read only pages. That way, we can all speak with one voice all at once so that our message gets heard and acted upon.

We need to do it NOW.

I urge everyone to watch the trailer below or the video in parts from the links further down. You might also like to visit the An Inconvenient Truth website.

Addendum - Jan 8th 2007

Alas Paramount Pictures have instructed YouTube to take the video off line which means that everything below here no longer works. See Another Inconvenient Truth for my take on this.

If you can’t afford the cinema or the DVD then watch the video in 10 minute segments. Part: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and the credits.

Please stop any running video before clicking on the next one.

Addendum - Dec 29th

John James from Planet Extinction asked me how the above was achieved and how it could be added to their website so I’ve added the details below. Hope it helps.

The coding for the above couldn’t be simpler. It consists of a simple JavaScript function and a html <div> tag.

This function is included in the <HEAD> section of the page by the addition of the following line:-

   <script type="text/javascript" src="/js/playvid.js"></script>

The following JavaScript function is read in by the above line and is contained in a file called playvid.js

function playme(vidId) {
	vid = document.getElementById('vidbox');
	vid.innerHTML='';
        var v =' <object width="425" height="350"> 8216;
        v += 8216 <embed enableJavascript="false" allowScriptAccess="never" ';
	v += ' allownetworking="internal" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" ';
	v += '  src="http://www.youtube.com/v/'+vidId+'&autoplay=1" ';
	v += ' wmode="transparent" height="350" width=425"></embed></object> 8216;
	vid.innerHTML = v;
}

The code could have been simplified but it works and is short enough for this purpose. I’ve added whitespace in the above for clarity.

To initial video sits inside the <div id=”vidbox” align=”center”> tag as follows:

<div id="vidbox" align="center">
  <object width="425" height="350">
<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/TUiP6dqPynE"></param>
<param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param>
    <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/TUiP6dqPynE" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
      wmode="transparent"
      width="425"
      height="350">
    </embed>
  </object>
</div>

and is replaced when the user clicks on the links in the menu.

The menu looks like this:-

<a href="javascript:playme('MwY4VU7zhsw');">1</a>,
<a href="javascript:playme('MrhjGzm37vU');">2</a>,
<a href="javascript:playme('xsQqTjGIyxs');">3</a>,
<a href="javascript:playme('tfrfvcNf3CU');">4</a>,
<a href="javascript:playme('6s3mAahl-9Q');">5</a>,
<a href="javascript:playme('rZFHD6SLQ5E');">6</a>,
<a href="javascript:playme('UiIAqmN26Rs');">7</a>,
<a href="javascript:playme('bIEC11sKGH8');">8</a>,
<a href="javascript:playme('JqJxWAVOO-s');">9</a> and
<a href="javascript:playme('QtRzC1sVTSU');">the credits</a>.

The JavaScript playme(’xxx’) function is called whenever a user clicks on the link. This in turn replaced the innerHTML code within the <div id=”vidbox”> tag. The funny numbers within the quotes of the function are the video ID on YouTube.

None of the above could have been achieved without YouTube providing the tools and the willingness of others to share their code and ideas.