Feedback on Tuesday and Friday news updates

John Grayman - October 14, 2022

I apologize if I am retreading something that is already in it’s own column/forum…

With absolutely NO disrespect to Carlotta, I have been observing the trend of News Roundup for awhile post Stephanie Arnold…

I am a huge supporter of climate activism, let’s make that straight. Carlotta is a boss and always posts great supporting information and facts that cannot be ignored in the long run (no planet, no life, etc.)

However, lately most of the Blog postings (from my perspective) revolve around how global warming and the climate crisis are the most critical problem our society faces…

I don’t disagree on the long-term view/game whatsoever. But just my opinion here, I thought that the articles/news curated by Stephanie were much more useful/insightful for the mass population at the time…is she no longer part of TP?

Again, not a knock on Carlotta whatsoever. I was just was curious if perhaps there could be two different updates-one ‘long term’ and one ‘what’s happening now’?

Very proud, and grateful, to have all these resources within theprepared community.

Thank you for hearing me out.

John Grayman

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John, thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. I have honestly been feeling the same way for awhile. I even considered commenting or posting about it, but it would seem you are bolder than I!

I really enjoy reading the news roundups, regardless of who writes them. Stephanie did a great job, and Carlotta does too. But I agree that significant portions of Carlotta’s roundups do sometimes come across as preachy about climate change.

Don’t get me wrong, I wholeheartedly agree that climate change is a critical preparedness topic. It’s definitely been at the forefront of my mind lately, especially after the record-breaking summer the planet just had. I’d even go so far as to say that, over the past several months, Carlotta’s roundups have helped me personally grow more aware about the climate crisis. So perhaps it has its place. But, as a loyal reader of TP (it’s been awhile since I’ve participated in the forums or anything, but I’ve still been lurking), I wonder if news roundups are the right place for that.

I also could do without the “Opinion: ____” interjections. I might be interested in reading a separate opinion piece on some preparedness topics, but I come to the news roundups for straightforward coverage of preparedness-relevant news, not an op-ed.

Again, I will emphasize that I deeply value and appreciate the work everyone here puts into TP to make it such a fabulous, well-stocked resource. Carlotta’s passion about climate change is really inspiring and, like I said, has personally opened my eyes in some ways. I’d love to keep learning more about it. But I’d also love to see news roundups be more well-rounded and fact-focused.

Thanks for reading,

spacemoon

 

Thank you, spacemoon. I was worried that perhaps I was venturing out onto a ledge all on my own, haha. 

No doubt it’s tough to curate relevant information to the community, particularly when (I’m making this a strong guess-statistic) environmental disasters/challenges from climate change are probably the most likely scenario any of us will ever face when we need to use our training and Prepared tools learned here. 

I think the answer to the question is difficult and fine line to walk. Bluntly, one might say “yeah climate change is messing everything  up, what do you want me to do about it?” I think the latter may be where the focus should lie-what individuals can do to prepare for environmental disasters, but also be mindful of their contributions or detractions to the entire ‘climate’ as a whole.

I don’t know. Anyone have Al Gore’s phone number? 

(that’s just a joke, not a political statement, LMAO). 

 

Thank you John and Spacemoon for the very civil and thoughtful feedback! I and we sincerely appreciate it — we do this for you, and it’s sometimes hard to know who’s on the other side of the screen and how they’re feeling, so we won’t know unless you say so! 

I’ve never written anything “professionally” / for the public before, and English is my fourth language. No excuses, just wanted to share where I’m coming from and that the feedback is warmly-received and helpful. 

Doing these news roundups is essentially a volunteer thing, yet takes enough work to be a part-time job. Stephanie did a great job with Covid (which was the reason these news roundups started to begin with) for two years. The duty changed hands earlier this year partly because we expanded the topics outside of health (Stephanie’s profession), and because it takes a toll on whoever’s volunteering to do this. Steph has a life and needed a break, and now that I’m 6+ months into it, I totally see the toll it takes too. TBH part of why there were no roundups this week is that I needed a mental health break from doomscrolling 24/7.

(We’re talking internally about how to get multiple people chipping into this so we can kind of rotate, share the load, and round out the personal styles/perspectives that inevitably leak through into the writing. Should have some big TP news related to this in the near term.)

I will drop the “Opinion” links, because we definitely want to stay objective. I’ll try to only share analysis/opinions when they themselves could be news. For example, if the well-respected head of UN’s nuclear watchdog writes a personal blog post with their opinion about the likelihood of Putin using nukes, in my eyes that’s worth including because, although it’s opinion, it’s credible enough to impact how we all could be evaluating the nuke risk. I’m of the belief that opinions/analyses themselves aren’t bad, it’s that modern media has been sharing the wrong opinions (e.g. extremists rather than experts.) 

I just looked through some past articles and talked with @John Ramey about if/where/how there was too much climate talk. I can see how the longer-term existential stuff about climate could get repetitive. So my litmus test going forward will be more stringent around “is this news/point something that would influence people’s actions today?” And I’ll move the longer-term stuff that’s still important to include (e.g. “Big new study shows catastrophic changes happening faster than expected”) towards the end of the post.

Besides that, if you care to, I’d appreciate some specific examples of where I overweighted climate news (or whatever else you think could improve)?

As you empathized, it is somewhat tough because climate change does impact so much of the near-term stuff, including things outside of pure weather such as crop yields and gas prices. And things like inflation and culture wars won’t matter when our physical home stops being habitable. 

Re the suggestion of having posts for long-term vs. short-term, I get where you’re coming from, but our goal is to keep current events in these twice a week posts, so I’ll first try to improve the balance between long and short within one post.  

Cheers ❤️

p.s. Keep in mind that anyone in the community can make their own contributions/posts! The upcoming new website design is meant to make that easier, too.

 

You do a fantastic job, Carlotta. Didn’t want to sound negative/critical. I’m a big believer in honest discussion and sharing ideas so we can all prosper. Keep up the great work and looking forward to the site update! 

 

I look forward to the news roundups. It is interesting to read that some feel there has been a perhaps overly big emphasis on climate . . . it’s nice to have people weighing in with their perspective as it provides me the opportunity to consider another viewpoint and reevaluate my own ideas. Personally, I have been finding all the weather / climate stories in the roundups to be fascinating and most valuable, as most news sources I read give very little space to climate. I also appreciate that the roundups give me more national and international weather / climate stories, as I seem to miss a lot of news that isn’t local to where I live. I would love to see the roundups give as much relevant weather / climate news as possible in the future. (And beyond climate, I love that every roundup has news stories that I missed and am so impressed with the depth of topics that are covered. I really can’t say enough good things about the roundups; they are just great.)