The clips are designed to be used individually or according to the needs of the audience.

Some of these videos will provoke laughter because of the naive and unintentional camp humour. Some of the content also appears somewhat bizarre such as the (very serious) claims by the ‘scientists’ in one of the 1930's films that they hoped to produce engines that would do 300mpg, grow rocking chairs on farms and produce wool from cheese!  

It’s Easy with Hindsight contains 8 programmes designed to help energise your audiences. Each trigger video can be used with or without the presenter’s introductory comments, so if you prefer, you can substitute your own introductions, learning points and summaries.

These programmes have been designed to provide a context for understanding the pressures on key natural resources such as oil, forests and fisheries – the topical issues of our time - although the implications are not restricted to just those three areas.

Help your audiences to understand:

• Resource depletion
• The need for energy conservation
• Our oil economy and the age of ‘peak oil’
• Principles of sustainability

One World is Not Enough

Designs on the Environment

The Worm That Turns

Do What it Says on the Bin

Environmental training will have little use unless you can create behaviour change and win the commitment of the audience. This addition to the environmental trainer’s toolbox will help you challenge cynicism and harness enthusiasm.

What subjects are included in the videos?

OIL

The age of peak oil is very close but how did we get here and have we been here before?

6 trigger videos to help explore this issue - very topical

FORESTS

See how the great redwood forests - many with trees up to 4,000 years old were destroyed with little more than hand axes and saws. Now we have powerful machines to do the job and we continue the destruction across the world – what’s the alternative?

FISHERIES

The Alaskan salmon fisheries almost collapsed, so how come we now take twice as many fish as we used to do (2 million a year) and know it’s sustainable?

TRAINERS VIDEO

The DVD also includes an introductory trainer’s bonus video which explains how this resource can be used in :

• Environmental awareness training – for ISO 14001 or EMAS
• Training in sustainable development
• Strategic planning workshops
• Introduction to waste minimisation workshops
• Reinforcement prompts on your Intranet (licence required)
• Conference presentations
• Within academic courses

Some trainers’ headaches - do they ring a bell with you?

“I run the courses but the result is often the same: cynicism, lack of motivation and the voicing of petty objections to change.”

“I’ll come back to the site six months later and it’s just the same as I left it.”

“If people are in a state of denial how do you get them to face the realities?”

“The paper work is great from a ‘systems’ point of view but the overflow is still leaking, all the lights are still on and the flu tubes are still going in the general waste skip – I’m talking but no one is listening!”

There’s no simple single answer, the problems are urgent but change won’t happen overnight.

Try the following:

Revisit the Training Needs Analysis, is it adequate?

Get the CEO to reaffirm commitment, make sure the board understand that the word ‘commitment’ equals ‘resources’. Ask them: do they want to ‘pay lip service’ or push for real change?

Emphasise the positives - make sure you are promoting success stories and the gains you have made.

Look again at the targets that are being set – are they realistic?

Are the ‘rules’ of the game enforced or does everyone in the hierarchy just turn a blind eye?

Use these videos to focus a discussion on the issues and create a new dynamism and sense of urgency.

FEATURES

Short - useful in any training timetable

Flexible – easily modified for your audience

Rare archive footage – they won’t have seen this before

Includes slides for your PowerPoint

Trainer’s Notes – includes helpful hints and suggestions for use

Option of 8 trigger videos in different versions – putting the trainer in control

All the videos make extensive use of rare archive footage to tell each story using an original period voice over, with an introduction and summary from a host presenter. They include graphics to aid comprehension. The running time varies between approximately 3 and 7 minutes, extended slightly longer where presenter comments are included.

A version of each video is included without the presenter comments and summary to allow trainers to substitute their own interpretation or learning points. The graphics used in the videos and screen grabs from each video are included for insertion into PowerPoint presentations such as the our ‘Green Weaver’ awareness programme.

CONTENT

Videos 1 to 6 trace the development of our oil economy from the 1930's to the 1970's oil embargo.

The summary section briefly explains the coming of ‘peak oil’ and the need to develop renewable alternatives.

Video 7 covers the logging of the Californian Redwoods in the 1930's and the general deforestation of the US and  then asks: Why we are making the same mistakes on a global scale? The summary suggests the purchase of timber from sustainable sources. This video is breathtaking when we consider the big picture – thousands of years of growth felled in days. We see many giant trees fall while the loggers run for safety.

Video 8 looks at Alaskan salmon fishing including the over- fishing during the 1930's that led to declining catches and near extinction. However, this situation was reversed so successfully that catches can now reach almost double what they were in the thirties through sustainable practices. The video is summarised with the view that the success with Alaskan salmon is a rare case and as fish stocks around the world begin to plummet we need to be buying fish that are certified from sustainable sources.