Granular Earth Outreach Sets Environmental Agenda With Communication Solutions

INDEPENDENCE, Ky., April 2, 2015 — A newly formed group of university students, professors, and activists have begun to engineer communication solutions for environmental problems. Environmental groups typically participate in social media communication that extends the networks of individuals and groups with shared interests. Granular Earth Outreach activities are purposed to build larger and therefore more valuable communication networks that will become better positioned to address a variety of environmental issues.

Although global in scope, Granular Earth Outreach, or GEO for short, will be most active in the Cincinnati metropolitan region, a wellspring of consumer culture and one that invites a closer look at attitudes and policies concerning the natural environment.

With the likes of Procter & Gamble, KAO Brands, and supermarket giant Kroger as its closest neighbors, GEO is set to be vigilant toward lapses of consumer and corporate social responsibility. The group’s blogsite, Granular Earth Outreach, features recent posts and comments concerning water quality, litter, and global environmental degradation often associated with the companies that call Cincinnati home.

“We are dedicated to creating spaces for anyone concerned about environmental issues to share and retrieve information and the latest data as it becomes available,” said Gregory De Blasio, PhD, GEO spokesperson. “Social media has connected GEO to others with shared interests from Canada and several locations in Europe and Asia. It only figures that people in far away places would recognize a need to keep environmental dialogue going in every possible way. No environmental issue is limited to a single geographic region.”

GEO stresses environmental responsibility from consumers and companies that externalize environmental costs as they promote greater amounts of consumer disposables. Whether for diapers or water bottles, there is a great deal more room for “choice editing,” a concept that GEO maintains should be applied to a far greater degree than at present. Consumers should not be forced into purchasing decisions that unduly tax the environment. Companies need to edit out the bad environmentally costly choices and replace them with better ones. That kind of organizational policy would be in line with responsible corporate behavior and would engage consumers in a positive way, De Blasio said.

You can join the dialogue at https://granularearthoutreach.wordpress.com/ and on Twitter and YouTube.