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GreenFacts Newsletter - June 2005Two new Digests on-line: Ecosystem change and Fluorides: How can ecosystem degradation affect human well-being today and in the future? The extensive Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) launched by Kofi Annan and prepared by 1 300 experts from 95 countries, provides the answers. GreenFacts participated in the communication of this assessment by simultaneously releasing a popularized version. "We are pleased with this collaboration with GreenFacts,” said Dr. Robert Watson, co-chair of the MA. "Their summaries bring the findings of our experts to the reach of a much wider audience.” Since its release, this GreenFacts Digest has been extremely popular, attracting about 13 000 visits in the first 3 days alone. Government funding from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation enabled rapid translations of this GreenFacts Digest into French and Spanish. The objective of this contribution was to give more African and Latin American readers access to this valuable information.
Fluorides, GreenFacts’ most recent Digest, addresses both beneficial and detrimental health effects of this substance on teeth and bones. Access to such scientific information is particularly timely since there are debates in many countries on whether to ban or allow the addition of fluorides to dental products or drinking water.
GreenFacts at the Green Week In order to reach out to new readers and to organizations interested in science communication, GreenFacts held a stand at the 2005 Green Week. This year's focus was climate change and the event was organized in Brussels by the European Commission’s DG Environment during the first week of June, allowing for many contacts and discussions with actors from a wide range of backgrounds. Who uses www.GreenFacts.org and how? GreenFacts readers have diverse professional backgrounds. Of the readers who have signed up to this newsletter through our website, 16% indicated that they come from Academe & research, 11% from Government, 6% from the Health sector, and 17% from Industry and business. Eight percent come from the Media, and 9% from the Non-profit sector, while 7% are students.
In order to find out more about how the website is used and perceived, and to improve its user-friendliness, science communication student Sander Jansen will carry out a usability test with a panel of journalists. This project is part of a partnership between GreenFacts and the DaVinci Instituut of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Several Digests coming up soon Visit our website in the upcoming weeks or months when several new topics will be covered, such as: air pollution through particulate matter, ozone, and NO2; health effects of phthalates, the state of world fisheries; genetically modified crops, respiratory diseases in children, …
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