Contributors & Associates

Evelyn Messinger, President of Internews Interactive (InterAct), is a television and Internet producer who has worked for PBS, CBS News, the BBC, CNN and others. She produced the Link TV series Global Pulse, the interactive election series Digital Citizen 2012 and the Webby Award-winning news literacy interactive website KnowTheNews.

Steve Newman, producer of the syndicated newspaper feature Earthweek - A Diary of the Planet, and its online component EarthWeek.com, has been a frequent contributor to ABC’s Good Morning America and the Discovery Channel. He has written about the environment for the San Francisco Chronicle and the LA Times, and is a Certified Broadcast Meteorologist.

Kim Spencer, Senior Programming Executive at KCETLink and founder of the Peabody Award-winning Link TV, was a producer for ABC News “Primetime Live” and has created more than 60 documentaries and current affairs programs on global issues. He was co-founder and Executive Director of Internews Network, and created Link TV’s environmental program strand.

Frank Bozzo, Social Media Coordinator for This Planet, sold the bulk of his worldly possessions and moved from the northeastern United States to a small town in Ecuador to pursue a location independent lifestyle... a pursuit that he chronicles at Wealthy in Ecuador. Frank is a freelance writer, developer and entrepreneur.

ADVISORS:

Bud Ward is the editor of Yale Climate Connections. After serving for three years as Assistant Director of the U.S. Congress’s National Commission on Air Quality, he founded and edited The Environmental Forum, a monthly policy magazine. A prolific writer and editor, Bud co-founded the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ).

Raisa Scriabine, producer of Earth Focus, the weekly environmental series on Link TV, has worked for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. She has consulted on health communications issues in 20 countries for UNICEF, WHO and Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health.

Stephen Nemeth, founder/CEO of Rhino Films, has produced and executive produced dozens of feature films, including The Sessions and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and documentaries such as War/Dance, nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary, Fuel, the 2008 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award winner, and Climate Refugees. 

Robert Cook, CEO of Grain Lighting, was the co-founder of MetaWeb Technologies, the semantic search company that created Freebase, "an open, shared database of the world's knowledge" that was bought by Google in 2010. He is an expert in next generation software products and start-up business development, particularly those with a social mission.