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January 22, 2007

Dear Friend of the Planet (and Program EcoTalk):

I
have just returned from an extraordinary three days in Nashville, TN.
with Al Gore and 200 activists from around the country, training to
help educate our own communities about the “planetary emergency” of
climate change. This is also a time of urgency and decision for EcoTalk
as we seek your support to continue broadcasting at this crucial
juncture, to expand our distribution and to bring in new partners and
sponsors. You are receiving this letter because you, or someone who
knows your interests, has kindly offered to help keep us on the air.
Some of you are parents concerned about our future. This challenge is
for all of us to address. We spoke to some of you days, weeks, or even
months ago – before making this appeal we wanted to see where Air
America was going before charting EcoTalk’s course and asking for your
help. It is now the 11^th hour for our show.

The
nearly three years of broadcasting our groundbreaking program on Air
America have come with nearly constant turbulence. As the nation’s
first progressive network with ambitious expansion plans experienced
growing pains, EcoTalk weathered them all – but not without significant
cost. Although selling advertising was difficult for many reasons,
we’re proud to have secured sponsors and partners along the way that
helped to offset our expenses, but not completely. EcoTalk is an
independently owned program not paid by the network to provide this
critical public service program.

If Green is the new Black why are we in the Red?

Last
summer, with national release of The Inconvenient Truth and in the wake
of three major national magazines publishing “green issues”, Air
America Radio management moved us from a weekly program to a daily
format. With that new timeslot we made environmental broadcasting
history. But before we could break out the champagne, our bubble burst
with news that Air America had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Although the network has remained on the air during financial
restructuring it has not been able to take over advertising sales to
cover costs of our daily production. Since selling ads on a network in
transition is nearly impossible we will be out of production funds at
the end of January.

The Period of
Consequences is here

A
deal is reported to be near for new owners to take over Air America,
but they will not be in place to make programming decisions until mid
to late February. Unless EcoTalk has strong financial and listener
support, they will likely try to bump us back to a once-a-week slot on
the weekend that we have to pay for! The only way we can continue
broadcasting through this period, and fight to retain our hard-won
daily slot, is with outside donations and a groundswell of audience
demand. Strategically, it is important to retain our national platform
to jump off to new distribution outlets. We have always had our sights
set beyond Air America. New avenues of syndication have opened up on
satellite and internet podcasting, and even the traditional radio
programmers are seeing green writing on the wall. We want to be on all
available outlets, and can be, since EcoTalk is independently owned.
But in order to do that we absolutely must continue our operations –
producing a high-quality show, working to expand distribution and
bringing in new sources of financial support.

Now that we’ve made history, help us avoid becoming history!

So
at this fork in the road, we ask for your contributions and valued
input. Our production costs are around $5,000 per week. Securing
emergency bridge funding will enable our team to stabilize and expand
to outlets suddenly seeking green content. Attached please see a
summary of what this “gasroots” program has achieved with so little
fuel. Regardless of what happens next we are very proud of what we’ve
accomplished. We know listeners will feel the void if we go silent so
we’re asking now, before it really is too late.

Last week alone we had global warming activists Bill McKibben and Rick Pilke on from Sundance where they are starring in Everything’s Cool,
a new doc about climate change, making its screen debut. We also had Ed
Begley Jr. and his wife Rachelle on to talk about their new green
living series Life With Ed on HGTV. Ethical Marketplace
founder Hazel Henderson shed some green light on the “new GDP” and Dr.
Joseph Romm, energy expert, joined us to talk about his new book Hell and High Water. We covered the exciting energy legislation being passed in the first 100 hours of new congress and the author of Plug-In Hybrids: How These Cars Will Recharge America and the author of How Everyday Products Make People Sick. Also first hand reports from Al Gore’s Climate Project Training in Nashville, including an interview with a trainee
from Fairbanks, Alaska who’s streets are buckling from melting permafrost! You can hear these segments and much more at www.ecotalk.net.

Please
take a moment to consider the caliber of guests and range of
hot-off-the-press topics EcoTalk is uniquely bringing to the airwaves.
Perhaps you, or an individual, company or organization you know, can
make a donation at this critical time. If you want this programming to
continue, and expand across America, then please join us in greening
the red and blue states one show at a time by sending checks and/or hot
funding leads to:

EcoTalk

P.O. 29025

San Francisco, Ca. 94129

With deep gratitude and commitment to
carry on, and turn UP the volume if the support is there,

Betsy Rosenberg

Host/Ex. Prod. EcoTalk

(415) 561-2165

What our listeners are saying…

“EcoTalk
has been broadcasting five days a week, interviewing the most
knowledgeable and creative people from the US and elsewhere about
global warming and the many available solutions…The program is the
only really professional and entertaining voice the environment has in
media today.

Michael Dietrick, Mill Valley, Ca.

“I’ve
personally been listening to these podcasts for over a month and, in a
word (or two), I’m addicted. Bringing green issues alive, adding a
passion that the written word can’t express, is just one of the vital
effects of this show. Even a media buff like myself learns something
new everyday thanks to Betsy’s interactions with key ecoplayers. Her
years of experience and natural talent on the microphone brings our
entire movement alive in just an hour a day.”

Victoria Everman, S.F.

“Betsy
and EcoTalk provide a valuable forum for exploring pressing
environmental issues in a constructive way that can almost border on
fun, while always proving illuminating”.

“As
important as I think politics are, and as concerned as I am about the
future of our country, I believe environmental issues are even more
important. You and your guests are informative, timely, and discuss the
most important concerns of our planet and its inhabitants. If your show
were to go off the air, it would be a huge loss for those of us who are
paying attention and trying to get the word out”.

Maxine Kushner, FL.

“EcoTalk
is dedicated to covering a critical discourse (the greatest crisis of
our time) which is not being tackled by any of the political-commentary
focused shows at Air America, or anywhere else. The show is a public
service, and it very much goes against AirAmerica’s core mission of
progressive commentary to scale back the one forum they have that is
tackling this issue full-time”

Brian Turner, Fukuoka, Japan (listens via
podcasts)