Blog Action Day: A Social Climate for Change

So the results are in, and the raw numbers look pretty good. The actual “action” in yesterdays Blog Action Day however seems to have been more about the process of rounding up participants, than what the net effect would be in terms of any actually ‘actionable’ items. Nevertheless, if we consider this collective exercise as a dry run for learning how to generate worldwide visibility on key issues, then we can be assured that we’re at least heading in the right direction when it comes to actionable positive Climate Change.

Let’s cover the obvious positives first, because if we measure the raw numbers of participants, then we can all agree that this years Blog Action Day was a resounding success:

Over 13,000 Bloggers from 155 Countries posted an average of more than 2 posts each for a total of over 27,000 posts on Climate Change.
Furthermore, estimates of about 17,000,000 Readers of this content are made, although I haven’t found any verified sources, or descriptions of the methods used to validate that remarkable number as yet. Anybody else want to chime in with some metrics on this?

Anyhow. Let’s cover what we do know about this Blog Action Day already, and then consider what we might really have liked to know more about afterwards…

Many of the usual NPO’s and NGO’s and some very notable blogging sites participated in the Blog Action Day, although all of the “Media” participants were all clearly of the online variety.  Some very prominent players and politicians in the Climate Change debate also posted on their blogs for the occasion. For example, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown,  who has already been raising the bar for Climate Change negotiations piped-up by re-confirming his promised attendance at the Copenhagen Conference for all the obvious reasons,

“Climate change is the biggest threat to all our futures. It will affect every individual, every family, every community, every business and every country. So it is fitting that today people from all over the world are coming together to blog on climate change for Blog Action Day. In less than two months, politicians will meet in Copenhagen to forge a critical new deal on tackling climate change. I will go to the talks in December if it means we will get an agreement and I am urging other leaders to join me. … Like every parent, I want to leave a safe and secure world for my children. And I want to be able to look them in the eye because our generation stood up for their future.” – PM Gordon Brown [Number10.gov.uk]

The newly minted Nobel Laureate President Barack Obama’s also chimed in late in the day on his White House blog. Actually it was his Deputy Assistant for Energy and Climate Change Heather Zichal, but it’s the thought that counts, right.

“President Obama is committed to energy and climate change legislation for the same reasons you have convened this meeting today. Because it will: create jobs; put us back in control and lower our dependence on foreign oil, and lessen the impact of climate change. ” Heather Zichal

More than a dozen of the World’s Top100 Blogging sites also participated in this event, and Google is listed at the top of the list, where their Blogsearch tool shows 220 individual Blogs covering this story.

So, let’s dig a little more into the numbers before we consider what the deeper value in all of this might be.

So according to this graph, those stated 27,000+ “Blog Action Day” posts hit almost 0.5% of all blog posts for the day, which according to BlogPulse this is about a 500% increase in Blog posts about Climate Change in general. So even though we can presume that the graph above isn’t accurate enough to show where both “Climate change” and “Blog Action Day” posts actually synched up and topped out for the day (or settled down the day after), we can at least be sure that if you’re going to fudge the numbers abit on something, nobody could think of a better cause to do it for, I’m sure.

Robin Beck, the day’s organizing director, gained some exposure with this piece on CNN : “I would say that 99 percent of our Bloggers have never written about climate change before. I think there is a lot of power in people who usually don’t write about this having conversations about a major issue like climate change.”

So, if 99% of 13,000+ Bloggers are writing about Climate Change for the first time (which is at least a 9900% increase in Climate Change blogging!), isn’t it abit surprising that the total number of Climate Change related posts only went up by about 500%? Because that increase is only about 5% of the increase in new Climate Change blogging for the day! Unless of course the vast majority of regular climate change bloggers either didn’t sign up for this event, or decided to take the day off and let the new Bloggers carry the load instead.

Since this is supposed to all be about ‘collective effort’, maybe somebody could check the math on this for me on this, because I’m already starting to glaze over with these curious numbers.  Perhaps it’s not so complicated after all, and Robin’s claim of 99% new Climate Change Bloggers participating was just a teeny bit over-exaggerated?

Anyhow, let’s forget about the shifty messiness of Stats, and get to spreading the good word.

First, let me testify my intent. I’m a firm believer in the awesome abilities of Humanity to band together in times of duress and accomplish truly incredible things. Maybe that’s why I put so much hope (note that I didn’t say “trust”) in the capabilities of an increasingly Socialized online world to help publicize issues, and effect positive change. Keep in mind that “change” can be applied to the Climate or any of the countless other inter-related and pressing issues required for our health and prosperity as Earthlings. To do my part for the Earth, I’ll endeavor to explore, understand, and share my findings in this very complex area where we can safely express ourselves in public via social and public networks (using the private identities that we all still require), and present things in terms of their Civic and Social value to addressing our shared Environmental concerns. Starting with a few of the currently key players in this arena for Environmental advocacy, and then moving on as the scope of things expand.

Change.org (who conducted the Blog Action Day campaign), is already expanding it’s own scope of concerns, and will surely refine it’s social tools to engage increasingly wide audiences. Even though their ‘Blog Action Day’ is over for this year, this will obviously remain a really good portal to keep our collective eyes on as we move down the road.

TckTckTck.org offers us a countdown to that date, and keeps us apprised of People, Partners and Events that are driving political consensus in the leadup to Copenhagen.  Hopenhagen.com is another site that seeks to get visitors to to sign their petition, and inadvertently reminds us all that we’d really like to do more than just be another number in a list of “concerned citizens’

“Here at the TckTckTck campaign, everyday we focus on how we need to build a citizen movement to support a fair, ambitious,
and binding deal in Copenhagen, this December, before time runs out! If you are a new visitor and you are ready to get
involved, sign up and tell the world that you are ready!”

350.org is basing their own campaign around a number that represents an ideal target for CO2 levels in the atmosphere, and s planning another Day of Action on October 24th. Since this group is experienced with staging rallies and events, they will hopefully build on the experience of Change.org’s Blog Action Day, rather than getting lost in the dust as an also ran.

Since all the major Media outlets are online and still at least relatively ‘open’ (to User comments, feedback, and third party URL inclusions) we can hopefully continue to see the scope of discussions through these traditional Channels becoming more inclusive as time goes along. If we could build on these pillars with the enormous bloom of Citizen Journalism, niche advocacy groups, and countless Bloggers, while remaining encouraged by the interconnecting growth of Social Media and Community based interactions, it really isn’t at all too optimistic for us to start actually believing in the the (rather worn out) hype of how the Internet will change life as we know it.  At the very least, we can expect that distributed online campaigns, such as Blog Action Day, could mature and develop into truly systemic mechanisms for aggregating and promoting new ideas, challenging old values, and changing (leveling?) the media playing field for advocacy efforts everywhere.

Of course, these sites are just a few starting points in an exploratory process. One where we hope to collectively keep tabs on the complexity of both what’s at stake, and what we can actually do to change things, while moving forward.  This is a huge area to enter into alone, and while politicians sidestep through their expressed mandates, burn through their budgets(and deficits), and dabble through their time-worn negotiation tactics, we can at least be assured that more voices are being heard by larger audiences than ever before.

There is no doubt that Climate Change is at the forefront of public consciousness. The Blog Action Day campaign gathered less than 10,000 ’signatures’ from individual Citizens on its “Take Action” page, however this is just a sign of a primitive social system for communication, rather than a lack of civic and cultural will to become engaged in this greatest cause of our time. There’s no doubt that by creating clear consensus, and indicating well marked paths to actionable items, that the general public would indeed be willing to step up and demonstrate it’s concerns, and desires for true change. The last U.S. Presidential election should  a poignant reminder of this this.

Climate Change is but one of the most important subjects that Citizens wish to have their voices heard on, and see clear actions taken upon. Even as we sit here, there are many other resources and opportunities already being developed for advocating meaningful change in the world, and I will be sure to share all my findings with you as we ramp up to the Copenhagen Conference in December.