Hi Tim,
Thanks for your guest lecture last night (at UTS, Sydney).
I think the concept of coalition of the willing is tremendously exciting – using the internet to connect vastly diverse groups to fight an on the ground offensive against global warming would be a positive thing for a disenfranchised post-Copenhagen activists, thinkers and businesses to engage with.
It also opens up possibilities for people who haven’t been immersed in the science or politics so far. My experience is that many people want to help fight this “war” but are generally confused about what they can do and if anything they do will make a difference anyway.
I first considered the project as a campaign in itself, but I now have more of an understanding that the film is a conversation starter, a way to raise awareness of a different approach we could all take using the internet.
However, I still believe that there will be loads of people who will watch the film, feel incredibly energised by its message, then not really know what to do as the first step to being part of this creative solution – hopefully this forum will spark many more conversations on the possibilities.
I’m also interested in your concept of a swarm, as my experience of campaigning, organisations get their constituencies together, decide on the strategy and then enact the campaign – in most cases it’s certainly a top-down structure in terms of implementation, and in some cases, it’s a top-down structure in terms of campaign planning as well.
Other campaigns or organisations may line up and form alliances and coalitions, but these alliances are sometimes fragile and in some cases can be easily fractured. They come together usually when the campaign target (threat) is so clear and overwhelming that groups temporarily forget their differences and get on with the job of winning that campaign. When the campaign is over, the organisations head back to their respective bunkers and agendas.
So while I’d love this “direct action through digital collaboration” approach to succeed and I hope that it would be possible given that sites like Wikipedia have been so successful, I see a key challenge.
The grassroots movement to fight global warming would need vast scale of participants (both organisations and individuals) to make traditional “alliances” or agreements between groups irrelevant in the context of the winning the war on global warming.
Another reason for the need for scale is that this will be a long, drawn-out battle, and more people could mitigate the risk that people run out of energy to continue fighting.
I also think organsations that are already engaged in grassroots campaigning on global warming would have to be open and prepared to relinquish some control over their participants, which could be a challenge to organisations that are used to working in more of a top-down manner.
All in all, it's a top way to start a conversation, as the film stands to engage an really diverse array of people. Are you going to translate it as well?
Claire
Claire
