news story

13th June 2008

Ten Green Bloggers Sitting in a Room

by Steve Webb MP

Screen shot of www.canvassyourmp.com

Last Monday, 2nd June, a group of ‘ten green bloggers’ assembled in my office at Westminster to plan to take over the universe. Or if not that, perhaps at least to save the planet.

I have been aware for some time that the Lib Dems’ Facebook campaign on getting the Climate Change Bill toughened up hasn’t really caught fire in the way that I hoped. So I was delighted to be able to bring together a cross-party group of people who share the same commitment to the environment, but also have expertise online / in communications, or who are well networked in the online green world.

The ten of us (plus me) agreed that we would prioritise a campaign to get ‘real people’ to go and see their MP, explain why 80% cuts in C02 by 2050 are needed, and then report back to a new website – www.canvassyourmp.com – which goes live in ‘beta’ version today, 9th June, to coincide with the Second Reading of the Climate Change Bill. We will report on whether the MPs committed to back 80% or not, and will keep the site regularly updated.

To make this happen has involved a lot of teamwork:

• more than a dozen volunteers have spent time this weekend looking up MP contact numbers and surgery arrangements to go on the site; one was an American I have still never met who looked up 30 MPs for me!

• a contact of the 10 bloggers – Jez Swinscoe - generously offered to design and host the site – on a wind-powered server no less!

• people have already started blogging about the meeting and spreading the word: here, here and of course here.

The group are kicking around all sorts of ideas to promote the campaign – one suggested MPs wearing “80% less” for a day… - so it will be exciting to see if this really takes off.

** This story was originally posted by Steve Webb on the Liberal Democrat Voice website on 9th June.  It was reported in PR Week as "Lib Dems enlist blogger support" and follows on from the "60% is not enough" Facebook campaign launched earlier in the year **