Tuesday, April 11, 2006



Pushing for action on climate change

In my last post on the Climate Change and Governance Conference, I quoted Business Council for Sustainable Development chairman Peter Neilson saying

When I was a Minister [back in the Rogernomics days - I/S], I would get backbench MPs coming to me because they had five handwritten letters from constituents saying that [a particular issue] was a crisis for them.

I think we should take Mr Neilson up on this, and start lobbying MPs. And to get things started, I've created another pledge on Pledgebank, saying

I will write to five Members of Parliament demanding credible action on climate change and a cross-party accord to provide policy certainty but only if 20 other New Zealanders will too.

You can sign it here. Contact details for MPs are here.

Twenty people doesn't sound like many, but its more than any pledge I've set up so far, and it will cover a fair number of MPs. I'm still feeling out how many people can be mobilised this way, and I want to set achievable pledges rather than aiming immediately for a large number of people and then being disappointed.

Update: Bumped so it isn't lost in the noise. There have been 4 signups so far over the weeknd; only 16 more to go.

8/4/2006: Bumped again. There are now 17 signups; only three more to go.

11/4/2006: Success!

7 comments:

Good on you taking action :)

Posted by Little Red Riding Hood : 4/01/2006 06:33:00 PM

is today Friday? ( see your title) I wish it was....

Posted by Swimming : 4/04/2006 06:21:00 PM

Dave: I just set the date so this would stay at the top of the blog for a while so people would have a chance to see it.

We're halfway there, BTW: 10 signups in just a few days. Thanks to everyone who's signed up so far.

Posted by Idiot/Savant : 4/05/2006 12:28:00 AM

I thought you might be interested to know that the Time magazine (3/4/2006) with the Polar Bear on the cover and the "Special report on Global Warming - Be Worried, Be Very Worried" has been their biggest seller for a long time.

Posted by Anonymous : 4/06/2006 01:22:00 PM

Idiot/Savant might i suggest you ask people to write to MPs in a formal hard copy letter. In my experiance they are given much more weight than email when lobbying members.
Just a suggestion...

Posted by Anonymous : 4/08/2006 02:17:00 PM

Peter: That's more or less what I was planning - though email is still better than nothing.

Posted by Idiot/Savant : 4/08/2006 11:45:00 PM

As my time as an MPs Private Secretary, co-ordinated lobbying like this generally doesn't work - doubly so when by email.

If you recieve a bunch of emails or letters on the same subject at the same time you lose impact as it is very obvious only one person is actually behind it. And the MPs treat it as being only from one person.

Even worse is when you get the same text in them all!

Posted by Michael : 4/12/2006 02:14:00 PM