Computers, Society, and Nature

I’m pleased to announce the final report of the McGill School of Environment’s UNFCCC research team, entitled Influencing Climate Change Policy: Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations Using Virtual and Physical Activism.

The executive summary is provided below. The full report, including details on the methodology, can be downloaded.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This research reports the way Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations (ENGOs) use the tools of virtual and physical activism to influence climate change policies. ENGOs are well-positioned to influence these policies by developing expertise on global warming issues, representing the interests of impacted humans (and non-humans), and providing knowledge and information to decision-makers and the public.

ENGOs accomplish this through a variety of physical and virtual tools. Physical tools (or activities) include paper reports, face-to-face meetings, marches, and conference attendance. Virtual tools range from creating/updating websites to emailing to live webcasting. Virtual activism implies communication via the use of Internet tools; whereas physical activism suggests the tools of in-person communication that have little reliance on virtual means. Activism in this study comprises the advisory and advocacy tools used by ENGOs to transmit information.

With few exceptions, the unique value and contributions of virtual activism has not been considered in research on ENGO influence in policy negotiations; instead, research focuses on strategies and goals, and largely with traditional physical activities. However, nearly all ENGOs employ some form of virtual activism. Many argue that virtual activism embodies characteristics that match the urgency and global scale of climate change. It holds tremendous potential for ENGOs to reach large numbers of people inexpensively and immediately, but at a possible cost of decreased personal relationships and actual impact.

In research, the role of virtual tools and physical tools tends to be explored separately. In practice, an organization does not use one to the exclusion of the other. This research is unique in three ways. First, it explores the way ENGOs use virtual tools to substitute for or complement physical tools. Second, it investigates specific characteristics of tools relative to their application. Lastly, it outlines the relative advantages of implementing these tools to influence climate policy.

METHODOLOGY
Research was conducted in the months preceding and during the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change/ 11th Conference of the Parties/ 1st Meeting of the Parties (UNFCCC/ COP-11/ COP/MOP-1), held in Montréal, Quebec, Canada November 28 to December 9, 2005. Researchers conducted interviews with ENGOs communication directors before the meeting and ENGO representatives during the meeting.

Our client was Équiterre, an ENGO based in Montréal. Équiterre coordinated ENGO activities during the 2005 UNFCCC meeting in Montréal. Équiterre was interested in assessing which activism tools are most effective in achieving their ENGO goals and furthering their cause. We were assisted by members of Équiterre in this study. We were further assisted by Barbara Black, NGO liaison officer of the UNFCCC.

RESULTS
We found that physical activism has an overriding importance in establishing personal relationships and networks, which were found to be among the most effective ways to influence decision-makers and gain public and media attention. Virtual tools evince greater potential to facilitate information transmission globally and are commonly employed to enhance physical activism. Specifically,

• Physical tools are considered to have more impact for the ENGO resources expended and are superior to virtual tools in influencing policy makers, although they are more expensive than most virtual tools
• The personal contact characteristic of physical activism is essential to influencing climate change; physical tools are perceived to be interactive, engaging, and direct, and they build personal relationships, trust, and commitment
• Virtual tools allow for greater information availability and accessibility, possess larger scope and scale, and are considered relatively inexpensive in time and cost, although they are less capable of establishing personal contact than most physical activities
• Virtual tools are possible substitutes for physical tools if personal relations are first built sufficiently with physical tools. Virtual tools may gradually replace physical contact. Virtual tools can substitute for intra-organizational management and inter- ENGO coordination

(e.g., webcasts and webconferences including Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), emails to maintain contact with distant policy makers)

• Virtual tools are possible complements for physical tools if used in tandem, as in supporting online resources or providing support in coordinating physical tools

(e.g., webcasts of live events, emails as reminders of prior conversations, wikis for organizing and coordinating physical activities, websites to archive background briefing papers to prepare for conferences)

RECOMMENDATIONS
Based on this research, we recommend that our client choose activism tools on a strategy-specific basis. Strategies involving decision makers require personal interaction afforded by physical tools, although they can be complemented by virtual tools. Indirect strategies, such as generating media attention and public awareness, may allow greater integration of virtual and physical tools.

Youtube and other sites have allowed activists to reach the world with amateur videos promoting their causes. Guess it wasn’t long before the videos were astroturfed.

One of the current top-rated videos on youtube is An Inconvenient Spoof, a play on Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth. In it, a caricatured Al Gore is boring little (Linux!) penguins with his slide show, which attributes all sorts of silly things to climate change (e.g., David Spade dating Heather Locklear). It has a Flash animation home-made quality, like many of the videos on the site. Done by an amateur, Toutsmith, who’s disgruntled by the idea of global warming, right? In a great bit of investigative reporting, Wall Street Journal reporters asked a simple question: Just where did that video come from?

In an email exchange with The Wall Street Journal, Toutsmith didn’t answer when asked who he was or why he made the video, which has just over 59,000 views on YouTube. However, computer routing information contained in an email sent from Toutsmith’s Yahoo account indicate it didn’t come from an amateur working out of his basement.

Instead, the email originated from a computer registered to DCI Group, a Washington, D.C., public relations and lobbying firm whose clients include oil company Exxon Mobil Corp.

A DCI Group spokesman declines to say whether or not DCI made the anti-Gore penguin video, or to explain why Toutsmith appeared to be sending email from DCI’s computers.

Chalk it up to the continuing battle among activists on the Internet. Then add the market.

Politicians and marketers already make wide use of email lists and blogs, and it has long been possible to distribute information over the Internet while disguising its origins. But Web video operates on a different level, stimulating viewers’ emotions powerfully and directly. And because amusing animations with a homespun feel can be created just as easily by highly paid professionals to promote agendas as by talented amateurs, caveat emptor is more relevant than ever.

Update: Almost as quickly as the spoof appeared, so did the anti-anti global warming videos.

Thanks to Howie for pointing this out. The Sierra Club of Canada, British Columbia Chapter has released a Google Earth application that shows what a 6m rise in water would do to the Greater Vancouver Area. The map shows that much of the lower mainland of Vancouver would be under water after climate change I like the combination of virtual and physical tools to demonstrate the problem:

Executive Director Kathryn Molloy will unveil the map outside the office of Liberal MLA Olga Ilich (Richmond Centre) at 8120 Granville Ave, Richmond, at 11:30 a.m.[, May 4, 2006]. The MLA’s office building is in an area that will be completely flooded according to calculations based on the Science article. Molloy will use a kayak paddle held against the building to illustrate how far the water will rise if global warming continues unchecked. [emphasis added]

First it was Flash animation and now this. From Greenpeace, which was also one of the first nonprofits on Google video.

(I’ll try to figure out how to embed youtube without it destroying the whole style sheet. OK, got most of it. Works when you click the play button below the image. If you click on the image then you’re transferred to youtube.)

Here’s another one that is a short alternative news piece on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change conference in Montreal last year.

Chevrolet and Donald Trump’s The Apprentice teamed up to produce a website so that anyone can create their own ad for Chevy’s new SUV, the Tahoe. According to Autoblog, readers are able to choose from varied backgrounds, video shots, and input text to create their very own ads. I guess because they’re offering prizes Chevy thought all the ads would be “pro” SUV. They were very wrong.

Check out the ads before they’re taken down (my favourites are #1 and #6). Feel free to make one of your own.