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 …
Just under a week ago we launched our “60% is not enough” climate change campaign on Facebook. A bit of background to the campaign is in my post from last weekend.
We’ve already had a fantastic response, with over 700 people signing up as ‘fans’ and the number is rising hour by hour. If you are on Facebook (or want to sign up) and want to back the campaign, you can visit http://co2cuts.notlong.com
One of the goals of the site is to identify which MPs would support an amendment to the Climate Change Bill to replace the 60% CO2 cuts …
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Tagged facebook
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We are at a crucial stage in the Parliamentary process for campaigners who want to see the UK sign up to realistic targets on climate change, and a new Facebook campaign has been launched to muster support.
The Government’s Climate Change Bill, which proposes a statutory target of a 60% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050, is currently being considered by the House of Lords. Most environmental campaigners, leading scientists and even the Prime Minister, seem to accept that 60% is likely to be too little, too late.
The Liberal Democrats are therefore arguing that the Bill should be amended to give a statutory target of 80%, and we are seeking to build a coalition of MPs of all parties who share our concern in order to get the Bill amended when MPs consider it later in the Spring.
This week’s announcement by John Hutton of a new generation of nuclear power plants sparked some lively exchanges in the House of Commons. Following my observations, the Secretary of State offered me a bold print version ‘to help me understand it’, and said the best emissions to cut down would be the ones from my mouth! So a good consensual start then…
Given that opinions vary considerably both between parties and within our party about new nuclear, I thought it might be helpful to offer a bit of background to our judgment that new nuclear plants are not what we need …
Following on from my review of the uses MPs are making of Facebook, here’s the top ten listing of Liberal Democrat MPs, based on how many friends they have:
- Ming Campbell
- Steve Webb
- Jo Swinson
- Lembit Opik
- Stephen Williams
- Lynne Featherstone
- Julia Goldsworthy
- Willie Rennie
- Sarah Teather
- Chris Huhne
(Rankings are based on number of friends in their official profiles on Facebook, as at 30 July 2007)
With Facebook apparently reaching into every corner of British life, I thought it was time to see how far MPs were catching on.
So I’ve worked with a couple of colleagues to look up over 600 MPs from the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties (excluding the Speaker and Deputy Speakers) to see how many have Facebook profiles.
