A year ago today

I was clearing out our messy room in the flat over the week-end, when I came across a newspaper stuffed under a pile of used wrapping paper that Emma had 'salvaged' (She's a hoarder is Emma). I instantly remembered why I'd kept the paper; It's a Guardian that leads with an article that took me aback when I read the headline, "People power vital to climate deal - minister". Ed Miliband, our environment secretary was the guy behind the quote. If you read the article you'll see that he sites movements such as the suffragettes and the movements of the 60s counter-culture as key moments of 'people power' in the past. He mentions how we need movements like this to leverage government.

So i re-read the article and then checked the date; it was almost exactly a year ago that this article was published. Now at the time, Tim and I were around 5 months into developing our polemic for 'Coalition' and i remember feeling on reading the article
how we were now in-step with emerging thinking. I also remember wondering if our idea had 'missed the boat'. But looking back, I think Ed Miliband's thinking was flawed in one vital area, and as a politician it had to be:

I don't think the people's role is to leverage government on climate change. This time i don't think our role is to march in the streets, or to sign-petitions, or to bang pots together, or to call for our leaders to change and to lead the way. Our role is simply to do what what web 2.0 technologies now allow us to do, to collaborate and to swarm.

We need to create places where everyone can go to find out how they can green up, easily and efficiently. We need instant and reliable knowledge about which is the green product to buy (And just watch those who don't supply them products go bust). We need to re-discover community and build solutions together, micro economies are where it's going to be at. We need online places we can go to chip our good ideas in to problems and create solutions that will benefit us all. We need each other.

Governments are paranoid about being out of step with their public, it's their nightmare. This time the popular movement could go way beyond forcing the hand of government, governments will have to put on their running shoes to keep up.

Bear this in mind whilst hanging on every syndicated news snippet that comes your way from the Copenhagen conference. I don't mean be complacent, but what i do mean is that with the right application of the right tools by the right people, we could trigger a new era of global collaborative culture, never mind the cards the dealers in Copenhagen lay on the table.