Nine innovative ways 350.org used social media

In 2007, together with university friends, Bill McKibben (well known author and environmentalist) ran a campaign called Step It Up which organized over 2,000 rallies at iconic places in all 50 US States. According to 350.org, these actions--from skiers descending a melting glacier to divers hosting an underwater action--helped convince political leaders, including then Senator Barack Obama, to adopt our common call to action: cut carbon 80% by 2050.

Since then, the 350.org has developed into an international campaign (placed at an especially important few weeks before Copenhagen in December) to urge leaders to support legislation which lowers carbon emissions to 350ppm. This simple idea is embodied in the following chart. From the chart, it seems straightforward what the obligations of civil society (including you and I) and government are until 2050. Of course, now the big question will be--will world leaders take up these issues at Copenhagen? Later this week, I'll reveal an interesting and effective way to get inside Copenhagen and set the agenda for those inside the conference--as I'm preparing to attend. More soon.

For now, I've described some key reasons why 350.org was successful in capturing powerful and numerous images happening globally. What's their motivation, is the campaign really necessary? And how might we find answers to reducing emissions? According to 350.org,

[Reducing emissions to 350ppm] will be a hard task, but not impossible. We need to stop taking carbon out of the ground and putting it into the air. Above all, that means we need to stop burning so much coal—and start using solar and wind energy and other such sources of renewable energy –while ensuring the Global South a fair chance to develop. If we do, then the earth’s soils and forests will slowly cycle some of that extra carbon out of the atmosphere, and eventually CO2 concentrations will return to a safe level. By decreasing use of other fossil fuels, and improving agricultural and forestry practices around the world, scientists believe we could get back to 350 by mid-century. But the longer we remain in the danger zone—above 350—the more likely that we will see disastrous and irreversible climate impacts.

In order to achieve the tough emissions reductions, outreach campaigns and lobbying efforts are several useful ways sustainability communities have reduced emissions so far (see, for example, how Camden Council in London is trying to stay engaged with their constituents about Climate Change or how Barnet Council has effectively reduced their carbon footprint through the interesting and creative videos with Do The Green Thing).

The following are nine innovative ways the 350.org campaign used social media tools:


1. Grassroots-style events organizing (making international co-ordination possible)

2. Clear, wordless (internationally-applicable) video mission in under 2 minutes (above)

3. Nine step organizing kit and even social network for event organizers

4. Effective use of 350 Twitter account inclunding a well-designed Twitter background, Twibbon and Tweets to highlight positive feedback from 350 participants and hashtags #350 and #350ppm for quick connections

5. Extremely usable website which invites participants to interact and review photos from around the world

6. One symbolic graph that defines the campaign (picture above)

7. Offline stuff like T-shirts to buy to improve organisation, but also point back to and support website brand

8. Two cool widgets. First, updates of number of actions and countries--involved tracking 350 events in real-time; secondly, a widget to update participants via text. These two widgets invited some serious feedback, and supported the over 5000 events which happened internationally!

9. A Facebook group that supported 350.org, but also co-created conversations around the event to engage participants in a place they likely visit daily





Things they could've done better (with more funding, maybe?)

1. Enable video sharing and embedding with code on their site, like what TED has pioneered (pictured on the left)
2. A more streamlined approach to tagging photos--Can't we tag photos via flickr? Would that be less time intensive?