Tip 5: Social media

Use social media to build organized power

Social media such as facebook or telegram has a dark side. It entices, distracts, or herds people like sheep into falsehoods or negativity. But it can also enable free, open, critical exchange, based on science and healthy social values leading to more informed decisions and actions. We can use social digital power to break the grip of fossil fuels and the power behind them, the very social digital control they are using. So, how do we take on such a monumental task?

Make use of a digital contact system, i.e., software, to reach interested persons and those able to escape fossil fuel indoctrination. Simple lists of email contacts in Google or Microsoft spreadsheets can be used. But there are far better systems such as Action Network, aimed at mass organization and action around climate concerns. They can enable millions to organize to press for the needed climate protection.

Be careful and critical in your selection of social media in its ability to organize people according to their collective or community interest. Numerous platforms like Facebook are inherently manipulative, their purpose being to make money and/or promote a surreptitious political message. “Big money” advertisers, notoriously oil, gas and coal companies or political machines, will seek to drive people away from renewables or core climate values. We seek instead a social digital system to build a capable democratic organization which yields collective or progressive power.

Stay focused on ditching fossil fuels and emissions in that social media. Do not be deceived by distracting, deflective, or denial language. Don’t be fooled by the oil and gas cartels referring to fossil fuel methane as “natural gas” Liquid natural gas (LNG) is hardly ‘natural’. It is much less monitored than oil. During the production and transportation of LNG, vast amounts of methane escape, uncontrolled, or uncontrollable. This focus simply distracts from all CO2 emissions and their unmanageable, accelerating levels, including methane, which over time breaks down into CO2. Regulation of methane amounts to regulation of consumed not produced LNG. It diminishes regulation of CO2 and a large portion of unaccounted methane that breaks down into CO2. We need instead to be consistently focused on all fossil fuels emissions and not be misled by misleading social media starting to urge to look at methane not CO2 emissions.

Use social media with a goal to set up one-on-ones. This form of contact is invaluable and effective because it starts the organizing process at the grassroots, from the bottom up. Public opinion is important. But to be powerful, individuals and communities have to come together in a massive, sustainable way. Broad support is needed but not enough. It must be organized, hardly accomplished by

emails. A digital one-on-one is more effective than a random email. It is more affordable, more empowering for the have-nothings or the have-littles, and resonates through personal contact. The previous tips 1-4 all help, as one-on-ones can lead to trust, confidence and engagement. However, a digital tool can be used to organize effectively. To do so, it requires not just digital but one-on-one, person-to-person, or live face to face contact that leads to long-term contact and sustainable recruitment.

Use a meaningful petition that encourages one-on-ones. Tip 4 discussed the gap between relations and actions, between people and their thoughts. By collecting signatures on a petition, we bring together strangers and those we might not otherwise reach, the disunited, the forgotten, the victims, the divided, the concerned, and those damaged by an obsolete energy system. Inviting someone to sign a petition for renewables hacks away at that gap between concern and action. You can build then on the subsequent response–yes, no, I have no time, what's this about—to strengthen the focus or acceptance spotlight on the issue. That verbal connection around the petition thereby lessens distrust or skepticism of the issue or the messenger.. If asked what is this petition about, your response can explain why to jettison dirty old fuels, or evoke the threat of floods, water costs, droughts, food costs as CO2 levels climb. Or it can suggest a better alternative: less pollution, cheaper energy, more peace and climate justice, healthier energy, less plastic, less waste, protecting nature, etc. Asking with a petition improves as well the chance for further. As the person signs, the initial contact can be strengthened with the question, “would you like more information”, or "care to volunteer?” With the asking and a yes or yeses, the digital organizing process begins but only as a first step.

Use the petition as a form of action to empower the activist and improve their understanding. Interacting with others and explaining the petition or need for organization warms the activist’s heart, brain, and hands, and the listener’s as well.

To build effective social media and the social base for our cause, make sure your petition has a limited, effective number of fields, demands and text. Limit the number of fields to a few: first name, last name, phone, city, email address, request information (yes or no), and volunteer (yes or no). Offer 3 or 4 simple but strong demands. Have a short title. Explain briefly why these demands are important. Too much text or too many fields discourages response, interest, or accuracy.

Follow up quickly and continuously a ‘yes to volunteering’ response in your petition. Respond preferably within 48 hours, inviting the prospective volunteer to the local coffee shop or other public place. You there share stories to explore and form connections through interests and common values. Then ask a basic question, how does the prospective volunteer believe he or she can help. See the forthcoming Tip 6

Follow up steadily to anyone who says yes for information, or volunteering, building your digital social base. Enter the email into the digital database and try to link it with the information or volunteer response. In actionnetwork, this can be done by a “radio” response or tags. Begin your follow-up to a yes for information with invitations to meetings, to a film screening, to a zoom talk, or to a house meeting. Either the information sendout or the one-on-one volunteer follow-ups will bring out each person’s values about climate change. Beyond this, these follow-ups fortify the cues from Tip 4 for the contact to commit to change, to put trust into not just words, but actions. Susan, the signer, sees that Bill, the organizer, is responsible, honest, kind, reverent, and a good boy scout. That trust invites common and collective action. Done well, it leads to bigger organized action.

Do not be misled by the growing numbers of contacts linked to social media in the database. Do not expect that a person who says yes to volunteering will always volunteer, or that a yes for information will lead to someone reading every word you send out. Some 20 per cent of information requesters will ask to be removed within weeks, and another 15 per cent will ignore the information; 10 percent of yes volunteers will show up for a one-on-one. Nurture your contacts. Over time, given the sheer magnitude and pace of the climate collapse, reality will motivate those yes-to-volunteer or yes-for-information responders to take to action in an organized way.

Do not veer away from the media goal, to expand your database, into the millions. The contact base will inevitably become the force of sustained support and leadership. Those coming in will heed the call to engage. Climate change will not change until we make it change.

Deepen community support around the petition’s thrust with the help of not just your database. Letters to the editor, flyers, a column, a talk related to the petition theme, a Facebook posting of people signing a petition–all can build common values and unity to support the petition. Whether by petitions or later, word of mouth, or even social media, it will become possible to raise that invaluable commitment to action. Building around those contacts will dislodge people from myths such as “climate change is a hoax” or “we can't do anything”. It will enable those contacts to embrace renewables at full speed. Realizing we cannot solve the climate crisis alone, their actions will become organized, practical, and critical for renewables, and the survival and even prosperity of the human race. The greater the number that organize, the more power there is to unseat the fossil proponents and make the change.

Be practical, organized, and cooperative in presenting to community leaders as you bring together folks through social media. Using the petition contacts, organize a meeting, a demonstration, a special conference with a local leader, a sit-in or non-violent protest, any of which does not jeopardize the safety of climate activists nor antagonize the target. The latter can be the city council, a politician, or university leadership. Delivering partial bundles of petitions, say 500 or 1000 signatures at a time to your target, should be done with much fanfare and unity, but not a “throw the bums out” attitude. Print out the signatures using your digital software, or copy the actual petition names into a list, then present it. Popularize and boast of those presentations through articles and photos, month after month. Sooner or later, those sleepy authorities will wake up and act, or lose their jobs. For large, organized groups, delivering the petition names is a show of force which makes for a genuine sustained response. For strong success, try to keep to a minimum disrupting, or antagonizing, the people you are trying to appeal too, onlookers or politicians.

In brief, social media is an indispensable tool for developing grassroots organized power for renewable energy, as long as it centers on our common values, including the value of science and facts and general well being. Use it!