Budapest Meeting Summary

The key problem we discussed is that politicians don't do anything unless they can see if the number of votes they lose, or gain, will cost them, and how much it will cost them.

Therefore,

We submit that a viral campaign designed around the direct carbon tax including connections to relevant information and utilizing 'open source' and 'IT' community connections to create the required modules and code for insertion in web sites around the world connecting to a single collection point and giving politicians the number of voters in their region will allow us a path to success in turning the political tide on this critical issue of climate change caused by global warming.

The Challenge is Global Warming:

1. Understanding what it means to our economy, environment and infrastructure.
   
2. Getting people and policy makers aware and moving in a meaningful manner.
   
3. Getting past the myths and increasing understanding of the science in order to bring meaningful action on the issue.
   

Initial OCL (Open Climate Lobby) Goals

1. Online petition to support a direct tax on carbon emissions to show policy makers the number of people that support the tax in each district, region, canton, globally.
2. Solicit 'Open Source' and 'IT' community to create modules and insertion code to aggregate name, address, postal code to allow local politicians see the demand for a carbon tax in their region.
3. Program for various formats for insertion
   • Need module builds
     

Action Items/Needs

1. Programmers/integrators to build a Plone site for the Open Climate Lobby.
   • Need Database programmer(s) for main collection point
   • Need Plone programmer(s) to connect Plone to database
   • Need PHP insertion module
   • Need HTML insertion code
   • Other means?
     
2. System Needs
   • Need host for main site.
   • Need information research for post codes.
     
3. Getting the word out:
   • Spread the word in the 'open source' and 'IT' community
   • Spread the word among your friends and relatives
     
   • Once modules are available, help spread the code

Summary

This simple model of collecting names/postal codes and pointing them to a single database and allowing people in those regions to see the data and bring it to their local politicians can have a significant impact on that region regarding policy. Politicians need to know they don't have those votes unless they take action on the direct carbon tax.