* The Debatewise Blog
A matter of fact
If there’s one thing that’s clear about the UN Climate Change Summit, it’s that nothing is clear. As 110 heads of state start packing their bags ready to travel to Copenhagen for the last 24 hours of negotiations at the end of the week, there is the customary split between rich and poor countries.The proposed agreement aims to set the limit of global temperature rise to 2C, and set the amount of money pledged to help poorer countries adapt to climate change. But many countries don’t want to be pressurised into signing an agreement by the end of the week deadline.
It’s worth speculating on whether a target is wrong. Not the proposed temperature target. Nor the target of billions to spend on adaptation. But the entire focus of the conference on reaching a fixed agreement.
The facts about climate change and global warming are hard to pin down. We know the planet is getting warmer, and it’s fairly clear that human interference has played some part in that. We also know that many parts of the world will suffer catastrophically. But the nature of the problem (and because it’s a problem with nature) means it’s impossible to state precisely by how much temperatures will rise over a given period, what exactly the sources of that temperature rise are, and where, when and how large those catastrophes will be.
If we did have this information as unequivocal scientific fact, then undoubtedly the UN summit would have been a completely different conference. The firmer the facts, the less room there is for disagreement.
The absence of concrete facts means that everything is open to interpretation – which can be shaped in some way to suit just about any agenda. That’s what’s been happened in Copenhagen over the past week, and that’s what will continue to happen this week. Wealthier countries such as the US and EU will pushed for the proposed 2C limit; many of the developing countries want a maximum of 1.5C, and some African countries say they might refuse even to take part in these final negotiations because they don’t want to be pushed into a deal they believe won’t help them. And then there’s the scale of financial help to consider – how much, who pays, and where it goes. The aim is to try and negotiate an agreement that satisfies all of these agendas without any party feeling as if it’s been over-compromised.
But is it necessarily a bad thing if an agreement is not signed? Will the summit have been a failure? Or will it be a failure if an agreement is signed?
The other issue to consider is that of responsibility. The fact that there are representatives of so many countries taking part in talks in Copenhagen runs the risk of distancing the responsibility of the climate problem from each of us. It’s all-too-easy to think that because it’s a global problem it’s a national problem – one our governments should be solving for us. All too easy to wait until advice is issued, or legislation is passed, before any of us takes action minimise our use of energy and resources. It’s easy to blame multinational industries and specific countries for warming the planet, but who buys the things they manufacture? Who uses the energy they produce? Is the solution to global warming and climate change the responsibility of our governments, or each of us as individuals?
Is there any reasons why the UN summit should be any different. What’s the better outcome: the signing of a 1.5C or 2C agreement? Or for each and every country to do what we all need to do: make a genuine commitment to – first of all acknowledging there is an issue of global warming, and secondly doing everything possible to cure it as quickly as possible.
Ideally it shouldn’t matter whether an agreement is reached between countries or not in Copenhagen. A ‘country’ is not an abstract concept, it is a place populated by people. Isn’t this one of those very rare occasions when we all have the power to make a difference?
We’ve been using Google Wave as our debating environment. This is an open source package that’s free to use for anyone with access to a computer connected to the Internet. We have more than 1000 young people from more than 100 countries signed up to use it to debate climate change. Many are from the world’s poorest countries, some have come from circumstances it’s difficult to imagine surviving in. Twenty years ago there is no way many of these voices could, or would have been heard.
It is all too easy to take the Internet, and tools such as social networking for granted, and forget how amazing it is and what a social revolution it has created. For example – through our GYP debates, people are gaining first-hand accounts about exactly what climate change means to named individuals around the world. Ultimately, this kind of technology could by more effective in driving home the message about reducing global warming that any decision reached in Copenhagen.
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Banking on the future
On Friday (11 December) an EU summit in Brussels pledged to raise €2.4bn from January to help the world’s poor countries cope with rising seas floods and famine. This is part of an estimated annual €7bn package from industrialised nations around the world. On 4 December, it was announced that public sector support for the UK bank bailout was £850bn (€945bn).It’s impossible to calculate the financial cost of dealing with climate change – both to control global warming, and to pay for the effects of catastrophes – because nobody knows for sure to what extent the temperature will rise and over what period. Predicted outcomes vary from inconvenient to apocalyptic depending on how high the thermometer climbs. However, it’s estimated that averting catastrophe could cost as little as 1% of global output – as long as that amount is invested in well designed policies. The cost of saving the world’s banks was 5% of global output.
The topic: ‘Is the EU contributing its “fair share” to combating climate change?’ was introduced on Friday into our GYP climate change debates. The debate is still ongoing at the time of writing, but views being posted, include: ‘…the EU countries are doing much more than any other nation’, and: ‘No matter how much the EU agrees to contribute, some will always claim that it is not enough’.
Many people raise the point that it’s not simply a question of how much money is contributed, but what nations also do themselves to combat climate change, such as pledging to cut CO2 emissions and tackling deforestation. Current results are Yes: 62%; No: 23%; Maybe: 15%
The day’s other hot topic was: ‘Climate change is a security issue’ – introduced following President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in Oslo, during which he said:
“The absence of hope can rot a society from within. And that is why helping farmers feed their own people — or nations educate their children and care for the sick — is not mere charity. It is also why the world must come together to confront climate change. There is little scientific dispute that if we do nothing, we will face more drought, famine and mass displacement that will fuel more conflict for decades. For this reason, it is not merely scientists and activists who call for swift and forceful action — it is military leaders in my country and others who understand that our common security hangs in the balance.”
Climate change as a security problem is slowly gaining political ground. In our own debate more than 68% agree that it is a problem. If the US truly believes that it is, then it remains to be seen whether it will shift its position from investing heavily in combating the effects – the security issue, to investing heavily in solving the cause – the climate issue.
Of course there is the vague, intensely-remote chance, that one-day somebody in a dusty corner of the White House or Whitehall might link climate change to the banking problem – then we’ll see how quickly the problem gets solved, and how much money gets thrown at it…
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A question of balance
The problem with climate change, is that it only affects those it affects. This is not as cryptic as it sounds. For many of us who go about our lives in the so-called ‘developed’ world, climate change is too often a distant issue. So – the earth is a couple of degrees warmer. So – the summers/winters are a bit wetter/dryer. So – there’s the odd flood here and there. That’s just the weather isn’t it?In a way, it is. But weather’s what you get – as in here and now; and climate is what you expect – in the sense of the state of the climate system. And many of us are too comfortable for the effects of climate change to really hit home. But at some point for many of us, it is our homes that will be hit. It’s only when that comfort has been taken away, and we realise that we can expect the same thing to happen year after year, that the difference between weather and climate gets fully appreciated. But that could be next week, next year, or in five or ten years time. So we change our light-bulbs, don’t leave the TV on standby, recycle our wine bottles, maybe think about buying a hybrid car…
Many people around the world don’t have the luxuries of time and space – in places such as Bangladesh, Tuvalu and the Maldives. For them climate change is a here and now issue.
It’s all-too-easy to condemn the power of the developed nations over the developing – US and EU v G77, but looking deeper into the each of their issues reveals the essence of this UN Summit – two sides driven by almost equal intensity, but with very different motivations.
Most of our climate change debaters live in developing countries, so you might expect them to take any opportunity to knock the more affluent powers. If you do, you’d be wrong. As the first week of Global Youth Panel Climate Change debating slips into a weekend of debating, browsing back through our week online reveals balanced views, intelligent comments, and genuine understandings of all sides of global politics and economy; as well as a realisation that deals have to be made and why.
A good example of this was our Bangladesh topic: ‘Bangladesh should get at least 15% of any climate fund’. We pitched our Bangladesh group against the rest of the world on this issue. Almost 60% disagreed, almost 27% agreed, the rest were undecided.
While the Bangladesh group may not have won the debate, they did gain the opportunity to passionately voice their predicament, for example: “According to our own experts, by 2050 Bangladesh shall cease to exist. The population of Bangladesh is 150 million, this many people cannot be rehoused as easily as the paltry populations of the AOSIS countries.” While on the ‘Against’ side: “But how would funding avert displacement? excessive inundation/flooding will still occur since the climate crisis has already begun. If anything, countries to where the Bangladeshis will be displaced, should get funding (to take care of inevitable flood victims)”.
You have to admire the sense of balance delivered by many of our debaters. How many of us would maintain a sense of reason if we found ourselves and our families, one morning, up to our knees in water, with no home, no work to go to, no food and nowhere to go. And if we lived under the threat of this happening tomorrow, what would we do about it today?
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GYP panel - optimistic and realistic, an ideal combination?
What strikes me about the voting results so far is just how optimistic our panel is. Over 60% still think the conference will be a success, almost 60% believe the G77 split can be papered over and a whopping 75% think the EPA’s ruling allows the USA to be more ambitious. However, fears about Climategate are a concern with 61% saying it might scupper a deal.Our panel are also very fair. Over two-thirds say that big countries should take the needs of small countries into consideration when coming up with a deal, take that all those who criticised Tuvalu, and only a tiny minority believe Bangladesh should get 15% of a climate fund.
What’s more they’re reasonable too. Whilst a small majority think the so called ‘Danish Text’ indicates Denmark are more interested in a treaty with their name on it than a good one delivered later a significant majority the nos and neutrals aren’t too far behind (and catching up if voting patterns continue. In addition, 61% think that mutually acceptable emissions targets are better than tough, legally-binding, ones. So indicating their optimism is tempered by realism and an overriding desire to get a deal done.
All the debates here: http://gyp.debatewise.org/
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Temperatures rise – and the ‘Danish text’ provide fuel for debate
The World Meteorological Organisation has announced that 2009 is likely to be one of the 10 warmest years since records began in 1850.Although the temperatures for November and December are not in yet, the WMO says the combined sea surface and land surface air temperature for 2009 is currently estimated at 0.44 degrees C above the 1961-1999 average of 14.00 degrees.
“The current nominal ranking of 2009, which does not account for uncertainties in the annual averages, places it as the fifth-warmest year,” says a statement from the UN agency. “The decade of the 2000s was warmer than the decade spanning the 1990s, which in turn was warmer than the 1980s.”
Meanwhile, in Copenhagen, temperatures at the summit are also rising. Wednesday's revelations included the leaked ‘Danish text’ draft agreement that, if implemented, would hand more power to rich nations, deliver financial control of climate change finance to the World Bank, sideline the UN's negotiating role and abandon the Kyoto protocol.
Of course we couldn’t help but add this to our Global Youth Panel debate topics for the day (9 December), as: ‘The 'Danish text' shows that the Danish Government is failing in their duty to be an unbiased host’. The results so far indicate that 58% agree and 25% disagree, with good points being put by both sides, including: “while I do not think that Denmark, nor any other country, should be trying to force any treaty upon anyone, I do not feel that this entails failure in its duties as host” (against), and: “this piece of news will most probably cause the developing countries to lose trust in the hosts, and US/UK especially” (for). A key concern raised, is whether Denmark is so keen to see an agreement signed, that it will try and drive through any agreement rather than a good agreement.
Simultaneously, Wednesday saw a lively debate on: ‘ Should Bangladesh get 15% of any climate fund'. This topic was added following an announcement at a press conference on Tuesday (8 December) by Hasan Mahmud Khondoker, the state minister for the environment. He said it was entitled to the 15%, because at least 20 million Bangladeshis would be displaced if sea levels rose by 1 metre. He added that the country couldn’t itself afford adaptation. Currently 61% agree and 31% disagree.
On the subject of adapting: all of this debating is being held on Google Wave, which was launched in April this year (2009) and so is still a very new tool. It’s also a real innovation, demanding a slightly different approach to communicating, especially as it operates in real-time. For example this means that as you type, others can read (and reply if they want to). So all credit to our Global Youth Panel, who have rapidly grasped and embraced the concept of Google Wave as the platform for our debates.
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First day of GYP UN Summit debates reveals optimism, commitment and some remarkable stories
The two main debates of the first day of debating were: ‘Is the Copenhagen conference going to be a success?’ and: ‘Will “Climategate” threaten the deal at Copenhagen?’The success question floats on defining what success is. The aim of the Copenhagen conference is to create a binding treaty that will commit the nations of the world to cutting CO2 emissions to slow global warming. However since the US congress will not pass a climate change bill in time this is unlikely to happen. So what is success? The detail of a treaty worked out and being made legal only when the US climate change bill is introduced sometime next year? Commitments on transferring technology? Setting up an adaptation fund?
100s of people from the 1000-strong Debatewise Global Youth Panel joined the first day of climate change debating – which attracted some eloquently-put arguments from many different perspectives. The result overall view on whether the Copenhagen conference will be a success was upbeat, with 60% believing it would be.
The ‘Climategate’ debate centred around events during last week, when it was alleged that the head of University of East Anglia's climatic research unit had attempted to suppress contradictory data on rising temperatures, while systematically ignoring any contradictory data the unit had collected. This research unit is one of the most respected around the world, so this story was grabbed by sceptics who are now demanding the whole climate change/temperature rise issue debate be reopened.
The Climategate issue led to some very feisty and emotive debates on all sides by the Global Youth Panel. In the end, 64% thought it could in some way affect the outcome of the UN summit.
Committed debaters overcome obstacles to contribute
There have also been some remarkable demonstrations of commitment by members of the Global Youth Panel to the climate change debates.
On Monday, as the UN summit opened, there were the largest anti-government demonstrations in months in Iran, as tens-of-thousands of students took to the streets. This led to a crackdown by riot police and pro-government militia. There was also a crackdown on communications, particularly the Internet. Nevertheless the Iranian team battled all kinds of obstacles to find a way of accessing Monday’s debates.
In Bhutan, the team persuaded their Internet service providers to let them have extra bandwidth for free to allow them to take part in the debate.
You may already have read in an earlier blog about Cambodia: Michael (surname unknown) collected about 30 kids together, held practice debates, found an IT person to help and got the Phnom Penh Post to cover the story (Link to Phnom Penh Post article). What’s more, these kids were, in his words: “some of the poorest, most destitute families in Cambodia” and until a few years ago were working in the rubbish-dump in Phnom Penh.
All of which shows just how important climate change issues are, and how much people want their voices to be heard.
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Quick update on the debates
Our developers hit quite a few snags with the software and despite them working to 4:45 am Monday they couldn’t get it done. They are still working though and we hope to have a functional model later this week.Plan B was to do everything manually. Which is what we are doing. This means we can’t exclude external participants and don’t have a methodologically sound way of recording votes. But people are debating, and debating in large numbers. Last night we recorded 100 new blips or edits to blips in less than an hour.
Furthermore, the dedication some people are showing to the cause is remarkable. The Iranian team had to battle an internet crackdown yesterday to come online but come they did. We’re also recording activity from a great many other countries in the world.
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Successful first day of climate change debating for Global Youth Panel
The end of the first day of the UN summit, and a successful first day of debating for the Debatewise Global Youth Panel.The subjects of the day are ‘Will the Conference be a success?’ and ‘Will “Climategate” threaten the deals at the Conference?’ The results haven’t been counted yet, as the debates are still ongoing, but early indications are that most of our debaters think the Conference will be a success, and it’s about even for the effects of Climategate.
It’s been interesting watching the GYP debates. Hundreds of people have taken part, expressing between them many different viewpoints, and displaying some very eloquently-put arguments. The first day was everything we were hoping it would be, and is great reward for all those hours of preparation it’s taken to get here. We’ll publish the results in tomorrow’s blog.
Our Global Youth Panel has been debating against the backdrop of the first day of the conference. Prior indications were that it was going to be a lively event, and the first day hasn’t disappointed. There are the expected differences between the G8 block and the small island states, centering around the decision at the G8 summit in July to keep the global average temperature rise since pre-industrial times to 2C. The small island states – most at risk from rising sea levels, are arguing for a lower target of 1.5C, and it’s possible that the G77/China bloc will endorse the lower target.
Other aims for the conference are:
* Targets to curb greenhouse gas emissions, in particular by developed countries
* Financial support for mitigation of and adaptation to climate change by developing countries
* A carbon trading scheme aimed at ending the destruction of the world's forests by 2030.
Around the world, to stress the importance of the summit, 56 newspapers in 45 countries and 20 languages published the same editorial yesterday (7 December), warning that climate change will "ravage our planet".
In Copenhagen, the demonstrators were out in force, some protesting on rooftops and others staging a ‘die-in’ to represent the number of people who will die each year if a deal is not reached.
It’s been quite a day.
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1000 people, but so many more voices
So here we are - the start of the UN summit on climate change in Copenhagen. This is what we've all been working for at Debatewise. Months of planning, thousands of emails, texts, phone calls, casting into networks and pushing the edges of communications technology.The UN summit has turned into the party nobody wants to miss: 15,000 delegates from 192 countries, and 100 world leaders. There have also been an unprecedented number of pledges in advance of the start of the summit. Most recently South Africa announced its first quantifiable target on emissions-reduction. The announcement came two weeks after China announced its first ever firm target for reducing its 'carbon intensity'. Yvo de Boer, the UN's chief climate change negotiator has said: 'Never in 17 years of climate negotiations have so many different countries made so many pledges.'
But we've all learnt to be cynical. And why shouldn't we be? We've seen the machinations of global businesses and protectionist politics who don't want to upset their shareholders or voters. Can we do any more than simply hope, that the keywords of the summit are climate change, deforestation, rising sea-levels, global warming, carbon emissions, greenhouse gases, reduction, recycling, sustainability' and the like, rather than terms such as profitability, carbon trading and shareholder perception?
Who will have the loudest voice at this global party? Those with the most money and therefore the most power? Or those who will be most affected by the pledges, decisions and commitments that will emerge as the summit progresses?
These are just some of the reasons we decided to run the Debatewise Global Youth Panel debates alongside the summit. We wanted as many people as possible to hear the voices of those who will be affected most by climate change. Those with the most to lose in terms of home, family and future, rather than share prices and poll-ratings.
It's been hard work, but we have 1000 people from more than 100 countries ready to be heard. But we have more than 1000 voices, because every person that has signed up to our Global Youth Panel is speaking for others, whether it's just their immediate family, a group of like-minded friends, or for the concern of their generation.
We have voices from those who have survived by picking a living out of mountains of rotting rubbish, and voices from comfortable homes in leafy suburbs. We have voices from Israel and Palestine, North Korea and South Korea, USA and Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq. What they have in common is that they all know the biggest issue is more important than any other concern.
Will the conference be a success? The answer to this is not a simple yes or no. Successful for whom? Successful for those set to become 'environmental migrants', as the climate affects their homes, livelihoods and families?
That's why we've chosen to kick of our series of debates with: 'Will the conference be a success?' The debate starts this morning, 7 December and will go on for 24 hours. We'll bring you summary of the outcomes and best arguments later in the week.
And finally, let's hope that those involved in the sharp end of the summit have the sense to understand that it's not what they can take away from the conference that matters as much as what they can give to it.
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Global Youth Panel - weekly update No. 4
Three days to go and everything is going perfectly. There’s not a cloud in the sky nor problem to report. In fact, we’re so far ahead of schedule we’ve been working half-days all week.Yeah, right.
Panellists
In order to ensure only members of the GYP take part in the debates we’re tying their Wave address to our gadget. Which means we need their CC to send out invites, collect Wave addresses and forward them to us. A slow process at best of times, a pretty frustrating one when a close, immovable, deadline is involved. Oh and with very new technology too.
Hence lots of communication with the CCs and panellists. Lots of individual emails sent, lots of hand-holding, lots of trying to determine what non-native speakers mean when they’re describing problems. Quite a bit of explaining the process and that Wave is not Gmail. All combined with the tasks each CC already has on their plate; which currently involves at least one sick mother and hopefully only one holed oil tanker.
So we’ve been really grateful for the extra invites that Google have given us and especially delighted to see invites seem to now arrive only a few hours after being sent. Without those two factors we’d have had a much more stressful week than it’s already been.
We wont have all 1,000 panellists online on Monday, this will be a rolling start. However, we should have close to 500 and they’ll be the dedicated ones, so hopefully the level of participation will be high. Now all we need do is get the add-ons working.
Development
Our strategy has been to simplify inbox noise by generating one Index Wave containing links to, and key elements for, all the debates: the Debate Title, Intro, Votes For, Votes Against and time remaining to participate or vote. GYP members will use this as their portal (yes I used that word) for the debates they want to participate in.
A Debate Wave will be a subset of the Index Wave – it will contain the title, intro, votes For and Against and timings for every individual debate. It will also contain all the points that make up the debate (test example: How many ninjas does it take to cut emissions by 20%.
Point 1: Chuck Norris, Point 2: Chuck Norris’s mum, Point 3 – well you get the idea).
The Point Wave is where the debates take place. This contains a blip with the argument, a blip with the counterargument and all discussion blips underneath. This is the only element at which GYP members participate. The Debate Wave and Index Wave are generated by robots that pull in blips, make debate Waves and then generate the Index Wave.
I am led to believe the Wave documentation needs a little polishing. And that a lot of the solutions professed by others on forums don’t seem to work for us. Hence lots of late nights, lots of missed deadlines and an inevitable to-the-wire finish.
I am filled with confidence though, and I say this knowing my reputation is at stake. Partly because I understand this is how these projects work. And partly because I’ve seen just how skilled our guys are and know how much they care. They’ll make it happen. Somehow.
PR
Messages of support have come from Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the IPCC and co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize Al Gore so famously collected, various other leading climate change experts and leader of the opposition David Cameron. Now if that doesn’t spur the PM into action I don’t know what will.
Perhaps most encouraging of all was a simple message posted to a single list I’ve been on for a while. The outpouring of support was amazing to see and incredibly lifting too as it showed the amount of goodwill that exists for this project. Our main task now is how to
access it.
To help we’ve hired a professional who has written some press releases, developed a press pack for the CCs and is helping us with all things media. My feeling/hope/belief /goal is the amount of interest we generate will increase as the conference goes on.
I aim to show that despite the cynicism and disappointment that will inevitably emerge there are a group of passionate, dedicate and energised people who want to solve these huge problems. Our panel will provide the breath of fresh air the world needs during its time
of doubt. And I say that only half exaggeratedly, their enthusiasm has lifted me many times during mine.
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Global Youth Panel - weekly update No. 3
This week we have mostly...Panelists
The panelists have started to come online and we’ve come up with a good way to get them Waving. We’ll ask people to collaborate as a country and form their top three tips for using Wave. Tips we’ll obviously share with everyone else. This will get them delving deep
into the environment, researching, working together and pulling for each other. We’ll get them playing Soduku too, obviously.
Some people have struggled with the invite process and we’ve encountered language difficulties helping people understand the delay in invite being sent and invite being received. This, of course, has allowed us to see where gaps in our expertise lie; gaps Eve - our
newest intern - and her language studying friends will hopefully help fill.
Best news of all came from Cambodia. Michael (surname unknown) has got about 30 kids ready to go, held practice debates, found an IT person to help and got the Phnom Post to cover the story (http://bit.ly/4N3fMa). What’s more, these kids were, in his words
“some of the poorest, most destitute families in Cambodia” and until a few years ago were working in the rubbish-dump in Phnom Penh. These are the kinds of people we’ll be giving a voice.
Development
Development is moving slowly and we’re a bit behind schedule. I have great confidence in the team though and their focus on getting the core solid is absolutely right. We simply couldn’t get other people to work effectively until that’s done first.
The possibility of this extra help got greater with the news that James, our man in America, runs the Wave subreddit on Reddit.com. Their community is 1,200 strong and even if only 10 of them wanted to help we’d get lots done.
Fundamentally, the core is all we really need to make the experience easy for our panelists. Everything else is nice to have, not essential. And all that nice stuff can come later if we need it to; our project will continue for two months into the new year. Plenty of time for developers to really add value.
PR
The first part of the Independent integration is ready for testing (http://independent.debatewise.org/). Debates here will not be created in Wave but rather on Debatewise. The idea is to allow Independent readers to debate exactly the same motions as the panel so we can
compare the arguments formed by Brits to those the rest of the world comes up with.
Messages of support have come from William Kininmonth, who headed Australia’s National Climate Centre, Richard S. Courtney, one of 15 scientists invited to give a briefing on climate change at the US Congress, Bulu Imam, a leading Indian climate change activist and one of the world’s most eminent climate change sceptics Dr Timothy Ball. More are being sought.
My favourite comes from Professor Thomas Homer-Dixon, who said: "The Global Youth Panel may be the most innovative project associated with the Copenhagen conference -- and likely the one with the most long-lasting impact.” A quote I think overstates things a tad but is one we’re using far and wide nonetheless.
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Global Youth Panel - weekly update No. 2
This week we have mostly...Panellists
We’ve hit our target of 1,000 panellists. More than 500 have signed up on our list and our 97 country coordinators have recruited an average of five people each. In fact, some of them have got significantly more; our Ecuadorian CC has found a grand total of 30
different debaters. The total number of countries represented has now reached 120, about two-thirds of all countries in the world. We think we’ve got just about all the major ones covered now.
We’ve allowed the CCs to go over ten because we know some people will drop out when it comes to debating time and some will only want to participate in certain debates. Therefore, the excess gives us a useful buffer which we hope will ultimately allow us to say 1,000
people voted on x. Or as close as possible anyway.
The CCs seem to have their Wave invites now. We’re introducing them to the environment and asking them to perform small tasks so they get used to the way Wave works. We’re also using it for some of the important collaboration jobs prior to debating kick-off.
Next stage is to get the panellists using and becoming familiar with Wave and we’re trying to think up the best games for them to play that would allow them to have a Wave moment or two. Sudoku anyone?
Development
As a non-techie I’m delighted and reassured by the great minds we have working on the project. Peter Chamberlin is the lead developer, ably assisted by Daniel Bartlett, Aleski Gorny and Greg Plumbly in London. The North American side of things is headed by James Wilson.
Daniel has put together the database schema and data store model, Aleski is building the core robots, Peter and Greg the gadgets. Once these fundamental bits are done we’ll farm out work to the other developers who’ve expressed an interest in the project. All our
gadgets and robots will be open sourced in the hope other Wavers might benefit from and improve them.
We’re also creating an API for the data itself so that publications, sites and/or individuals will be able to take the voting totals, points or debates and mash them up as they see fit. The debates will be published on Debatewise and on The Independent and we hope a number of other places too.
PR
In order to ensure people know about the project and the API we’ve spent this week researching and reaching out to climate change experts, politicians and celebrities. We are seeking messages of support and/or help mentoring the debaters.
We’ve got three new interns on this task, making five in total. One with contacts in Africa, a Brazilian who’ll obviously look after Portugal as well and someone with conversational Chinese. On top of this we’ve started asking our CCs for help and have created a few
different templated emails for them to send out directly.
This task was always going to be more involved and the results were always going to come in more slowly. We will continue to focus it from now until the conference ends on the 18th. We will also pick it up again when the second part of the project starts in mid Jan. We've got a couple of responses in so far and I think this will pick up speed the closer we get to the 7th and as the conference is going on.
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Progress report
We’ve probably got 1,000 people signed-up now. There are over 500 people on our list and we reckon the 92 Country Coordinators we’ve got will have an average of at least five people themselves. So target hit with three weeks to go. I’m pretty chuffed.A map of where these people come from and where the CCs are is below. They’re just jpgs and not snazzy interactive maps, unfortunately. Google have restricted the ability to export such things from their wondrous Wave so we’re forced to use old technology. Still the map of participants is pretty comprehensive I think.
Country Coordinators
Panellists
The development team are moving forward fast. We’ve got a confirmed database schema, which is essential if we want to allow other developers to build the various bits we need. And we do. We’ve also decided that we’ll create an API for the info, which means we’ll allow more or less anyone to take the points, debates and votes and display them or mash them up as they see fit. This is at the very heart of open information and I’m delighted we’ll have these facilities.
I can’t tell you how delighted I am we’ve got Peter, Alex, Daniel, Greg and Stephen helping out. Peter is a fantastic lead developer and has really demystified this entire process for me. Daniel is a database genius and I’m confident our information will be in very good hands. Alex will be building some of the robots we need to improve the user experience and Greg is one of my oldest friends and someone I lean on heavily in all matters technological.
On top of that we’ve got plenty of other people waiting in the wings ready and willing to help out. Their support is absolutely invaluable, I can’t imagine how we’d do what we’re planning to do without them. And they are all doing it for free.
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Global Youth Panel - weekly update No. 1
PanellistsRecruitment for the panel is going really well. We’ve now got over 600 people from 96 different countries. We’ve also got 84 confirmed country coordinators and another 5 almost definite. Our target was 100 for today so we're just short, but still 90 people recruited to do this work in two weeks of effort is pretty good I reckon.
Development
We have a team of 6 volunteers in London who are putting together the development plan for our debating gadgets and robots. We also have a team of around 14 developers in other parts of the world who’ll start the actual building work once they’ve been fully spec’d – hopefully Tuesday.
The plan is to have these complete by the end of November, which will give us a week for testing. This week will also be used to create the screencasts and other guides to help people get used to the environment. We’ll ask panellists to familiarise themselves with Wave
in general prior to that.
PR
The biggest next job is trying to get as much PR as possible for the panel. We know the people on it will be greatly motivated by seeing their efforts in print and by messages of encouragement from climate change leaders. We've already got a provisional promise of support from Prime Minister Gordon Brown and hope to get many more.
We’ve just recruited another two interns to help us with our marketing efforts. Their job will be to reach out to other web sites and publications around the world and encourage them to write about the panel or put our voting results widget on their site. With the sheer
range of panellists, with the subject they’ll be debating and with the thing they’ll be debating in we feel confident we’ve got a story to tell.
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The Global Youth Panel
For anyone not on the mailing list there may be some confusion about what exactly we’re doing for Copenhagen. Let’s clear that up.We wanted to capitalise on the success of the WODC but couldn’t run another event until 2010. I’d always thought we should do something for the COP-15 conference but nothing seemed quite right. Then a couple of interventions from people we share an office with made everything fall into place.
Our office in East London is a little hub of social entrepreneurs, many of whom work on environmental projects. The first hint of the idea came when Jane Burston from Carbon Retirement told us about her work with a group of people put together by the British Council. They’d developed a set of principles they believed Copenhagen should focus on, we thought we’d take these principles and get a wider group of people to debate them. Then Dan Lewer, also from Carbon Retirement, came up with the idea of using this group to vote on wider issues related to the conference and bang, we’ve got something exciting
From then on it’s all gone pretty quickly. I got in touch with the British Council who really liked the proposal and agreed to help fund it. We started contacting our list of people from the WODC and got a good early response, so were confident we could get our target of 1,000 panel members. And then the really good thing, the really, really, good thing, happened.
I first saw the Google Wave video the day after the I/O conference. I didn’t watch the entire thing (sorry Steph) but the first hour excited me so much I’d grab people passing my desk and babble somewhat incoherently about how amazing the whole thing was.
I knew Wave would be ideal for debate. The collaboration aspects are top-notch, the playback feature helps people learn how the arguments were formed, the contextual spellchecker and translation tools help people argue with other people who speak a different language and the extensibility means you can add whatever you want that isn't already there.
Clearly Wave was the tool for this project, but you could only use it if you were invited and getting one invite was hard enough. So how on earth was I going to get 1,000? A happy moment of serendipity let me know the Wave team were going to present in London. Even better, Steph and Lars – the two people in the huge long video – were doing the presentation. This was my chance.
I really prepared for it too. I wrote down everything I wanted to say and rehearsed it so it didn’t sound rehearsed. Before the meeting I went home, shaved, put on a suit, got there nice and early, made sure to drink just the right amount of beer (to strike that balance between confident and cocky), spent ages wondering when to speak up (during the Q&A or after) and was fairly quivery when I did.
Not that I needed to be. Steph got the concept straightaway and agreed so easily to my request I almost didn’t believe it had happened. In fact, it was only when she emailed confirmation a week later that I truly got excited.
It’s a such a big deal for us for a number of different reasons. It will help us get panel members, it’s a better way for them to collaborate, the fact we’re running one of the largest real-world demos of Wave means we can get some publicity for what we’re doing and we might be able to provide Google with a use case for Wave which would be great marketing for us. All of which means this could be the thing that puts us on the map.
Since then there have been lots of other developments which have been hugely exciting, not least the volunteering by some really skilled people to help us build the extensions we need. But this is already a long post and those guys deserve a bit more bigging up, so I’ll save that for another day.
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Week
Ricky- After a discussion with Alex and Dave, I was given the task of researching and contacting people from Africa to be a part of the GYP and country coordinators.
- Contacted as many Africans as possible, including people from the likes of Swaziland and Lesotho!
- Managed to get responses from a few people wishing to become CC's
- With the help of Alex, created materials (emails, PDF files) that can be sent to CC's
- Received some emails from Lincoln Douglas debate teams in America that I contacted a while back, and pointed them in the direction of our first debate that was released by the National Forensic league for them to add to.
Alex
Hmm so what did I do this week... good question, most likely only one main thing, its all about COP15
- Sent out a fair few emails to NGOs/Student groups etc to groups across Asia
- Helped in drafting the materials for us to send out (pdf, initial email, email to be sent on)
- Vompiling another list to send information to next week.
- Got my first country coordinator from Iceland \o/ somewhat odd given that my assigned area is Asia!
- Actually edited some debates this week! need something to act as a break from searching for emails of ppl who may be interested in our GYP
Dave
With five weeks to go to the start of a conference that could put Debatewise on the map there’s nothing more important than Copenhagen right now.
- Went to the Google Wave meeting and possibly, could, may have executed part B. The hesitation comes from a fear of jinxing things. So I’ll say no more but keep my fingers firmly crossed
- Developed send-out materials for the GYP
- Found my persuasive voice for those people who we haven’t yet convinced
- Worked on the software we’ll need to make the project a success
- Made the Jewish Chronicle’s site a bit more pretty – well there had to be something non COP15 related.
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a week mostly outside the office
Due to the weather turning colder and Bash being environmentalist we briefly decamped and worked from home. The office is in the process of getting some new environmental heaters installed, I assume they work more efficiantly than normal heaters although they somehow look rather retro!Alex
1. guess emailing has to come first as it has been the majority of my week, emailing to get people to sign up to our Global Youth Panel for the Copenhagen Conference and hopefully a good long time afterwards as well. Getting a similar level of results I got from emailing for the Census about eight months ago: 350-400 emails sent, 1 response \o/. This comes in several parts 1st finding organisations/email addresses then emailing them, and also emailing people who were already on our lists like the English Speaking Unions.
2. finally got my debate on negotiations at the end of the English Civil War up.
3. found some forums/groups for Ricky to post on
4. responded to an urgent call for debates for the JC!
5. Some people seem to have gotten it into their heads that it is acceptable to leave the Rapid Response Team, it is not, DESIST AT ONCE!
p.s. I am sure I must have done something on Monday, somehow with the last 3 days being different due to being out of the office I don’t have a clue what I did before!
Ricky
1. Emailed environmental forums and blogs in an attempt to allow us to post information about the GYP.
2. Trawled through facebook groups that concentrate on climate change issues and posted information on the GYP
3. Researched African climate change groups, but only found about three!
4. Responded to comments made in some forums in regards to the GYP, including trying to explain to someone why we are not similar to the Hitler Youth!
5. Retreated to the comfort of my own home to work on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday due to sub zero temperatures in the office.
Dave
It’s all about Copenhagen…
1) Blagged an invite to a talk about Google Wave by the very inventors of this wondrous product. Now if I can only execute the second part of my masterplan…
2) Tempted the Independent into a meeting about our GYP – or Global Youth Thermometer (geddit) as I’ve recently taken to calling it.
3) Found our ideal sponsor for the GYP – HSBC. Yes them, their focus on local knowledge and desire to understand different points of view = perfect match for us.
4) Developed a belief that this event could be the one that puts us on the map.
5) Loving the fact we’re now getting 1,000 visitors a day. And more importantly that a massive 170 different debates have been improved since the start of the month. Thank you Rapid Response Team. Thank you everyone who’s edited.
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Our Debatewise Week
Alex1, So the Copenhagen conference on climate change is comming up, and not wanting to be left out we have to get involved in some way. Had a good ideas session about what we might do.
2, wrote up a plan from the ideas session, and a list of tasks that need doing that we will split between us interns
3, nothing much happened this week on revisewise. my brother and I have decided to put up the page on The Wars of the Three Kingdoms as an example - we intend to do four or five debates on the subject and already have one on Gaelic Warfare up, I have been working on a debate on negotiations at the end of the 1st civil war
4, We have been writing for the LDdebate topic. We now have several points on each side. Need to email all the people who might help us to expand the page.
5, Had an unusually large number of questions about the RRT. We are also now asking them to edit others debates more. This week all out debates sent out on tuesday were taken within a day.
Dave
1. Working on the plan for the Copenhagen debates, have a good feeling about this
2. Finally got people to Wave with, now we can really see what it can do
3. Developing a sales strategy that might secure our future
4. Did some good networking at a Microsoft event
5. Early development for the IDEA Debate in the Neighbourhood programme
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Five things for the week
1)That I’m doing this list for the first time in months. I have meant to, several times, just not hard enough to actually get on the keyboard.2) That we managed to get 1,000 people to the site in one day. Can’t tell you how proud I am of that
3) Got the final of the WODC going without a hitch despite some severe scheduling problems
4) Managed to turn around a meeting that was heading south, due I’m sure to my charm, wit and intelligence.
5) In fact I’m going to put the entire WODC down. Okay, it’s gone on longer than a week but I am especially proud because it’s been a big success and could lead to lots of other goodness.
Dave
1) Wrote a press release for the WODC final and one announcing the Judges for the final
2) Wrote a brief introduction on three debates to go in the newsletter
3) Sent some emails out to Lincoln Douglas debate big cheeses in the USA.
4) Researched the new NFL topic on compulsory vaccinations.
5) Waned myself off tea, and now for some reason I am on black coffee.
Ricky
1) I actually managed to find time to edit a fair number of debates this week, first time in ages!
2) revisewise, another change in how we are planning to do things, so more writing of ideas and discussions
3) more revisewise, finished putting up a debate on the 1907 Anglo-Russian Treaty. It is pretty comprehensive. Given how little other secondary literature there is directly on the subject it is possible that only a 1936 book on it is more comprehensive on the topic!
4) LDdebate. A new topic is up on immunisation so ricky and I have been working on that.
5) RRT is going well, they took 9/10 topics sent on Tuesday and have already taken one sent out today. We keep getting more volunteers too.
Alex
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so what have we been up to this week?
Alexhmmm difficult to find 5 things this week, spent too much time worrying about my dropbox not working!
1, seem to have spent alot of time on revisewise to little effect. Start of the evaluating groups discussions have been put back abit while we consider things.
2, collated/wrote background to questions that David put to Lib Dem peer Lord Carlile for yoosk
3, wrote another comparison on pluck for Dom.
4, put up a debate on the 1907 agreement for revisewise - more to do on this, only done one level of analysis out of three!
5, delegated LD debate to Ricky, did a possible pitch for him that he and David then altered... (I assume its being used!)
I forgot that Ricky does not yet have an account on this so it my (alex's) fault that this is late:
Ricky
1, Emailed the majority of the debate teams from the debatecoaches wiki page
2, Researched the contact information of every debate chairman of every district in America - over 100! All I've got to do now is email them all!
3, Had an ideas discussion with David and Alex about Revisewise
4, Sent out a second press release on the WODC
5, Drank ALOT of tea.
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