Clicks Take the Pain Out of Clean Energy Calls to Congress
BY Nancy Scola | Tuesday, March 2 2010
With Nick Judd
Perhaps at some point in our high-tech future, we'll simply be able to transmit our thought beams to let Congress know just what it is we're thinking on any particular subject. But until then, advocates and technologists are maneuvering to make it as easy and painless as possible for their supporters to register their concerns with their members of Congress.
From today through Thursday, a coalition of environmental groups, energy campaigners, and politicians are participating in 72 Hours for Clean American Power, a web-based push to generate thousands and thousands of calls to Congress to push for comprehensive clean energy legislation, by making it just slightly harder to call your Senator as it is to tweet.
Once you input your name, address, zip code, and phone number, the 72 Hours for Clean American Power widget prompts you with the name of your elected representative. Pick one, and your phone (cell or landline) automagically rings. A call script pops up in the widget. One customized for EarthStock, one of the campaign's participants, is, for example, geared towards college students: "Hi – My name is _____ from Town/City, State and I go to _____ College/University. I’ve had enough..." A recorded audio prompt coaches you on what you might say to your member of Congress, and then you're patched through to that Hill office. After the call, the widget asks how it went -- information that goes back into organizers' database.
Running on a VOIP connection, the call is free to volunteers.
Participating in the push to have clean energy supporters swamp Congress with calls in the next three days are, among others, Avaaz, 1Sky, NRDC, the League of Conservation Voters, and Sen. John Kerry. The coalition group Clean Energy Works is bankrolling the drive. A contact with Advomatic, the firm that built the click-to-call tool, estimates that those organizations and offices together will, as part of the campaign, be issuing a call to action to some six million people.
Why calls? The campaign promotional materials make the case that a real live phone call, even ones that require minimal effort, carry the added punch of a flesh and blood interaction. "Emails are great," it reads, "but a call is worth 1,000 emails! Calls are more noticeable than emails because staffers have to deal with them in real time."