How eco-friendly is "Think About It 2: Climate Change"?

Think about it! has gone into a second round, this time covering climate change ahead of the Copenhagen Climate Summit at the end of the year.

But is #think2 really eco-friendly, eco-helpful, eco-sensible, eco-effective etc.?

If "some 90 bloggers from 43 countries" travelled to Copenhagen for the launch event last week - the majority by plane, I suppose - how much energy has been spent to make this happen? And won't this happen a second time with a possible closing event?

Using hotel rooms filled with electrical devices like huge televisions (I suppose they were there), running a conference venue with microphones and video projectors, including tasty buffets and joint trips, doesn't this all cost a hell lot of additional energy?

Giving new HD cameras to the participants, doesn't it mean a lot of energy has been invested to produce these devices, and will the bloggers not have to recharge these cameras after each 2-4 hours of filming?

And doesn't running a server for 90 blogs that will include a lot of video material over two months cost quite some energy too, not to talk about the computer time used to write the blog posts, edit the videos, run telephone conferences for podcasts?

In the end, won't even more people spend time in front of their monitors and mobile devices reading, watching, and commenting on what is posted on Think2 - without changing their lifestyle or without any decision-maker having the time to go through the content to find some new inspiration for a diplomatic process that doesn't follow the rules of the net?

Wouldn't the most eco-friendly solution be that they all stay at home, riding a bike from and to work and using as few energy as possible instead of spending time and electricity on blogging activities?

So isn't all this climate change conference hype part of the problem, and not part of the solution - which would be to radically change our lifestyle in favour of less energy consuming activities and behaviours?

The next European Commission: Th!nk09 initiative

I am at the finale of the Th!nk about it blogging competition.

One of the ideas we have come up over lunch is to try to find out who will be possible Commissioners from all 27 member countries in the next European Commission.

We want to use collective knowledge of Th!nkers and the wider blogosphere to come up with a list of possible candidates before the national media will have managed to figure it out. And I am sure we can do it.

So please go to Jon Worth's blog and comment on his article, informing who could be the next Commissioner from your country.

Where I will be on EP election day (1): I will go to Daugavpils (Latvia)

In a guest post last week, I have asked the question: "Where should I be on election day?" and from the answers and proposals I got from bloggers and commentators on TH!NK ABOUT IT I have chosen...

Daugavpils (Latvia)

because the reasoning by its supporter, Anita Kalmane, was the most convincing and because there are additional reasons for me to go there (my full explanations at the end of the article).

I still have to clarify with my boss if and how long I can leave, but if everything goes as I would like it to go, I will arrive on Thursday evening (4 June) and leave on Monday morning (8 June) (with Saturday being election day in Latvia), which would give me three full days in Daugavpils.

Yet, it doesn't make sense for me just to go there. Since I'll only have a limited time available, this trip will need some good preparations if it shall be effective.

So here is what I need:

• I will need to find an accomodation - privately or in an affordable ho(s)tel - preferably with a possibility to access a computer with internet.

• If possible, I would like to speak to citizens, but also to local NGO people, town and election officials, party representatives, journalists etc. Since I don't expect people to be waiting for me, I'll have to make arrangements with some of them.

• And in order to talk to people, I will need somebody - one or several persons - who could help me with interpretation (English, French, or German to Latvian, Russian and Belorussian).

I think I could manage to organise most of these things on my own, by using my private European contacts and addressing a number of persons and institutions in Daugavpils directly.

But if anybody has a good ideas or good contacts, I'd be more than glad to hear about them - in particular since I am doing this on my private budget, and any solution that keeps my expenses as low as possible would be appreciated.

As I have explained in my guest post, the goal of this journey is to give a special perspective on the last day(s) of the European Parliament election campaign and on the socio-political background of these European elections.

I want to report about my (train) trip, about the city of Daugavpils and about Latvia, about the people I meet on my way and in the city, about Europe as it is and as it could be.

I would like to connect European blogging with the European reality and I would like to show exemplarily how the local situation in Latvia relates to the European level and vice versa.

I don't know whether this will work out, but Europe and the European Union is also about taking some risks, taking the plunge into the unknown, which I am ready to do.

I will continue to report about my preparations in this blog, and anyone who would like to contact me in this regard can do this either in the comments or via [Julien Frisch] myfirstname.mysecondname@gmail.com!

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And here now the explanation why I actually decided that I would like to go to Daugavpils for the election day:

Anita has given the following reasons for me to go to Daugavpils:

In my opinion, you should go to Daugavpils - the 2nd biggest city in Latvia (although 8x smaller than the 1st biggest city, our capital Riga). Why? Because only 17% of the population are Latvians, the rest being Russians (more than half), Polish, Belorussians etc. It’s a very interesting city, where you can hardly hear Latvian language (although it’s the only official language in Latvia)…

So I think it would be more than interesting to speak with the inhabitants of the city - what do they think about EU, how do they feel as EU citizens, what will they vote for (most of Russian speakers vote for parties, which are presented by Russian speakers, but it will be much interesting to find Russian speakers who would vote for typical Latvian parties - what is their motivation?) etc.

Since these are European elections, this seems to be a very interesting perspective, one that is missing from the discussions.

Indeed, these elections are not only European because they involve European citizens of different countries and European citizens living in different countries, but also because they involve European minorities - recognised and unrecognised - that are part of the multicultural society of this continent.

Daugavpils looks like a good place to cover this aspect.

But there are also some more reasons for me to go to Daugavpils:

• It is a town at the border of the European Union and the Schengen area, so I expect to get a special view on the role of the European Union and on Schengen.

• This neighbour is Russia, and EU-Russia relations are a continuos part of the discussions on EU foreign policy.

• Daugavpils is part of the a Euroregion called "Country of Lakes".

• I had thought so far that it would be impossible to go to Latvia by train, especially not without leaving the EU. But now I realised that I can actually travel there through EU territory with my favourite transportation, which I would thus like to do.

• I have never set foot on Lithuanian soil, and I will have to travel through Vilnius, which I am very much interested to see.

• Parts of my studies have been focused on the Baltic States, and I even did one of my oral exams on these three countries, so I am particularly interested in getting back to these issues.

• Election day in Latvia is Saturday, 6 June, which would give me some room to talk to people on post-election day and to follow the coverage of the Europe-wide activities.

Last day of: Where should I be on election day?

On Tuesday, I have asked in my guest post at TH!NK ABOUT IT: "Where should I be on election day?", and the answers so far have been ranging from Brussels over Birmingham and Dover, Bratislava and Belgrade, Nikosia and Daugavpils to Sibiu.

I will take my decision tonight after 10 pm and publish it here on this blog and in the comments to the initial article, so anyone who wants to add another town on the list or who wants to argue in favour or against some of the options before I make my decision should come and comment on TH!NK09!

EU news and European blogging: Between domination and ignorance

This week I am guest blogging on TH!NK ABOUT IT. I will publish the articles here, too, but I would like to kindly ask you to comment on TH!NK09. This is my fourth article, which you also can find here.

I usually don't write about Europe-related things that make it on the first pages of newspapers or that get the attention of national newscasters.

The attention of the public is regularly attracted to some specific European topics - like the "new" Eastern Partnership this week - because all major broadcasters and newspaper report about it.

On these days, you can find hundreds of commentators, media "insiders", interviewees, and the rest of the "racaille" (to use a famous quote of Nicolas Sarkozy) jumping into the pool and then crying for the attention of the public as compensation for their inability to swim.

All you can do as a blogger with these topics is to commentate, drop a little sarcastic remark into the rain forest of noise and hope that a little Golden Lion Tamarin will find and play with it to forget for a moment that it belongs to an endangered species.

There is no need to join the masses, to obey to cries of help of a fast-moving industry. European blogging - which too often, even in my case, becomes EU blogging - is of no added value when it follows the rhythms set by others.

European blogging should try to set agendas off the beaten tracks.

We all have a limited capacity to digest new information, although my generation is forcing up the amount of (diverse) information consumed, although some media junkies like us are following several hundred sources daily. This is why we make choices. The difference to the past is that we expose ourselves to a larger amount of choices, but we still just chose a limited number of news for more thorough scrutiny.

When I read big news, news that is repeated over a number of news sources, I usually just read the headline, maybe one article, rarely more. Why? Because I know that since it has made it into the sphere of public attention, it will be repeated over and over again, so the combination of different headlines I scan will give me the overview I need.

The problem is that big news, especially big news on European topics, is quickly dominating the agenda, it occults all "minor" stories. If EU blogs join this media round dance, we will just reenforce the present gap between a complex reality and the journalistic herd instinct towards big stories.

If you read my blog, you will often find little quotes from documents that seem unimportant, minor, hardly relevant. Boring administrative stuff, not worth of attention. You can call it geekish, but the truth is that unimportant administrative stuff of today quite often becomes big news tomorrow.

Take, just as an example, my recent article on the restructuring of the European Parliament secretariat. Sure, during this week, the attention on European matters was on the last session of the European Parliament and on the Eastern Partnership. But the little details quoted in my article - e.g. the remark on information technologies - might influence the work of the new European Parliament more than one or another MEP elected into the next EP.

In fact, I don't know.

But I can make guesses. As a blogger, I can take the risk to report about details irrelevant by now, just based on the assumption that they could have an effect in the future. I can allow myself to deviate from the highway of big news and just walk right across the meadow. Either I find a shorter track to the destination than those stuck in the highway jams or at least I will be able to listen to the crickets chirp and smell the perfume of fresh grass.

European blogging for me is a way to add little bits of cricket chirr to the noise of the information highway. Most of the time, it is not heard, and that's perfectly okay. But sometimes, somebody like me will come to my meadow and listen, just like I come and listen to the chirps of others. And if the highway noise stops at night, and when one day we all chirp together, the residents nearby won't be able to sleep.

What I want to say with this incredible chain of cliché metaphors, forbidden in most journalistic texts and even hard to stand in a blog article, is that we should take the risk to blog about little details of European affairs. When I read other blogs, I appreciate the hint to a little event that tells more about the state of the Union than a pathetic comment to the diplomatically ironed conclusion of a European Council.

The ignored detail is the true basis of democracy, of social life, while the big news is just a momentary wave crest. Europe and the European Union have too many ignored details, and we bloggers can give meaning to them by creating relations, by showing how little events or seemingly unimportant administrative documents relate to each other and to the big news.

If European blogging becomes the related writing on ignored details, it might be able to counterbalance the weight of a few major news sources reporting about the big EU issues, mostly singular events based on years of ignorance. We would be able to tell that we cared about the details long before they reached the surface, and we would be able to object to all those who will interpret these events as if there was no past and no background.

But the best thing is: If it doesn't work, it doesn't matter.

The ignored stories we write and read can still be entertaining, funny, shocking. European blogging and reading European blogs is first and foremost a matter of fun, of interest. It doesn't hurt if this is not big news. For me it is enough to know that there are more things going on beside the heads of state and government are meeting.

And in the end, reading ignored but interesting European blogs is also a way to ignore dominant EU news. I use it as a silent personal critique to those journalists and bloggers who follow the stream, by not paying attention to them, by not devoting my precious time to their uncreativeness, and instead offering it to a bunch of active citizens investing their free time in caring for smaller and larger details.

Guest post on "Th!nk About It" (2): Where should I be on election day?

This week I am guest blogging on TH!NK ABOUT IT. I will publish the articles here, too, but I would like to kindly ask you to comment on TH!NK09. This is my second article, which you also can find here.

I chose to write a rather heavy post for yesterday, the first day of my guest blogging, as food for thought and discussions for the whole week, but today I'll keep it a bit lighter and much more constructive.

In fact, I would like to use the opportunity of this platform to ask a question that has to do with these elections as well as with you and me:

Where should I be on election day?

For those of you who might doubt: This is not a rhetoric question!

One of the goals of this project, TH!NK09, is to connect people interested in European issues and new communication technologies. Real-life encounters and online communication are supposed to be mutually stimulating, across borders but along a common topic - the European Parliament elections 2009. And despite the critique I expressed yesterday, I still see some positive impulses coming from this platform.

Since this is inspiring and since in general I share the view that blogging and the "offline world" need to be connected, I want to undertake a little more effort in this direction...

To make it short:

At least on the last day of the elections from 4-7 June 2009, I would like to be someplace in the European Union, mainly to meet new people and to get an interesting final perspective on the EP elections, but also to report about my experiences afterwards.

The easiest solution would be to go to Brussels. I could stay for some days, meet some people I know from previous activities or through blogging, talk to representatives from the European parties, discuss with Brussels-based journalists and look at these elections from a central perspective - if not geographically then for sure politically.

The second posibility would be to go to another European capital. I could try to get a glimpse at the last moments of the national campaign, talk to different political activists, make some billboard sightseeing and capture some reactions to the final results. In this way I would get the most typical view on these European elections - from a national perspective - in my case just a different one.

Or, I could go somewhere outside the centres of the European Union and its member states. I could go to a little town in the "periphery", talk to people living there about their feelings towards these elections and about the role the EU plays for them. I would visit the local election commission, eat some simple food and drink a glass of local alcoholic beverage while discussing about what really matters there.

TThese are all clichés of the European Union and the reporting about these elections. There are hundreds of nuances between these three examples, but in the end, they constitute the basic choices I have.

Still, you may be much more creative than these examples!

So here is the deal:

You propose me where I should go for the election day(s).

Propose me to come to your town, make a good point for a European capital or tell me about a remote place from where you would like to hear a story about the EP elections.

What is important is that there is a good reason to go there; it should make sense for you, for me, or for the electoral process that I am at this place during the elections.

The only condition from my side would be that I can reach the place via train within 24 hours from Berlin (plus a boat if that's the only way) and that I can find a relatively cheap place to sleep.

You can make proposals in the comments and discuss them. You can ask other bloggers to join if they like. You can even collectively agree on a place or make a vote. I don't care. I won't interfere in these discussions until the end of the week, except for questions that need an answer from my side.

And at the end of the week, on Sunday evening, I will chose the most interesting, the most convincing option or proposal and then start making preparations for the trip.

Guest post on "Th!nk About It" (1): Why there are no true Europe-wide election campaigns - and why I am I a little bit disappointed with TH!NK09

This week I am guest blogging on TH!NK ABOUT IT. I will publish the articles here, too, but I would like to kindly ask you to comment on TH!NK09.

The first questions I wanted to tackle are the following:

Why there are no true Europe-wide election campaigns - and why I am a little bit disappointed with TH!NK09 (so far).

The reason for the first part of the question - apart from the election system that foresees national lists - is very simple:

The national parties would need to construct completely new stories to run a true European election campaign on the national level. They would need to develop new arguments, inform themselves about what is going on on the European level, get in touch with their MEPs and discuss about goals and possibilities, something they haven't done for years.

But national political parties don't care for what is going on in Brussels and Strasbourg, they are centred in their little world of local, regional, and national self-content.

Yet, European politics demand particular involvement, because news about what is going on usually doesn't leave the halls and offices of the EU institutions, apart from a small number of highly mediatised issues. And what parties don't find in the media is not relevant for their national party functionaries (if you exclude a limited number of individuals dealing with European matters on a more regular basis).

But for a true European campaign, the national parties would not only have to construct a new story, but they would need to explain this story to voters who are used to be confronted with national argumentations only.

So a European campaign would involve double work for national parties: First, they would have to spend time to build their new story line, with good ideological arguments and practical examples, and then they would need to invest much more time and effort than for most other elections to make voters understand these new stories. That is a lot of work...

Hence, running a national campaign for the European elections is the easiest solution for national parties.

It is pure laziness, unwillingness to make new things and to face inconvenient questions that could reveal that, in fact, almost nobody within the national political parties cared about the European Parliament's activities for the last five years. And if not even the political parties cared - how can you expect citizens to care?!

Sure, some of the competitors will still manage to project their political goals and ideologies to the European level, promising peace, prosperity, solidarity and freedom all over Europe. The European parties are helping by creating European manifestos and slogans which can be used as guidelines to hide the national character of the campaign.

Nevertheless, when you look behind the facades, you'll easily discover that the argument remains national, even though the language becomes Europeanised. Because as I said above, this is the easiest solution for lazy political actors, which mostly also want to use the playing field of the EP elections to gain political points in their national arena.

This is weak. Boring. Mostly irrelevant for what is actually going on in Brussels and Strasbourg.

But the human being is lazy.

And this brings me to TH!NK ABOUT IT and to my disappointment about the results it has brought over the last three months:

What I see is a certain laziness.

At the beginning, over the first weeks, I saw enthusiastic moves and posts and I was glad about the dynamics. But the day-to-day laziness won over the initial enthusiasm.

The average Th!nk-blogger has published 5 articles over the last 90 days, which means around one article every 2 1/2 weeks. And apart from a number of exceptions, the focus was on abstract European issues or on rather irrelevant national questions.

These issues replaced much more interesting national perspectives on European issues of the campaign or European perspectives on national issues connected to these elections.

With three bloggers from every EU country, this community was most appropriate for discussioning these things; yet so far, this opportunity has been missed.

There have still been a number of interesting articles - what comes up to my mind spontaneously are some posts by Lithuanian, Latvian and Slovenian th!nkers - and some of the bloggers have posted much more than the obligatory last-day-of-the-month post I could witness when my RSS-feed exploded on the 28th, 30th and 31st.

But tranquillised by the seemingly nothingness of a European campaign, many bloggers of this competition seemed to have resigned, maybe also discouraged by the fact that only few "outsiders" showed open interest in what was written.

In the end, the focus on apparently more important personal goals has suppressed the responsibility as a European citizen with a perfect platform to do what this European Union lacks, that is to foster true European debates, to care for what is really relevant, and to be ahead instead of lagging behind.

But why should TH!NK ABOUT IT be better than what we get for the European Parliament elections?

What we get before these European elections is a lack of enthusiasm, a lack of creativity, a lack of understanding for the important issues in Europe today. What we get is a lack of involvement of the public, that is neither from the side of most individual citizens nor from the civil society that represents them in parties or NGOS.

Still, one thing is sure: If the EU shall not just be an administration that takes over responsibilities from our national democracies without giving more room for European democracy, then we will have to show more impetus, more interest, more active involvement.

What I expect from you, TH!NKERS, for the last month of the European Parliament election campaign is that you create a true pan-European debate:

Criticise the national focus of the parties of your home countries by showing that what they talk about is mostly irrelevant for what is going on in the European Parliament! Take up European level discussions and perspectives and break them down to what they mean for your country!

Or, contribute to a real European discussion by debating all-European issues under an all-European perspective. Relate to each other, quote each other, ask questions, criticise! But no matter what you do: Do at least more than what you have done so far!

Be better than our lazy political parties, our old-fashioned politicians, or our careless media!

This is the only way how we - blogging citizens - can contribute to the future of the European Union:

By being better Europeans than those before and those around us!

European Parliament elections 2009 (95): Campaign and party communication in Slovenia

After a very good and concise analysis on Th!nk09, Tanja summarises the communication activities of political parties in Slovenia like this:

The parties mostly use their web sites for basic announcements about the EP elections, but only in 2 cases directly address the voters with a special EP section. And what I have not mentioned regarding the campaigning? Yes, you are right: they do not have direct links to the common European campaigns which reassures a well known, bitter national taste….

I think this fits into the picture that we see all over the European Union.

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Under the category "European parliament elections 2009" I am following up national and European activities on the path to the European Parliament elections 2009.

For an overview over all articles in this category have a look at the overview article.

For the five newest post see also the sidebar.