Avaaz - an online global solution to global problems
By Murray Bourne, 21 Aug 2008
I wrote a while back about Rischard's book High Noon: Twenty Global Problems and Twenty Years to Solve Them.
His very real concern in that book was that human institutions are far too slow to react to problems that are global in nature (like climate change, poverty, education for all, fishery and forest depletion, and so on).
His proposed solutions were troubling, because they actually seemed quite weak. That is, I couldn't see many of them actually working in the real world. He argued that governments of nation states could never act to solve global problems because they have too many vested local interests. The only hope for solving many of these problems is through the democratic nature of the Web. If enough global citizens want to see action on some of these things, then they just might happen.
Along comes Avaaz.org in January 2007, whose mandate is to pressure politicians (and others with power) to do what needs to be done.
Their Highlights from a 3.3 million-strong people-powered global movement are quite impressive.
They have pressured governments over issues like global warming, Myanmar, Zimbabwe and the food crisis.
You may not agree with everything that they promote, but that's OK, you can choose what you wish to vote for. I have supported most of their campaigns since I decided to sign up.
I encourage you to sign up at Avaaz if you are interested.
These statistics really count.
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