Mobility & Environmental Activism
by Imran Ali
Previously we’ve covered some of the work of Global Voices Online, notably their Ethan Zuckerman’s views on global activism and the Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism and the role mobile technology plays in political and grassroots activism around the world.
Last week, Global Voices published a roundup of their observations of Mobile Phone Technology for Environmental Activism. The piece highlights interesting projects in societies as diverse as Kenya, Ghana, Argentina and the UK (Kenya seems to crop up everywhere!).
The key stories covered include…
- Greenpeace’s mobilisation of Argentinian activists in support of forest protection legislation involved SMS and email campaigns around the timing of crucial votes and debates.
- GPS-enabled sensor packs distributed to cab drivers in Ghana to provide distributed crowdsensing of air qualityand traffic patterns in the capital.
- Attacks on Kenyan farmers by wildlife are being mitigated by keeping wildlife rangers and landowners in contact by mobile communication.
- An SMS-based lookup service for South Africans to determine whether fish they’re buying is ethically harvested.
- An air quality service for Londoners to lookup pollution levels in their neighbourhoods.
The piece makes for an inspiring read, highlighting that mobility isn’t simply about, ARPU, iPhone fetishes and accelerated consumerism, but also as a vehicle for social change and a building brick in creating new, distributed forms of power and human institutions.
