I have written several posts about a Greenpeace campaign - hosted on their website - which is being used to send mass emails to Members of the European Parliament who disagree with Greenpeace policy.

This morning I posted the following note into the climate change forum on the Greenpeace website, after my previous comment on the blog post about the campaign did not appear:

I’ve heard back from some of my local MEPs about the “send 5,000 emails to all the British Members of the European Parliament who disagree with us” campaign hosted on the GP website here:

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/how-to-close-down-25-power-plants-in-two-minutes

For those who have not tracked it, the idea is to lobby the 62 British MEPs who have not signed a Greenpeace sponsored Parliamentary motion by sending an email to all of them using a mailing script on the GP UK website. The same campaign is operating in Ireland.

Some quotes I have received back from MEPs are below:

Roger Helmer MEP
Thank you for your concern. I receive thousands of emails a day, and many of the Greenpeace emails are being registered as spam.

Bill Newton-Dunn MEP
I have declined to encourage Greenpeace by signing their Motion.

Instead I have complained to the Green MEP who has organised it - and, to give her credit, she was surprised and hear it and promised me to inform Greenpeace.

Christopher Heaton-Harris MEP
The Greenpeace campaign has been absolutely ridiculous. Greenpeace’s website has been sending emails apparently from members of the public, but without any contact details, so MEPs have no idea whether or not these people are constituents or not.

It is a terrible lobbying effort, so much so that the Parliament email system has automatically designed these emails as “SPAM” so they don’t get through anyway. The internet has provided some great ways to enhance citizen participation in politics - www.theyworkforyou.com is an excellent example - but Greenpeace need to seriously re-think their ideas, as sending spam emails without contact details is not helpful or constructive.

It’s fair to say that I am very sceptical of this type of campaign - I think it is a variety of Spam which is undermining the normal democratic process.

I made a comment on the relevant GP blog post but it has not been published, so I have blogged it myself here (fuller versions of above quotes):

http://www.mattwardman.com/blog/2007/06/06/meps-to-greenpeace-get-on-your-bike-sunshine/

I really don’t see how sending mass emails to MEPs, getting the riled, and having the best part of 300,000 emails caught in spam filters, will help achieve Greenpeace’s aims.

The only thing I can conclude is that probably:

a - Whoever is running this has not got a clue.

or

b - Perhaps it is intended as a way of making supporters believe that are doing something useful.

Can anyone enligten me?

Cheers

Matt Wardman
www.mattwardman.com

I’ll keep an eye on the conversation and report back on what happens.

At present the post is in moderation.

[Update 7 June 4pm: Post now approved. Discussion thread here]