Blog initiative for environment gathers millions of readers

BLOG Action Day, a glob al mass action among online diary sites or weblogs, has gathered more than 15,0 00 blogs and millions of readers, organizers said Monday. Established to encourage people to blog about a chosen topic for a day, Blog Ac tion Day is a form of "people power" in action that was conceptualized for the Internet, they said. Choosing the environment as this year's topic, Blog Action day organizers say t hey hope they can make a difference by steering the "global conversation" towar ds important issues. "We believe that change in the world does not happen in events, but rather in p rocesses. It's easy to think: 'What can one person do?' Or 'What change will bl oggers really make?' The truth is by participating in Blog Action Day we are he lping steer the global conversation, adding impetus to an already important iss ue and driving social change in the only way that really matters, by changing p eople's minds," said Sydney-based Collis Ta'eed who was one of the organizers o f Blog Action Day, in a previous e-mail interview with INQUIRER.net. The global blog initiative was eventually supported by international organizati ons like the United Nations, Google, Wells Fargo, Opera, Reddit.com, among othe rs. This project has also encouraged people to donate their advertising revenues to environmental charity. As of this writing, a Google blog search produces more than 9,000 blogs referring to this global mass blogging. Blogger Jessica Gottlieb believes that words still ma tter in a wired world, especially when it talks about the environment. She wrote, "What the heck is Blog Action Day? I mean, how can I define this one ? It's a virtual March on Washington? It's a sit in? An online Earth Day? I don 't know what it is or how to describe it but I sure am proud to be part of it. It's a new and exciting idea, that's for sure."