It's called Metafilter, and it's had about as much impact on the world as slapping Mount Everest with a wet noodle.

Yes, the internet could stop climate change if it helps policymakers arrive at a feasible strategy, because most people have the mistaken belief that we should pursue the futile strategy of cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

We passed the threshold of dangerous warming about 4 decades ago, so the only solution is to remove the excess carbon from the air:

Climate sensitivity to greenhouse gas levels in the air is established as about 3 degrees centigrade (C) rise for a doubling from the pre-industrial level. This is known as the "Charney 3C."

Unfortunately, this doesn't include slower feedbacks such as ice sheet decay, permafrost melting and methane release, and carbon cycle feedbacks that amplify climate changes on time scales of decades to centuries.

If these slow feedbacks are considered, the climate sensitivity to a doubling of greenhouse gas levels is 6C!

If the longer term climate sensitivity is considered, we have long ago passed the threshold of dangerous warming.

I suggest a low cost method of removing CO2 from the air called "biosequestration."

Seed an extensively tested GMO into the ocean to remove tremendous amounts of carbon from the air, and put it back into the ground where it came from.

The high cost of rebuilding our energy infrastructure is creating political deadlock. We need to remove the excess carbon from the air as soon as possible, not wait for a damaged earth to remove it for us.

and got it right ... Congratulations !

The I Am Green application on facebook has 66,000 people sharing ideas on how reduce our impact on climate change. I'll be incorporating a carbon calculator and applying the ideas empirically to the climate crisis.

http://apps.facebook.com/iamgreen

Karel

For some reason poor Andrew Leonard was overtaken by cynicism and succombed to shallow reactive arguments against human progress.

The fundamental problems are social: people, with different beliefs and different interests, address conflict in mutually destructive ways.

The human mind is an incredible information processing device that synthesizes emotion with reason. Pairs, families, tribes, and states each are collective minds. Each gives rise to its own emergent properties. Guess what, the species is not done inventing! Modern computing and communications tools are so new that there's no telling how profoundly they can transform society.

It's wise to be skeptical about any new bold idea. Leonard's objections are sophomoric and feeble.

"there is also the not insignificant problem of designing a system that can withstand cooptation by the instruments of capital" This he writes immediately after citing Wikipedia! Still hanging onto your Encyclopedia Britannica stock, Andrew?

"The fundamental belief that underlies projects such as the Climate Collaboratorium is that humans can devise tools that will enable them to transcend their intrinsic nature."

Ever heard of the US Constitution?

...a Wikipedia for controversial topics.

There are a few attempts to accomplish exactly this. You might want to check out their strategies before dismissing the concept out of hand.

http://chainsofreason.org

http://wikireason.net

http://debatepedia.com

And yes, these sorts of institutions are a core part of "securing political power"--since they should allow regular people (and even semi-experts) to be less dependent upon slick advertising campaigns and superstition--such that they support productive policies.

And how's that been working out for you?

Well, considering it is backing the oldest continuously running federation in the world, has become a model document for other founding governments, and always rebounds despite those who ignore or try to dismantle it (whether it be Lincoln, FDR, Nixon, LBJ, Reagan, Clinton, Bush, Congress, the Supreme Court, or the States.), I'd say pretty darn good.

In the beginning the inhabitants of Easter Island probably thought they were progessing as well.