Can Act.ly keep Sen. Brown Green?

If you are someone who regularly makes your views known by participating in petition campaigns, and are also someone who tweets, chances are you have heard of Act.ly. It is a brilliant use of twitter to allow people to not only tweet to sign petitions, but also to allow the person they are petitioning to respond. Case in point: The new Senator from Massachusetts, @ScottBrownMA.

43 tweets tweeted Scott P. Brown : Stand with Mass. and pass the climate bill #Brown2Green

In addition to a letter campaign, the NRDC Action Fund has launched the act.ly petition urging Scott Brown to stand up for clean energy legislation currently pending in the Senate.

Fact is, when he was in the Massachusetts legislature, Brown was a part of Republicans for Environmental Protection, and he voted for Massachusetts to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a pact among Northeastern states requiring power plants to reduce emissions or to buy credits from cleaner industries.

At the time, he said:

"Reducing carbon dioxide emissions in Massachusetts has long been a priority of mine. Passing this legislation is an important step...towards improving our environment."

However - his recent comments are cause for some concern:

"It's interesting. I think the globe is always heating and cooling, It's a natural way of ebb and flow. The thing that concerns me lately is some of the information I've heard about potential tampering with some of the information.""I just want to make sure if in fact ... the Earth is heating up, that we have accurate information, and it's unbiased by scientists with no agenda. . . Once that's done, then I think we can really move forward with a good plan."

So is Brown green? At the time of writing, scores of his constituents and several large national environmental advocacy organzations await his response on Act.ly. If you haven't yet, join in posting on the Senator's facebook wall, and pile onto the Act.ly petition.