There’s a petition going on at Care2 right now to stop Iceland’s whale hunting.  As The Green Rocket recently released a strongly opinionated blog on this topic, I was pretty excited to see the online community taking action.  As I was signing the petition, my co-worker made a provocative comment:  “In the context of the world, is 50,000 signatures really going to matter to Iceland’s minister?”

Indeed, 50,000 signatures–the petition’s goal–does seem small in that context.  Perhaps it will mean nothing.

But consider it in another context: It’s 50,000 people who are aware of the situation.  And if those 50,000 people care enough to sign, chances are they’re going to tell at least 1 other person.  Maybe they’ll talk about it over dinner, blog about it, twitter it, or spread the word over some other form of online media.  That suddenly becomes 100,000 people or more!

All the awareness has to do is hit the right person or people with the power to make this issue a trend for public consideration, and BAM suddenly the Icelandic Minister of Fisheries, Jon Bjnarason, WILL have something to worry about!   That is what happens when an issue becomes a part of the public eye.  That’s how the green movement picked up steam in the first place; hitting mainstream public consciousness.  Now look at how quickly the demand for change and the markets for eco-friendly products are expanding!

Of course the issue is a lot more complicated than just banning whale-hunting.  The commercialization of the industry allows Iceland to profit off of sale of whale meat domestically and to Japan, creating economic benefits that are hard to ignore.  However, it is fair to hope that the outrage at the bloody hunt will at least cause consideration of other alternatives, such as expanding the tourism industry with respect to whale watching.

In any case, a movement for change has to start somewhere, and I for one am encouraged by the idea of 50,000 people uniting on this issue.  It’s an example of how important one individual’s actions can be when it inspires many others to take action about a cause.  As these small, individual actions begin to aggregate, we start to change the world.

On that note, whether you’re on Twitter or not, check out Green Acts as an example of what I just said.  The site’s concept is to take all of the tweets on Twitter tagged #gract and aggregate them to show statistically how many people are taking action to care about the world–small or large.  Compiled, it’s pretty inspiring.

As Margaret Mead once said (and I’ve asserted before on The Green Rocket in a similar discussion (about being an agent of change):

Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world.  Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.