I recently attended a screening of the National Emergency Briefing, a campaign calling for a televised briefing on the climate and nature emergency. What struck me was how much of the campaign’s energy comes from local activity: community screenings, conversations, constituency organising, and people encouraging their MPs to support the Parliamentary Call.
That prompted me to build a small dashboard to map where that momentum is happening.
Link to interactive dashboard: National Emergency Briefing dashboard
(Note: it takes a few seconds to load. Lots of data!)
For the first map I wanted to focus on campaign status. Constituencies are grouped by whether they have had a past screening, have an upcoming screening, have a date still to be confirmed, or have no recorded screening. These categories are also linked to whether the local MP has signed the Parliamentary Call.
The aim is to make it easier to see where public activity and parliamentary support currently align, and where they do not.
The second map shifts the focus to MPs. Signed constituencies are shown using the MP’s party colour, while unsigned constituencies use a lighter version of that colour. This makes it easier to spot patterns within and across parties, while keeping the main campaign question visible: where has support been secured, and where might more local engagement be useful?
The dashboard also includes a constituency view (see above). Users can search for a constituency and see the local MP, party, signing status, number of past and upcoming screenings, and any available event details.
It then suggests possible next steps based on the local situation. A constituency with an upcoming screening and a signed MP needs something different from a constituency with screenings but no MP signature. Some places may need help publicising an event; others may benefit from follow-up conversations, local organising, or contacting the MP.
Finally I included a timeline view that shows screenings by week, separating past and upcoming events.
As of a snapshot on may 2nd, the dashboard summarised 650 constituencies, 711 total screenings, 228 past screenings, 486 upcoming screenings, 32 date-to-be-confirmed screenings, and 52 MPs recorded as having signed.
All of this was built in R. I did some of the initial map building in a single script and then moved over to Open AI codex when things with the dashboard UI started getting complicated.
In total it took me around 8 hours over two days. The AI took some weird directions that I have to role back and correct for. Definitely still need a human in the loop for a project like this.
Here’s the link again if you’d like to check it out: National Emergency Briefing dashboard
Richard M Clarke (PhD) 