What you can do about the environment right now
ECM has long been a source of positive environmental news and proactive solutions — about many environmental news, but particularly about global warming.
Right now, this week, is a disheartening time for those who care deeply about our environment and human survival. But I encourage you to tap into what you CAN do…
- Seven ways you can keep fighting for justice in 2017 by Ijeoma Oluo
- A video reminder that you are not alone: we are the 80%
SHOW UP
(while you still can) Right now, protest rallies and marches are happening on a regular basis. Tune in to your favorite cause – be that climate, noDAPL, Flint water, immigration, voters rights, BlackLivesMatter, gun control, anything that is threatened. And participate in physical rallies whenever you can spare the time.
- Greenpeace RESIST crane over the White House via USA Today (paywall)
- Last night at the Federal Building Los Angeles (video on Twitter)
- 350.org climate and noDAPL actions
- why fight tar sands, pipelines ( = climate change)
CALL AND WRITE
Phone calls and letterwriting campaigns COUNT to politicians (emails, social media, and online petitions not so much). Contact the career politicians – such as your US senator, US House of Representatives – because they will worry about their ongoing game face beyond this particular four years. Keep it short, polite, direct (mention a specific piece of legislation if you can), and contact them often.
- 10 actions for the first 100 days, from Women’s March
- sign the petition to impeach Trump based on emoluments (see also: what are emoluments?, from LA Times)
- know who your representatives are and how to contact them.
- while you’re at it, if your political representatives are doing what you like, send them a Thank You to encourage them to keep up the fight
LEARN
Understand how our free speech and freedom to peaceably assemble and Bill of Rights are being systematically dismantled. This is how dictatorships are formed: one step at a time. You are witnessing a take-down of democracy at the point at which you can help fight it.
- EPA and National Parks Service gagged
- EPA grants frozen (Washington Post)
- proposed law Minnesota: Peaceful protestors can be sued by police force (The Guardian)
- proposed law Indiana: police may shut down a protest by any means necessary
- proposed law North Dakota: if protesters are hit with a vehicle, driver is not punishable
SHARE
Tell everyone you know how to show up, call and write, and learn. Take pride in becoming someone with a reputation for sharing high-quality, useful, can-do information.
- how to check that your sources are REAL before you forward that thing you saw on Facebook, from NPR
- reveal your own sources, so that others can track back when they go to forward info
- forward this post, or share the hyperlink
- follow me @ecmjoanne on Twitter (or subscribe to ECM emails if you’re not already on our list) for more of this type of info
and through it all … TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF
The image in this post is a poster that I painted in 1979. Little did I know what lay ahead in my life. Please join me in fighting for that which we hold dear and precious: a liveable environment, our American rights, our children’s future.
Joanne P
