Make a difference. Be part of the solution!
Easy things you can do today.
*Stop drinking from one-use water bottles. More than 60 million end up in landfills and incinerators every day. They become part of landfills, garbage, and ocean pollution. It can take up to 1000 years to decompose.
*Ditch plastic straws and use glass, silicone, or paper. They’re pretty, cheap, and come in sets with cleaners.
*Try re-usuable bags when you go shopping. An estimated one trillion are used each year. The energy needed to make 12 plastic shopping bags could drive a car for a mile! Replace them with re-usables you can buy anywhere from supermarkets to Amazon.If you tend to forget them, store them in your car or purse.
*Eat less meat and animal products. Try plant-based proteins or do “Meatless Mondays” to get the whole family involved.
*Buy local foods. Avoid foods that are shipped and dependent on fossil fuels for transport.
*Eat organic. Organic food is grown without synthetic fertilizers and pesticides; many are by products of oil refineries.
*Reduce, re-use, and repurpose. Recycling is good but reducing, re-using, and repurposing is better.
*Waste less food. Many experts believe that reducing food waste is the most important thing people can do to lessen their climate impact.
*Avoid processed food. It contains chemicals, usually processed in energy-intense production, and the plastic packaging ends up in landfills or floating ocean trash.
*Buy food that is grown locally, ethically, and organically. Many experts believe they have higher nutritional content and are safer, without environmentally damaging chemicals and preservatives.
*Conserve water. It’s important to be responsible about our water supply, especially when 97% of Earth’s water is saltwater.
*Try meatless burgers and sausages like Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat. You can get them in the supermarkets, many restaurants, and even fast food chains like Burger King and White Castle.
Take bigger steps.
*Educate yourself! Read, watch TV, and educate yourself on the impact of climate change. Understand what everyone is really talking about.
*Don’t lose hope. There’s so much you can do. Doom and gloom scenarios are only if we don’t take action – from you to your community to the government.
*Rethink your transportation. Instead of using your car, walk, bike, carpool, or use public transportation. Switch to more efficient vehicles like hybrids and electric.
*Change your diet. Go vegan, vegetarian, or focus on plant-based foods. Raising animals for food has a large environmental impact and contributes dangerous emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide.
*Use efficient lighting and appliances in your house. Saving electricity and managing power usage makes a big difference. Simply turning off your TV, stereo, fans, and lights saves electricity and cuts down on carbon emissions. Use LED lightbulbs.
*Adjust your thermostat. Setting it a few degrees lower in winter and higher in summer makes a difference.
*Plant! If you have the space, set up an outdoor garden. You can also grow indoors. Even better, plant native species outdoors that attract pollinators like bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds.
*Find a happy place in nature. Nature makes you feel good, helps you understand what we’re trying to preserve, and gives you motivation to combat climate change. Our beautiful blue planet is well worth it.
*Consider using solar panels in your home. Relying on non-fossil fuel energy is critical in cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
*Plant a tree. Trees are critical to the Earth. They absorb harmful gases such as carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide, and release oxygen. They also help cool a warming planet, are natural “air conditioners”, block sunlight in the summer, and are part of ecosystems that support biodiversity around the world. Many consider them the “lungs” of the planet.
*Make sure your home is properly insulated. Insulation makes it easier to maintain the temperature you set on your thermostat, conserving energy, and contributing to the fight against climate change.
*Buy furniture with sustainably harvested wood. Trees, forests, and rainforests are critical to fighting climate change. Too many of our goods are made from materials taken from deforestation. Use sustainable bamboo products when you can.
*Walk more! You’ll feel better, emotionally and physically.
*Buy high efficiency appliances. Save energy wherever you can.
*Compost if possible. It’s good for everyone.
*Consume less, waste less, and enjoy life more!
Get organized!
*Work in a community garden.
*Talk to others about climate change.
*Join groups and organizations fighting climate change.
*Write letters, sign petitions, support groups fighting climate change.
*Educate yourself and those around you. Explore climate change resources on and off line.
*Read and share Is Your Wonton Soup Endangered? The Survivor’s Guide to Food in the Age of Climate Change.
*Organize community groups.
*Make sure climate change is taught in the schools – and then discuss it with your children.
*Join environmental activists and protests.
*Follow climate news on and offline. Discuss it with everyone from children to grandparents, sign petitions, and make sure your voice is heard.
*Encourage young people to get involved. They’re the ones who will live through the worst effects of climate change in the future.
*Attend a climate change event.
*Volunteer
*Help others with your time, donations, or support who are victims of climate change disasters like floods, droughts, extreme storms, and wildfires.
*Advocate for cleaner changes in your community like non-fossil fuel energy, laws against plastic, and help for local farmers.
*Protect local and national parks and wildlife conservation.
*Plant a tree for a birthday, anniversary, or Christmas gift.
*Organize your friends, group, or community to clean up beach trash, plant more trees, and spread the word about protecting Earth.
*Work with young people, senior citizens, single people, married, families, people of all colors, faith, ethnicity and sexual orientation, people at all economic levels to combat climate change and its deniers. We’re all in this together!
Fight climate change deniers!
*Vote against people who deny climate change. No exceptions.
*Understand that climate change deniers think they know more than 97% of the climate scientists in the world. The New York Times described it as “risking civilization for profit, ideology and ego.”
*Talk about how most climate change deniers put money and corporate interests before people and the future of Earth.
*Join or support political activists fighting climate change deniers.
*Join or support political candidates working to fight climate change.
*Protest laws and resolutions that support increased fossil fuel burning, gut endangered species protection, and reverse clean air, water, and soil protections.
*Support local, state, and national leaders who fight climate change.
*Know that you are not a minority – most people believe in climate change and take some action to stop it.
*Be knowledgeable – read the many special reports, books, blogs, and articles on climate change.
*Stand up at your representative’s Town Halls and make your voice (and the voices of most) heard on climate change.
*Openly support in discussions, writing, blogging, and on social media the many heroic people like 16-year old Greta Thunberg, former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Vice President Al Gore, Governor of Washington State, Jay Inslee, and Josefa Leonel Correia Sacko, African Union Commission. There are so many of them!
*Openly support in discussions, writing, blogging, and on social media the many heroic organizations like Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Earthjustice, Nature Conservancy, and Environmental Defense Fund. There are so many of them!
*Never accept the claims of climate deniers. They can be as dangerous as the rising greenhouse gas emissions choking Earth.
*Know that you – and millions of others around the world – are in one of the greatest historical battles on the planet. Losing the fight against climate change and its deniers is not an option.
