Suggested Actions

• First of all, here is a very fast and simple one. Go to this link about why subsidizing agrofuels is insane, read the letter and send it to President Obama. It is a great letter. [5/1/09: Sorry, that link has now expired, but signing up for action alerts from Climate Ark will ensure you get to see all the upcoming opportunities to voice your opinion.]


• At Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE), they have just gotten a network of Outreach Volunteers up and running. You can go to their website and sign up (the webpage includes a list of tools to help volunteers).

The basic idea for an Outreach Volunteer is to help CASSE spread the word about uneconomic growth and the steady state economy. The easiest way to do this is to collect signatures on their position on economic growth, which can be signed online here:
http://www.steadystate.org/CASSEPositionOnEG.html

CASSE will be having a conference call on May 6th at noon Eastern, 9 AM Pacific. If you sign up as a volunteer, you'll get more information about that as the date approaches.


• GlobalWarmingSolution.org is the only group I’ve found with a comprehensive, detailed action plan that could work here in the USA and be a model for other countries as well. The plan, wisely named Rosie Revisited, is not as radical as my list of solutions, but is still something I endorse because it is smart and will get the job done. They have a DVD about Rosie Revisited, which is to be released nationally very soon. Once I have seen the video, if I feel it is worthy of spreading around (and I suspect I will), I intend to organize as many showings of it as I can, making each one a fundraiser for GlobalWarmingSolution.org. If you’d like to read Rosie Revisited, it is available in PDF from their website. It is about 50 pages in length.


• With the recent EPA ruling that greenhouse gas emissions are a health threat (finally!), it seems that the Climate Law Institute of the Center for Biological Diversity is well-positioned to make some real strides in using existing laws to curb emissions, They’ve already been successful in forcing ships to comply to emissions rules. The Center for Biological Diversity is one of my favorite groups, as they have a good track record of protecting threatened animals and natural communities, and their alerts make regular letter-writing actions easy.


• Aside from the four mentioned above, I’ve chosen a few other organizations with which to collaborate. I’ve asked to be a local contact for Rising Tide North America (and will talk to the nearest contact soon), which has a link on their page that makes it easy to sign on to the Durban Declaration on Carbon Trading, which is another easy action to take. I have recently learned of Carbon Fees.org, whose site makes it easy to send a letter to your representative encouraging a carbon fee instead of cap and trade.

And I have only heard back from one of the forest protection groups I’ve contacted (FERN), so I will share that and the other forest info (when I get it) in another post.


Any of the actions I’ve mentioned above that I have done or plan to do can be done by anyone, so don’t hesitate, jump on board and help out. And please share what you’ve done if you are inclined. Thanks!