One Earth Action

Forms and Opportunities for Engaged Practice

Despair is paralysis. It robs us of agency. It blinds us to our own power and the power of the earth. Environmental despair is a poison every bit as destructive as the methylated mercury in the bottom of Onondaga Lake. But how can we submit to despair while the land is saying "Help"?

— Robin Wall Kimmerer

No small part of our challenge is the pervasive poverty of agency. How often do we hear, including from ourselves, “but I’m just one person”? Yet both Dharma and sociology disagree. Our words and actions matter so much and indeed they are all we have.

Yet whether or not our actions make a big difference that we can actually see, feel, and touch is, in a way, none of our business. Our opportunity is to meaningfully respond. We can speak in ways that actually help. We can act in ways that are deeply rooted, skillful, strategic, and unattached to specific outcomes.

Featured Calls to Action

International

United States

Canada

  • Sign: “Call on Prime Minister Carney to block Donald Trump’s billionaire donors from owning or building pipelines in Canada,” with Dogwood BC.
  • Check out: Think Blue, “Educational resources for schools, teachers, and organizations in Canada and across the Globe, to learn about the human right to water, and facilitate their efforts to become a Blue Community School.”
  • Sign: “Join us in calling on Carney to commit to fully realize a two-way arms embargo against Israel — and to use the full extent of Canada’s international influence to fight for an end to Israel’s assault on Gaza?” with Leadnow.
  • Act: Mail postcards that send policymakers a scorching message about the climate crisis with Signed, Seared, Delivered.
  • Sign: Take action now—send an email to your mayor, city councillor, and other local elected officials, demanding they reject these unconstitutional and discriminatory protest bans,” with CJPME.
  • Sign: “Stop Bill 5! The Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act has disturbing implications for the protection of nature and effectively muzzles dissent and community voices,” with Nature’s Defence.

Past Campaigns

Campaign
Campaign

Faith Climate Action Week 2024

Our partners at Interfaith Power and Light are inviting people of diverse faith backgrounds to learn about and examine our relationship to our faith, food and climate this upcoming Earth Day.
Campaign
Campaign

Regenerative Solutions for the Living Earth Community

Regeneration Nexus is a database of ecological solutions that aim to nourish and regenerate broader systems within the living Earth community while reducing warming.

Restoration is a powerful antidote to despair. Restoration offers concrete means by which humans can once again enter into positive creative relationship with the more-than-human world, meeting responsibilities that are simultaneously material and spiritual. It's not enough to grieve. It's not enough to just stop doing bad things.

— Robin Wall Kimmerer

Stories of Engagement

EcoDharma
EcoDharma

Buddhism, Social Change, and Skillful Means

How does our Dharma practice call us into politics and shape our engagement? While we no longer live in the moment of Occupy and the Tea Party movements, the words of David Loy, Mushim Patricia Ikeda, and Joan Suthlerland speak powerfully to this moment of 2024.
EcoDharma
EcoDharma

A Community Renounces Fossil Fuels

With its recent installation of an emissions-free heating system, Zen Mountain Monastery is one step closer to its goal of phasing out fossil fuel use by 2030.
EcoDharma
EcoDharma

Demand for Statehood and Ecological Protections in Northern India

In Ladakh, India, a coalition of political and religious leaders is organizing to safeguard human rights, cultural heritage, and environmental well-being.