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
- Donate: Water is Life Gaza is in critical need of donations to keep water deliveries flowing for people in North Gaza.
- Sign: Add your organization to the growing list for a Unified Call to Confront Famine in Gaza
- Join: June 8th is World Ocean Day. Plan an event or find one.
- Learn: Climate @ Work Employee Training by Project Drawdown is a three-day virtual training for employees of every sector who want to take climate action at work.
- Read: UN report recommends ‘deep change’ theory to address global crises
- Watch: Plan Z is a short documentary about a group of British researchers who turned to drastic measures to warn the public about climate change themselves.
- Read: Dutch Court Upholds City’s World-First Law Banning Fossil Fuel Advertising
- Sign: Amazon sells painted woolly bats. Etsy and Ebay have recently banned the sell after public pressure. Sign the petition with the Center for Biological Diversity.
- Read: 17 Ways to Disrupt the Status Quo in Your Hometown
United States
- Write: An email or a postcard (or both!) with Solar United Neighbors Action to tell Congress to protect investments in affordable solar energy.
- Sign: “Tell Wells Fargo: We Won’t Let You Backslide Into Climate Chaos and Corporate Authoritarianism” with Oil and Gas Action Network
- Pledge: “One flight, One seat, One Ton of CO2. We are in a dire climate emergency, flying fries the planet and yet there are about 125,000 daily commercial flights in the world and growing. Pledge to fly less in 2025 for the climate!”
- Act: Protect birthright citizenship with Indivisible through a number of actions.
- Check out: Mobilize.us for a list of actions across issues in your area and online.
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
Faith Climate Action Week 2024
- Katie Benvenuti
Regenerative Solutions for the Living Earth Community
- Katie Benvenuti
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
Buddhism, Social Change, and Skillful Means
- Melvin McLeod, David Loy, Mushim Patricia Ikeda and Joan Sutherland
A Community Renounces Fossil Fuels
- Steve Seigan Miron
Demand for Statehood and Ecological Protections in Northern India
- Justin Whitaker