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.
“You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.” -Angela Davis
Featured Action Organizations
- ClimateCulture, a creative studio for the planet, sees “climate crisis [as] a crisis of culture. [Their] aim is to promote a culture that is diverse, interconnected, regenerative, collaborative and circular.” They’re a team of creatives, curators and connectors dedicated to empowering people to take climate action through events, digital experiences, content, and filmmaking. Their website features many useful resources such as an action directory, projects and organizations they want to highlight, articles, and films.
- Radical Action with Migrants in Agriculture (RAMA) is a migrant justice collective that advocates for Latin American and Caribbean migrant farm workers in the unceded Syilx and Secwepemc territories of the Okanagan Valley. They work to build radically inclusive and more socially just communities by engaging in political advocacy, accompaniment, direct support work, public awareness campaigns, and the documentation of workers’ conditions and experiences.
- Boulder Food Rescue aims to create a more just and less wasteful food system. They facilitate the sustainable redistribution of healthy food that would otherwise be wasted to low-income communities, and they deliver by bicycle. They work with communities to facilitate their own food redistribution and create decentralized systems to bypass barriers to food access. Their work envisions a world in which everyone has equitable access to healthy food.
Featured Calls to Action
Upcoming
Global
- 350.org recently announced their global days of action—November 3 & 4—to accelerate the worldwide transition to clean energy. The event is called Power Up. Many actions are already planned across the world. See if there’s an event near you to join or plan and register your own. To learn more about Power Up, check out this Common Dreams article here.
- The Mindfulness Initiative is working on a project to map the uses/non-use of contemplative practice to address climate distress and support climate resilience amongst emerging adults (16 to 30 year olds). If you are an organization working with emerging adults engaged in climate action or working with emerging adults who you are supporting with climate distress, The Mindfulness Initiative’s Climate Youth Resilience Project is interested in including you in their global map. Register your interest here.
- ActionAid launched an international campaign for financial institutions to cut funding for harmful climate activities like industrial agriculture and fossil fuel use. If you want to join the campaign, sign the petition and select your country from the drop down list.
- The United Nations released the synthesis report for the first-ever Global Stocktake under the Paris Agreement – a comprehensive overview of climate action to date and the transformations we need going forward. It found that the world is failing to meet its climate goals, but also offered a concrete blueprint for how to get the job done. World Resources Institute has just released a new expert note outlining how countries can harness the report’s findings and make substantial progress at COP28. Check out their suggestions and advocate for them in your communities and countries.
- Learn about how prioritizing care work can ensure a just transition. WECAN’s report Prioritizing Care Work Can Unlock a Just Transition for All demonstrates how investment in high-quality care jobs can help mitigate the worst impacts of the climate crisis, increase funding for public infrastructure, and support economies within a Just Transition framework. Advocate for these shifts in your local governments.
United States
- Ask our congressional delegations, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA,) and the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) directors to protect Pueblo and land-based Peoples who live downwind and downstream from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and put an immediate halt and suspension to planned tritium releases in New Mexico.
- The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is one of the most important laws in the United States. It gives everyone a voice in federal agency decisions that could harm public health and the environment. The Trump Administration changed the longstanding rules for how U.S. agencies can use the law – weakening environmental reviews, removing climate change from the conversation, and stifling the public’s voice while letting corporations into the decision-making process. The Biden administration has begun to take critical steps to restore the rules. Speak up to make sure the law keeps the public in the decision-making process and stands strong for people and wildlife here.
- Tell your members of Congress to fully support and help pass the Tribal Access to Clean Water Act. This bill will allocate vital resources and funds to the expansion of clean water access for Tribal and Indigenous communities in a step toward rectifying decades of disparity and injustice.
- Allianz, Liberty, AIG, Chubb, and other major insurance companies take insurance payments and invest in and insure methane gas like Freeport LNG. Send them a message and tell them to drop projects like these that pose a threat to the beings who live in their vicinity.
Canada
- National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (also known as Orange Shirt Day) on September 30th opens the door for meaningful discussion about the impacts residential schools have left on Indigenous communities across Canada. Learn more and find events here and here.
- Climate Camp is a weekend-long in-person convergence hosted by Climate Justice Edmonton. Experienced and soon-to-be activists and organizers will come together from across Alberta to develop new relationships and bridge the gap on movement literacy through skills-building workshops. The training will occur from October 13-15.
- Submit feedback on the Clean Electricity Regulations draft. Urge the federal government to close critical loopholes that threaten to undermine the plan’s stated goal of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2035 and will sideline workers and communities while lining the pockets of corporations
- United Against TC Energy: Indigenous land defenders from Wet’suwet’en territory and Puebla/Hidalgo Mexico are coming together to resist TC Energy’s pipelines on their territories. Show up in solidarity with them in Toronto on October 13 and 14 to join their rallying call: no to pipelines, colonization, policing, and corporate greed stealing their land and burning the planet.
Ongoing Opportunities & Action Resources
- The David Suzuki Foundation (Canada-based) offers comprehensive resources for engagement at the local government level. View guides on assessing your local government’s climate plan and working with local leaders on climate action. You can also check out their Act Locally page.
- For Educators: Yale Climate Communication’s resource guide for educators of middle and high school students. In addition to teaching the science behind climate change, it is critical to help students become effective climate change communicators, and these resources aim to facilitate that.
- Specific Stop the Money Pipeline actions that can be applicable to people in many countries:
- Move your money and divest from fossil fuels.
- If you are a college student, learn about and launch a reinvestment campaign.
Featured Calls to Action
Upcoming
- #StopLine3: Check out the @stopline3 linktree for information about how to join the movement by donating, attending a workshop or rally, helping allies on the frontlines get supplies, and more.
- Oak Flat: US residents can ask your members of Congress to support and co-sponsor the Save Oak Flat Act.
- Sign the Multi-faith Climate Statement to be presented to world leaders at COP26 in November 2021.
Ongoing Opportunities
- Stop the Money Pipeline:
- Move your money and divest from fossil fuels
- If you are a college student, learn about and launch a reinvestment campaign
- Tell your government representatives and local financial institutions to put people and planet before polluters
Featured Campaigns
Regenerative Solutions for the Living Earth Community
Regenerative Solutions for the Living Earth Community
A call to defend sacred land of the Western Apache
- Launched April 23, 2021
Opportunities to Counter Structural Greed
- Launched February 24, 2021
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
A Community Renounces Fossil Fuels
- July 3, 2023
- Steve Seigan Miron
- July 3, 2023
Demand for Statehood and Ecological Protections in Northern India
- April 3, 2023
- Justin Whitaker
- April 3, 2023
Buddhism, Social Change, and Skillful Means
- October 31, 2022
- Melvin McLeod
- October 31, 2022