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 Action Organizations
- Jaguar Siembra is a community regenerative agriculture initiative for and by indigenous people in Colombia. Through the arts, storytelling, and education, they co-create natural and cultural projects with indigenous people’s wisdom to preserve their local ecosystems and cultural heritage wisdom.
- Blue Ocean Law is an international law firm based in Guam, specializing in human and indigenous rights, self-determination, and environmental justice in the Pacific. They adopt a grassroots orientation that privileges civil society and marginalized voices, works on issues of pressing concern to Pacific peoples—political and economic self-determination for non-self-governing territories, redress for victims of nuclear testing and non-consensual medical experimentation, accountability for anthropogenic climate change, and recognition of the rights of Indigenous peoples.
- Force of Nature helps young people turn climate anxiety into action, and work with leaders to drive intergenerational solutions. Through student programmes, teacher trainings, resources and events, they help young people translate climate anxiety into action, and enable educators to support them in their journey.
Explore Buddhist and Interfaith Organizations
“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 Calls to Action
Upcoming
Global
- Support Standing Together and Combatants for Peace, two grassroots movements mobilizing Jewish and Palestinians for peace, equality, and justice.
- Support Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCIP), an independent, local Palestinian child rights organization dedicated to defending and promoting the rights of children living in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.
- Green Faith will be holding the Faith for Climate Justice in May 2024 – a week of mobilization calling for an end to fossil fuels, a sustainable future, and a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. Sign up to receive updates about getting involved, and sign the Multi-faith Climate Finance Pledge calling on banks and asset managers to align their portfolios with a 1.5 degree future and universal access to clean energy by 2030.
- Green Faith will be holding Faith for Climate Justice on May 3 – 12, 2024. Join the community-building training call in April for tools and resources to plan your action, check out the action guide (focusing on North America) for resources to plan meaningful action in your community, and sign up to receive updates about getting involved.
- This Earth Day on April 22nd, EARTHDAY.ORG is advocating for the end of plastics for the sake of human and planetary health, demanding a 60% reduction in the production of plastics by 2040 and an ultimate goal of building a plastic-free future for generations to come. Check out their action toolkit offering suggestions for ways to get involved, access planning resources to host your own events, or join events happening near you.
- Ecocide, committed repeatedly over decades, is a root cause of the climate and ecological emergency that we now face. Unlike suing and fining corporations, making ecocide a crime creates an arrestable offense which may deter harmful conduct and provide remediation. Explore ways to get involved and amplify the call to make ecocide an international crime.
United States
- Call for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and Israel to avert further loss of civilian life and humanitarian catastrophe, call on your senators to do so (phone numbers here).
- Support Jewish Voice for Peace (JWP), a US-based, grassroots organization seeking to organize a multiracial, cross-class, intergenerational movement of US Jews into solidarity with Palestinian liberation.
- The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is about to announce its newest set of heavy-duty vehicle standards, which reduce climate pollution from buses, trucks, and tractor-trailers. Urge the Biden Administration to enact the strongest possible heavy-duty vehicle greenhouse gas emissions standards that protects frontline communities, public health, and our environment.
- The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) wants to devote 22 million acres of public lands across the West to solar development, including sensitive areas like the Arizona Strip, the shores of Malheur Lake in Oregon, adjacent to Nevada’s Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, and the Mojave Desert. Tell the BLM to pick a plan that doesn’t destroy public lands in a rush to expand renewable energy.
Canada
- Support Parliamentary petition e-4745, sponsored by NDP Foreign Affairs Critic Heather McPherson, calling upon the Government of Canada to immediately end all arms exports to Israel given the ongoing crisis in Gaza.
- Share your ideas and input on different topics related to climate change as part of Environment and Climate Change Canada’s engagement on the 2035 emissions reduction target. Your feedback is integral to helping Canada determine and achieve its climate change goals under the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act.
- Currently, 4% of Canada’s plastic waste is burned or incinerated, a fact that is often hidden by using terms like “energy from waste,” “advanced recycling” or “chemical recycling.” By 2030, up to 22% of Canada’s plastic waste is expected to be burned. Tell the Canadian government to ban burning plastic waste and to invest in refillable and reusable packaging solutions.
- The use of Liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a shipping fuel is skyrocketing. While it does does emit less carbon dioxide and harmful air pollutants like sulphur, it is primarily composed of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that creates more than 80 times as much heat in the short term as CO2 and approximately 30 per cent of global warming. Urge the maritime industry to stop the expansion of LNG as a marine fuel.
- The right to a healthy environment is essential to the enjoyment of other human rights, such as the right to life, water, food, and sanitation. Last year, Canada observed a historic moment for environmental justice when the right to a healthy environment was recognized for the first time in federal law. Send an email to Minister Guilbeault and Environment and Climate Change Canada to call for a strong right to a healthy environment.
- Shift’s 2nd annual Canadian Pension Climate Report Card, released February 27, 2024, finds that despite incremental progress, Canadian pension funds remain off track in its alignment with the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global heating to 1.5°C. Your retirement security depends on a safe climate. Send a letter to your pension manager telling them that you want your retirement savings invested in a safe climate future for yourself, your family, and your community.
- The National Strategy Respecting Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice Act (Bill C-226) requires the federal government to establish a national strategy to assess, prevent and address environmental racism and advance environmental justice – areas which are often overlooked in Canadian law. The House of Commons passed this bill in March 2023, but the Senate has yet to approve it. Call on the Senate to prioritize and pass Bill C-226 as soon as possible in 2024 to help keep the important work of tackling environmental racism and environmental injustice on track.
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 Campaigns
Faith Climate Action Week 2024
- Katie Benvenuti
Talking About our Earth and Ecological Crises
- Katie Benvenuti
Regenerative Solutions for the Living Earth Community
- Katie Benvenuti
We Can. We Will.
- 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
A Community Renounces Fossil Fuels
- Steve Seigan Miron
Demand for Statehood and Ecological Protections in Northern India
- Justin Whitaker
Buddhism, Social Change, and Skillful Means
- Melvin McLeod