Fight Global Warming Now : The Handbook For Taking Action In Your Community
What can one do in one’s own community to fight global warming? Many feel they should be doing something but don’t know how to start. Bill McKibben and the Step It Up Team have written Fight Global Warming Now : The Handbook For Taking Action In Your Community to help us.
They began by launching a website asking people to organize rallies for Earth Day, April 14, 2007. They had no money but a lot of hope that the idea would galvanize people. Their idea took off and by the time the big day rolled around there were 1,400 demonstrations in all fifty states in the United States. Along the way they learned some lessons and this book outlines what those lessons are and how to use them for your own events.
The process breaks down into eight parts ranging from “make it credible… snappy… collaborative” to “make it meaningful… creative… wired… seductive” and finishing up with “make it last”. Ideally, the action will lead to real changes that will benefit the environment.
As an example of seductive, McKibbon says you can get a lot of interest from like-minded people, but to make a splash in the community, you need to get the media intrigued. Unfortunately, global warming does not lend itself to spectacular photographs, or play by play commentary. Reporters need a good story, not more of the same old same old. This means you need to find the superlative about your action, you need to find theatre, you need to involve unlikely personalities.
The book is easy to read and the advice is straightforward and simple. “Plan it, do it, learn from it, repeat”. Sounds very much like my reading strategy. Find a book, plan where to read it, devour it, muse over it, and then find another.
Taken with permission from Gloria Novak’s “Good Reads at the Library”.
Its all about taking action. I think if you can show that doing something green is going to save people money, or at least not cost people vast sums of money (like cap-and-trade would cost them), then you will get more action. For example I saved almost half of my heat bill last winter by making my home more energy efficient. I expect the improvements will pay for themselves in about a half a decade or so. For those, such as myself, who are least somewhat sympathetic to environmentalism, that is an acceptable payback period. If we all saved half of our winter heat usage, that would be a significant start at reducing global carbon-dioxide emission.
independentblogger
October 18, 2009
My small contribution is focused on food and how I can be more responsible when making food choices. For me this does not necessarily mean local only. I also feel we have an obligation to select coffee, chocolate, tea, etc that has been grown sustainably – both for the land and for the people who produce it. We are very fortunate here, but many around the world are not, and we must do what we can to help others raise their families in healthy and happy enviroments. It comes back to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs that need to be satisfied.
Gloria Novak
November 6, 2009