Change the World Wednesday - Take Action

http://reducefootprints.blogspot.com/2011/06/change-world-wednesday-ctww_22.html

This week, become an activist. Please take some kind of action (letter writing, phone calls, petitions, etc.) designed to encourage a business, community, government, etc. to make a positive change. Need some ideas? Here you go:

• Browse the Care2 Take Action site, HERE, and sign a petition or in some way get involved.
• Write an email/letter to a local restaurant that uses Styrofoam containers for take-away food and politely ask them to consider an Eco-friendly alternative.
• Visit Oceana HERE and take action to protect our oceans.
• Contact your community (apartment managers, homeowner's association, etc.) and suggest "green" improvements to your area.
• Choose from one of these 10 Actions to save the whales.
• If you attend a festival, look for ways that the function could be greener and then write to the organizers with suggestions.
• Contact your child's school with ideas on how the school can be greener.
• Find out what you can do to help end nuclear threats HERE (thanks, Mrs. Green)
• Check out the opportunities to take action from the NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council)HERE. (Thanks to EcoGrrl for reminding me about this one).

The idea, here, is to take action and make your voice heard on behalf of the environment and all of it's inhabitants. And, of course, we want to hear about it so please share your experience, links, etc.

Or ...

If you are already taking action, we'd like tips on how to make it successful and we'd like to hear about your lessons learned.


I took the easy way out and I looked around on the Care2 Take Action website.  Several of the other options don't really apply to me, and the ones that did (such as writing an email or letter) just didn't appeal to me. I have a feeling, though, that now that the idea is in my head the next time I notice a restaurant use a non-recyclable container for food I'll probably send an email.

In the past, I have written such an email though.  I had a giftcode for an online merchant and ordered some bamboo towels.  The towels came in plastic wrap.  I emailed the company the same day the item arrived and expressed my concern that their eco-friendly item was being packaged in a non-eco friendly way.  I'm happy to report that I heard back from them within a couple of days.  The response didn't sound like a standard response either, they thanked me for making the suggestion and said they would look in to it.  Will they?  Who knows, but it did get at least one person thinking.

Back to the Care2 Take Action website.  I first clicked on health to see what I could find and wouldn't you know it, there was a petition for a matter in my home state.  It was a matter I feel very strongly about so after reading a bit more about it I went ahead and signed the petition.  I'm not going to say which one it was because it's of such a subject that people are either for or against and it's not something I publicly talk about because it can really cause some disagreements.

I also checked out the corporate responsibility section and after reading several that caught my interest I signed those too.

One of the other areas that don't really apply to me is contacting your community, in my case a home owners association, and suggest green changes.  Ok, I suppose it could apply to me but I wouldn't know where to begin, as in I don't know what to suggest. However I bring this up because my husband and I have been going around and around with our home owners association for a couple months now regarding solar panels.  We want them.  They would have to be on the South side of our roof and for us that's the side facing the street.  I contacted the association to try and get this approved.  One lady is for it and doesn't see it being an issue.  One of the guys works in government and he's been really hard to get in touch with.  He thinks it's a good idea but is more worried about how it would look and how it would effect the neighborhood in that regard.   When they came to the house several weeks ago to discuss it, again, I said that I felt this is the way things were going and soon others would want it as well. I said that I felt this would be a good selling point if we were to move.  I also said I think people would notice it as first but then it would just seem "normal".  

So far..I haven't heard back from them.  I give them the rest of the week and then they get another pestering email from me.   Fingers crossed they will approve it and we can move forward actually getting an official bid.  The company we are working with don't want to move forward with drawing up a proposal, it's labor intensive, until we know for sure we could do it.