grassroots
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Umbra on letter-writing campaigns
Dear Umbra, I just switched to all-natural cleaning products (Seventh Generation, it’s great!) and I wanted my switch to have the most impact possible. I was thinking about sending emails to the companies whose cleaning products I had previously used, telling them why I switched, describing the nasty effects of their products, and encouraging them […]
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Response to “Death”: Part III
Today comes Part III of Ken Ward's response to "The Death of Environmentalism," in which Ken argues that environmentalists should resist efforts to make environmental justice the core tenant of the movement and instead refocus on the most successful weapon in their arsenal: protest.
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Enviro-justice activists send a dispatch from a panel with The Reapers
Thursday, 3 Mar 2005 SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. The Asian Pacific Environmental Network was invited to speak on a panel yesterday with “Death of Environmentalism” coauthor Michael Shellenberger, Taj James, executive director of the Movement Strategy Center, and Adam Werbach, past president of the Sierra Club. The goal was to broaden the debate about the future […]
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Uprisings down under
Who says there are no good protests anymore? Australian environmentalists used ice sculptures yesterday to protest their country's refusal to jump on the Kyoto wagon. Maybe frozen icons are just what the U.S. needs! (Insert hackneyed Al Gore joke here.)
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Umbra on effective activism
Dear Umbra, If an environmentalist has about six hours per week to devote to activism, what should the person do to make the biggest, most positive impact? Some people (like myself) think that climate protection is a key leverage point — but is it? If yes, why, and what is the best way activists can […]
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Celebrate Buy Nothing Day at Wal-Mart
This Friday I'll join culture jammers and lazy-asses the world over in celebrating Buy Nothing Day (inspired by those jammers exemplar over at Adbusters). Stick it to The Man by sitting on your duff; dig it.
More energetic rabble-rousers are encouraged to head to the nearest lair of Beelzebub (Wal-Mart, yo), not to feed the beast, but to congest the aisles as part of a Whirl-Mart Consumption Awareness Ritual. (See live action video of such!)
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Margie Eugene-Richard of Louisiana battled Shell on behalf of her neighborhood
Eugene-Richard. Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize. The Old Diamond neighborhood of Norco, in far southern Louisiana, sits between a Shell Chemicals plant and an oil refinery owned by a Shell joint venture. “We’re like the meat in the sandwich,” says Margie Eugene-Richard, 62, who grew up just 25 feet from the fenceline of the chemical plant. […]
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Rashida Bee of Bhopal, India, fights against the company that devastated her community
Shukla (left) and Bee. Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize On the night of December 2, 1984, in the central Indian city of Bhopal, a massive poisonous gas leak from a Union Carbide pesticide factory killed 8,000 people. Over the course of 20 years, the infamous disaster has caused an estimated 20,000 deaths, countless birth defects, and […]
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Umbra on reversing the tide
Dear Umbra, I can’t take it! A body-building actor was just elected governor of my state! I’m going to go mad! Then my friend said, “Don’t get mad, get even.” You’ve got to help me — California is crazy, but at least we’ve been setting the standard on some environmental issues. (Not all of them, […]