Actually Doing Something

I will come out and admit that too often I'm just another armchair social-crusader.  I argue will people, I advocate on issues, occasionally I make a call to my representatives (who knows how much that helps), but my paltry $100 a year of charitable donations is a fraction of what it should be.  Like most of us, I should make an effort to be more involved in some way; volunteering, letter writing, whichever.  I have the usually excuses; I'm an over worked student, I sleep far too little as it is, etc. etc.  Those sort of excuses are often valid, and helping should always be balanced with not driving yourself into the ground.  But I suspect that for myself, like many, those excuses are sometimes just that; excuses.  When I have more free time, I don't usually go volunteer.  So here is a little public pledge to be better, for what it's worth.  

This summer I will do as much volunteer work as is productive and possible.  In this silly little bit of unprofessional and perhaps hypocritical advocacy, I urge everyone to do the same.

I'm going to post a lot on this soon, but my issue, THE issue of the day and the century is how in the hell we're going to prevent ourselves (I mean humanity) from wrecking our climate and the world.  So that's where I'm going to be focusing.  Who knows if I'll be able to make a difference.  Who knows if anyone will be able to, if anyone or anything is enough to confront this.  But I'm tired of talking about it.

Here is a list of some organizations trying to save the world.  (No, that's not actually hyperbole)

The National Resource Defense Council should be at the top of this list. They're doing fantastic work fighting climate change both publicly, and behind the scenes in Washington. At this point we need everything we can get.

For example, they were responsible for the proposal that the EPA modeled its new regulations after. While I think most would admit these aren't enough long term, they're the best possible solution for reducing carbon emissions that can be both effective and politically/legally defensible; keep in mind that these rules will inevitably have to face a supreme court challenge. The Clean Air Act was not written with this sort of regulation in mind, so it was a hugely important step.

Another small thing; you can also set up amazon smile to automatically donate a (admittedly small) fraction of your purchase to any of these organizations. It WILL NOT substitute for directly donating and volunteering, but everything helps. Doesn't cost you anything.