Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.

– Margaret Mead

In the last section, we talked about how if we want to effect real change, we need to push for system-level change.

We’re going to start with local government.

Why? Two reasons:

1. Your local, municipal-level government is the one that is going to be (or already is) hardest hit by environmental problems, and the related social problems. Polluted water? A problem for your local water treatment plant. Flooding? Your local EMS teams. Heat waves? Also your local EMS teams. Terrible air quality? Your local hospitals, overcrowded and struggling. Too much trash? Your tax bill, inflated by waste management fees.
2. Your local government is the one you have the most direct access to, especially if you live in a smaller community.

So, how can we get systemic change at the local level?

First, pick a single issue and a desired outcome. Yes, there are a lot of things you could try to fix, but if you approach your local government with a laundry list you’ll get exactly nowhere. One thing at a time.

Here are some suggested issues and desired outcomes:

• Plastic pollution: Ban the use of any plastic item (or even all single-use plastic items in your municipality). Sometimes people laugh at plastic straw or plastic bag bans as being silly, but every time one of these goes into effect, it shrinks the market for plastic products, and sends a message that we’re fed up with plastic pollution.
• Air pollution: ‘No car’ zones in your municipality. This reduces air pollution, increases use of public transportation, and starts forcing your city planners to think in terms of making your city more walkable or better for bikes. (This also improves health outcomes).
• Electrified transportation infrastructure: Are there enough car chargers in your city? Are there by-laws in place to prevent fossil cars from parking in charging spots? Are there by-laws in place to help condo and apartment dwellers secure charging spots? Are your public transit options based on renewable energy?
• Electricity supply: Has your local utility upgraded to renewable energy or is it still burning coal? Are you allowed to set up your own microgrid or is that against the law?
• Trash: Does your municipality have an organic waste (composting) system? Is recycling collected more often than trash? How much stuff can be recycled in your city?
• Native vs invasive plants: Does your city have any by-laws about what plants the local nurseries can sell? If they’re not selling native plants can you at least get a ban on harmful, invasive plant sales?
• Invasive plants part two: What steps is your city taking to tackle invasives like phragmites, dog strangling vine, knotweed (or whatever is a problem in your region)?

How to Take Action

There are three ways you can take action at the local government level.

1. Email your representatives. Email them all, either all at once, or one per week. (Put it in your calendar!) Describe the problem, describe your solution, show how your solution would benefit to the taxpayer. Forward news stories from other cities where your solution has been successfully implemented. If you can work out which bureaucrats and front line workers would be responsible for implementing your solution, email them too.
2. Form an action group! Get a bunch of people emailing councillors, attending meetings, circulating a petition, chanting in front of city hall, and so on. Remember, there’s strength in numbers! (Pro tip for getting other people on board: Invite them personally, don’t just put out a general call.)
3. Run for office. This might sound daunting, but you just need to remember that there’s nothing particularly special about the people who have run for office before. You don’t even have to win a seat (although obviously it’s better if you do). Running for council gives you the chance to go door to door to talk to people about your issue and get them on board.

Remember: be specific. Don’t just talk in general terms about zero waste or climate change. Give your local council something they can action. Give them something that would make them look good to voters.

What issue are you going to approach your council about? Comment below.

One’s got to change the system, or one changes nothing. 

— George Orwell, Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Not long ago, The Guardian^⁠1 reported on a study that suggested that just 100 companies were responsible for 71 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.

100 companies. 71 percent.

Which sounds like an actionable bit of knowledge. Just boycott those 100 and we’re good to go, right?

Except that it turns out those companies are coal, oil, and gas producers that, in general, you and I don’t buy from directly. 

So, that means we have to take a two-pronged approach:

1. We need to make systemic changes.
2. We need to make personal changes.

Systemic changes are up first, because while we can definitely influence things by making small personal changes, we must really kick the system hard to get the actions we want as fast as we need them.

Let me use a real world example to illustrate what I mean.

You probably already recycle your plastic bottles, right? Or maybe you don’t even use them. That’s awesome, and you should be congratulated. It’s important that you keep doing that.

But … as long as the system continues to produce plastic bottles and also doesn’t account for the hundreds of thousands of people who either can’t or won’t recycle them, and also doesn’t account for the bad actor companies that just dump what they’re supposed to recycle, we still have a huge problem.

Well, I hear you say, we just need to get more people to recycle. Education! Awareness!

To which I say: hogsnarfle.

For one thing, we’ve been running education and awareness programs for decades. They only work if people are receptive to the message and can act on it. (Spoiler alert: The system makes it really, really hard to act on it.)

But more to the point, there’s just too many of us!!

Let’s do some math. Don’t worry, I’ll do all the heavy lifting here.

Coca-Cola^⁠2 says that they sell 1.9 billion servings of their drinks in 200 countries every day. 

Now, let’s assume we do such a great job of recycling that a whopping 90% of those serving containers are recycled.

That still leaves one hundred and ninety million containers in our landfills, oceans, and by the side of the road.

190,000,000. 

Every. Single. Day.

(And yes, you could argue that not all of those servings are individually packaged, what with bigger bottles and fountain drinks, but even if you slash that number in half or by two thirds, it’s still mind-boggingly huge. It’s also just the drinks from one company. Think how many other products there are out there?!)

Now let’s be honest with ourselves here. You’ve seen the comments on any social media post. You know what your co-workers and the people in your community can be like. 

Can you really see any future in which we have 90% of people doing the right thing 100% of the time?

No, me neither. And I’m an optimist!

So that’s why we need to tackle the systems first. We must have systems that account for real human behaviours, both good and bad. 

This is the last explanatory/introductory post. In our next section, we’re going to start kicking the system, beginning with your local government.

Today’s action? Subscribe to this blog so you don’t miss a post. There’s a Newsletter Subscribe form on the blog at the right.

¹ https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change

² https://www.coca-cola.co.uk/our-business/faqs/how-many-cans-of-coca-cola-are-sold-worldwide-in-a-day

‘I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo.’

‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.’”

– JRR Tolkein, Lord of the Rings

The headlines are full of scary images and statistics. Wildfires. Hurricanes. Collapsing ice shelves. Uprisings and protests. All made worse by the surreality of this damned pandemic.

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t been sleeping well. Or, you know, at all.

Our governments sit on their collective hands and do nothing, or worse, actively roll back progress. Social media has become a doomscroll; a toxic soup of negativity, conspiracy theories, and snark. The future seems uncertain.

The problems seem so BIG. It’s hard to know where to even start. What can I do? Is there any hope?

In my heart of hearts, I believe there is. Here’s why: When I started actively looking for the little glimmers of light in the darkness, looking beyond the headlines, I discovered that there are people trying to fix this.

Hundreds of thousands of people all around the world, just like you and me, who have rolled up their sleeves and are doing something. Taking action in their homes. In their places of work. In their communities.

But they can’t do it alone. None of us can. It’s time for all us to link up and start pushing hard in the same direction.

This isn’t about activism anymore. It’s about action. On this blog I’ve called it ecoaction, but it’s really about All The Problems. Because they’re all interconnected of course.

You. Can. Make. A. Difference. 

Let’s find out how, together.

What will follow this post is a series of posts about practical actions you can take right now, today, tomorrow, and the next day. Some of them will be easy, some of them will be harder, some will be free, and some of them will take money. But they will all be things you can do. We’ll take it one step at a time.

Your first action? Share this post. On Facebook, on Twitter, by email. Share it everywhere you can think of. Encourage them to subscribe to the blog. Let’s get as many people as possible on board. Comment below to let me know you’ve done it!