I want to highlight some exciting features from our Climate Action Explorer this Monday. Some are new updates, and others have been around for a little while, but haven’t necessarily been noted yet.
First off, you may have noticed a lot of actions now living all the way over in Egypt that aren’t necessarily connected to Egypt, like this petition to urge CITI and JP Morgan Chase to adopt an Amazon exclusion policy for oil & gas or this opportunity to send an online message to demand Congress address the plastic crisis before it overruns our planet. This is because these actions are “location-less,” or at least not place-based, so anyone anywhere can participate. You don’t need to be a resident of a specific town or state to get involved and they tend to have national or global scope. Furthermore, they’re often associated with national or international organizations, so it often doesn’t make sense to place them where the organization is headquartered.
But, you may ask, why Egypt? Specifically Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt??
Well, if you’re as much as a climate nerd as our dear Lucy, then you’ll know that that’s where the next United Nations Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP 27) is happening November 7-18, 2022. Until then, we’ll be placing our location-less actions there as COPs generally serve as centers of climate change policy-making and conversation (especially in the mainstream media), and after COP 27 is over, we’ll place them at the next COP location (COP 28 is currently scheduled for the United Arab Emirates).
Alright, next up, we have some new “types” of actions available! After reviewing actions for the last eight or so months, we came across patterns of actions that didn’t fit in our original categories, and rather than putting them all into “Other,” where it seems possible that no one but me might see them (10/10 would recommend checking out “other” actions for the record), we decided to add some new categories, including:
Create Art (AKA Artivism!)
The climate movement needs you, creatives!
Join Organization
We’ve had Join Chapter up for a while, but there are lots of amazing orgs out there that don’t have chapters but still need people to join up!
Ex: Join the ACE Action Team Network
Public Comment
This type is for when there are opportunities to make a comment on a formal policy or plan.
Share Your Story
One of the best things we can all do to get climate change on the political agenda is to talk about it with friends and family, and you can expand your scope by participating in these calls for sharing climate stories!
Start Chapter
Sometimes big organizations will have resources for how to start a chapter in your local community if none exists yet– this is that!
And there’s more to come! We (and by we, I mean our tech wizard Evie) are working on a couple of new features that will make it easier to sort actions by more parameters, which should make it easier than ever to get involved in the way that works for you.
And before I can close out this week’s newsletter, I simply must mention that it’s both of my parents’ birthdays this week. Ok, that is important for me to remember, but what I meant to say is that University of Maryland sociologist Dana Fisher wrote a paper about what it will take for us society-level action on tackling climate change, which she terms an “AnthroShift.” Her bottom line is that, short of a massive calamity, we need about 3.5% of the population demanding action (that’s 11.5 million Americans, folks). Sound familiar? I hope so! That’s what we’re here for, after all. Thanks for being a part of it, this week, and into the future!