Goldman Prize Winners, 2025

The Goldman Environmental Prize is the world’s largest and most prestigious annual award for grassroots environmentalists. Some people refer to it as the “green Nobel.” Goldman Prize winners are models of courage, and their stories are powerful and truly inspiring. “The Prize recognizes individuals for sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk. Each winner receives a financial award. The Goldman Prize views ‘grassroots’ leaders as those involved in local efforts, where positive change is created through community or citizen participation in the issues that affect them. Through recognizing these individual leaders, the Prize seeks to inspire other ordinary people to take extraordinary actions to protect the natural world.” Over the 36 years that the Prize has been awarded, there have been 226 recipients of the prize.

This year’s prize recipients (representing each of the six inhabited continental regions of the world) are:

  • Laurene Allen—USA: “When one of the largest environmental crises in New England’s history was exposed in her own community, Laurene Allen stepped up to protect thousands of families affected by contaminated drinking water. Laurene’s campaign pressured the Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics plant—responsible for leaking toxic forever chemicals into community drinking water sources—to announce its closure in August 2023. The plant’s closure in May 2024 marked an end to more than 20 years of rampant air, soil, and water pollution.” (Support/follow: National PFAS Contamination Coalition; Laurene Allen on Bluesky; Merrimack Citizens for Clean Water)
  • Mari Luz Canaquiri Murayari—Peru: “In March 2024, Mari Luz Canaquiri Murayari and Asociación de Mujeres Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kana—a Kukama women’s association for which she serves as president—won a landmark rights of nature court decision to protect the Marañón River in Peru. For the first time in the country’s history, a river was granted legal personhood—with the right to be free-flowing and free of contamination. After finding the Peruvian government in violation of the river’s inherent rights, the court ordered the government to take immediate action to prevent future oil spills into the river, mandated the creation of a basin-wide protection plan, and recognized the Kukama as stewards of the river.” (Support/follow: Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kana on Facebook; International Rivers; Instituo de Defense Legal)
  • Carlos Mallo Molina—Canary Islands: “Carlos Mallo Molina helped lead a sophisticated, global campaign to prevent the construction of Fonsalía Port, a massive recreational boat and ferry terminal that threatened a biodiverse 170,000-acre marine protected area in the Canary Islands. Proposed to be built on the island of Tenerife, the port would have destroyed vital habitat for endangered sea turtles, whales, and sharks. In October 2021, because of the campaign, the Canary Islands government officially canceled the port project. In lieu of the port, Carlos is now realizing his vision for a world-class marine conservation and education center—the first of its kind in the Canary Islands.” (Support/follow: Innoceana; Carlos Mallo Molina on LinkedIn)
  • Semia Gharbi—Tunisia: “Semia Gharbi helped spearhead a campaign that challenged a corrupt waste trafficking scheme between Italy and Tunisia, resulting in the return of 6,000 tons of illegally exported household waste back to Italy, its country of origin, in February 2022. More than 40 corrupt government officials and others involved in waste trafficking in both countries were arrested in the scandal. Her efforts spurred policy shifts within the EU, which has now tightened its procedures and regulations for waste shipments abroad.” (Support/follow: Association for Environmental Education for Future Generations; International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN); GAIA)
  • Besjana Guri and Olsi Nika—Albania: “Besjana Guri and Olsi Nika’s campaign to protect the Vjosa River from a hydropower dam development boom resulted in its historic designation as the Vjosa Wild River National Park by the Albanian government in March 2023. This precedent-setting action safeguards not only the entirety of the Vjosa’s 167 miles—which flow freely across Albania—but also its free-flowing tributaries, totaling 250 miles of undisturbed river corridors. The Vjosa ecosystem is a significant bastion of freshwater biodiversity that provides critical habitat for several endangered species. The new national park is both Albania and Europe’s first to protect a wild river.” (Support/follow: EcoAlbania and their YouTube channel)
  • Batmunkh Luvsandash—Mongolia: “Determined to protect his homeland from mining, Batmunkh Luvsandash’s activism resulted in the creation of a 66,000-acre protected area in Dornogovi province in April 2022, abutting tens of thousands of acres already protected by Batmunkh and allies. Home to Argali sheep, 75% of the world’s population of endangered Asiatic wild ass, and a wide variety of endemic plants, the protected area forms an important bulwark against Mongolia’s mining boom.” (Support/follow: The Nature Conservancy’s work in Mongolia)

Click on each recipient’s name to read a longer profile—or watch a brief video—about their remarkable efforts and achievements.

Posts on Goldman Prize winners from previous years:

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April 21, 2025
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Extreme Greed and Wealth Disparity: Facts, Stats, Orgs, and Resources

“Hoard food and it rots. Hoard money and you rot. Hoard power and the nation rots.”
— Chuck Palahniuk

“Wealth among traditional people is measured by having enough to give away.”
— Robin Wall Kimmerer

“If a man has an apartment stacked to the ceiling with newspapers, we call him crazy. If a woman has a trailer house full of cats, we call her nuts. But when people pathologically hoard so much cash that they impoverish the entire nation, we put them on the cover of Fortune magazine and pretend that they are role models.”
— Lester B. Pearson

 “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.”
— Mahatma Gandhi

“He could end world hunger. Instead, he chooses to starve children.”
— A hand-made sign at a recent protest


Shocking Facts and Stats

  • In 2024, total billionaire wealth increased by $2 trillion (source), and some billionaires are on track to become trillionaires in coming years.  Over the last decade+, there has been a growing concentration of wealth at the very top, particularly among the top 1% (source).
  • Note: A billion is 1,000 times more than a million (i.e., it takes 1,000 millions to make a billion). And a trillion is 1,000 billions…
  • In 2023, the average CEO-to-worker pay ratio for S&P 500 companies was 268-to-1, meaning CEOs earned 268 times more than the average worker, a significant increase from the 1960s when the ratio was around 21-to-1. It would take more than five career lifetimes for workers to earn what CEOs receive in just one year. (source)
  • Billionaires often make the equivalent of many millions of dollars per hour in earnings (including stock investments).
  • While millionaires and billionaires’ wealth has skyrocketed in recent decades, and the cost of living (including housing cost) has gone up, the U.S. federal minimum wage has stayed at $7.25 per hour since 2009; that is now a poverty wage. A full-time minimum wage worker makes only about $15,000 per year, which was the federal poverty line in 2024. If that person has even one other person/child to support, they are living well below the poverty line and cannot meet their basic needs on that wage. (Some states have passed higher minimum wages. In California, the minimum wage is currently $16.50/hour, as of 2025. That is still not an adequate, living wage in California. Per MIT’s Living Wage Calculator, a single California adult with no one else in their household would need an average $18.66 per hour to meet their basic needs.)
  • In 2022, the living wage (the wage needed to meet basic budgetary needs, such as housing, food, childcare, and transportation, plus taxes) for one worker in a family of two full-time working adults and two children ranged between $18.75 and $40.16 per hour, for the lowest and highest cost U.S. counties, respectively. (source)
  • Billionaires contribute a million times more carbon (a greenhouse gas that causes global heating AKA climate change) to the atmosphere than the average person. 125 of the world’s richest billionaires invest so much money in polluting industries that they are responsible for emitting an average of 3 million tons of carbon a year. (source)
  • The use of private jets by ultra-wealthy people (even for very short trips) has increased substantially. And studies show that private jets emit 5-14 times more carbon dioxide per passenger than commercial airplanes. Some private aircraft models emit more carbon per hour than an average person produces in a year. (source)
  • While most ultra-wealthy people feel that their wealth is entirely or mostly “self-made,” in reality about 60 percent of billionaire wealth comes from one of three sources: inheritance, cronyism and corruption, or monopoly power (source). [I would guess that much of the rest of their wealth comes from legal but immoral exploitation of workers— via low, non-living wages and unsafe working conditions—and/or rampant extraction of natural resources, illegal tax evasion and/or insider trading, plus the investments and compounding interest that wealth affords, of course. And for a smaller set, their wealth could come primarily from their celebrity/fame, looks, talent, or smarts. But nobody “earns” billions or millions of dollars through only their “hard work” or their intellect.]
  • In 1975, 90% of Americans shared two-thirds of all income. As of 2023, the 90% got just 45% of all income, while the richest 10% hoard the rest. The wealthiest have extracted $79 trillion from working people since 1975. In 2023 alone, workers in the bottom 90% lost $3.9 trillion to the top 10%—that amount would have gone into the paychecks of working people if income disparity was at the more reasonable level it was at after WWII. (source)
  • Since the 1980s, due to regressive economic/financial/taxation/regulatory policies combined with sheer greed on the part of corporations and individuals, there has been a “reverse Robin Hood” redistribution of wealth: trillions of dollars taken from the least wealthy (the many) by the most wealthy (the few). This has turned much of the “middle class” into the “working poor” and caused much higher levels of homelessness, while the rich have become richer.
  • Wealth disparity (AKA the wealth gap, economic or income inequality, or the unequal distribution of wealth) in the U.S. is now greater (i.e., worse) than it’s been since 1928, right before the 1929 stock market crash and then bank runs, which triggered the Great Depression. (source)  [Current conditions and federal policies in 2025 are setting us up for another economic crash. We should be preparing for that.]
  • You can find more statistics, graphics, and reports on income and wealth inequality at Inequality.org.

We will also be publishing a companion post in the next few months: Generosity vs Greed: How the Super-Wealthy Could Be Super-Heroes.

 

Organizations 

Economic Policy / Political Groups:

Poverty Alleviation/Aid/Assistance:

Housing and Homelessness:

Labor Rights:

Affordable/Universal Healthcare:

Fair Finance and Consumer Protection:

Responsible Wealth / Shared Prosperity / Genuine Philanthropy:

  • The Giving Pledge
  • Lever for Change
  • Patriotic Millionaires
  • Resource Generation
  • Also read about: Trust-based philanthropy, No-Strings philanthropy, Open Call philanthropy, Community (AKA “community-led” or “community-based”) philanthropy, and Direct philanthropy or direct cash/direct giving approaches (a few direct giving orgs are listed in the Poverty Alleviation section, above).
  • We will be publishing a companion post in the next few months: Generosity vs Greed: How the Super-Wealthy Could Be Super-Heroes. Also, we offer strategic advising services to individuals, foundations, or philanthropic organizations who would like guidance in identifying important groups and programs to fund.

New Economics & Ecological Economics:

Universal Basic Income (UBI):

 

Related Media/Articles/Resources

Some people to follow online: Robert Reich, Rev. Dr. William Barber, Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, Elizabeth Warren, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), Bernie Sanders; Kate Raworth, Gabriel Zucman, Nick Hanauer, Jason Hickel, Wendell Potter, Rutger Bregman, Joseph Stiglitz, Claudia Sahm, Kathryn Ann Edwards, Ai-jen Poo, Mike Elk, Liz Shuler, Katie Porter, Matthias Schmelzer, Abigail Disney, and Melinda French Gates.

Related Posts:

Green Business, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Ethical Finance Resources

Fossil-Fuel Divestment and Future-Friendly Investments

NOTE: We’ll be publishing a companion post in the next few months: Generosity vs Greed: How the Super-Wealthy Could Be Super-Heroes. And we offer strategic advising services to individuals, foundations, or philanthropic organizations who would like guidance in identifying important groups and programs to fund.

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March 21, 2025
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Sustainable Land Use, Land Conservation, and Rewilding: An Index of Posts

Listed below are some of The Green Spotlight posts that include information related to sustainable land use (urban, suburban, rural, and wilderness), e.g., land/habitat conservation and stewardship, sustainable agriculture and permaculture, regenerative and restorative land use and re-wilding, sustainable home/homestead and neighborhood planning and development, and resilience. Links to organizations and resources on these topics are also provided, at the bottom of this post.

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Organizations and Resources:

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February 28, 2025
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Organizations for Human Rights, Peace, and Nonviolence

“True peace is not merely the absence of war; it is the presence of justice.”
— Jane Addams  (and Dr. MLK Jr. said something very similar)

“Blessed are the peacemakers.”
— Sermon on the Mount

This listing of organizations includes groups that focus on: human rights, nonviolence, nonviolent social action, violence prevention (including gun violence), peace and justice, peacebuilding, preventing or stopping war and genocide, restorative justice, conflict resolution, nuclear safety (weapons of mass destruction, disarmament), and peace and human rights in the Middle East/Israel/Palestine. This is not a comprehensive list of organizations; if you know of other groups that you would recommend to others, please mention them in the Comments.

My hope is that more of these organizations will work together and collaborate, to broaden their reach and amplify their impact, nationally and globally.

Human Rights Groups

Nonviolence Groups
(Nonviolent Action and Violence Prevention)

Gun violence prevention:

Peace Groupsflying dove

Nuclear Safety & Anti-Nuclear Groups

Israel/Palestine, Middle East Peace & Human Rights Groups

 

A couple of peacebuilders I recommend following online: Bernice King and Ami Dar.

I’ll add more people and organizations to this list over time. I also plan to provide a list of groups that address extremism and political violence, but that could be a separate post.

Lastly, click the following link for some quotations on peace and power.

True peace requires awareness, restraint, strength, and effort. May we all become peacemakers and peacebuilders, starting in our own lives and relationships and expanding that skill out into our communities and world.

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January 23, 2025
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What Now?—Forging the Path Ahead

Those of us who have been paying attention and understand the threats and troubles that are coming to almost everyone in the U.S. (and to the health of our air, water, lands, ecosystems, and climate) will be among those who are most ready and equipped from the outset to try to reduce some of the harms. None of us gets to choose the era we live through or to control a whole lot about the world we live in. But we should strive to rise to the challenge of the situation we face, by doing what we can to make our communities, our country, and our world as livable (and worth living in) as we can. We can strive to be among the lights that will guide the way through the darkness.

I hereby send you my wishes of strength, courage, endurance, solace, serenity, and solidarity. And I offer up some specific ways to cultivate and exercise those skills, presented below in the following sections:

  • Self-Care
  • Community Care
  • City/County Action
  • State Action
  • Personal Actions
  • Organizations and Resources

I will probably update and add more suggestions to this guide over time.

Self-Care

To be able to help others, we first have to take care of ourselves: our physical and mental health and wellbeing. We can only help others well when we are feeling fairly strong and stable ourselves. We can take turns falling apart or breaking down; and we should accept and ask for help or support when we need it. We all have our own ways of coping, self-soothing, and caring for ourselves, but here are some general tips and reminders:

  1. Get enough sleep, every night that you can. We can’t function properly or stay healthy without deep sleep.
  2. Eat nutritious foods (and if possible, take a multivitamin or at least Vitamin D/K, especially in the winter).
  3. Get some exercise almost every day, even if it’s just some stretching or a short walk (or working in a garden).
  4. Stay connected with good friends. Regularly reach out and make time for friends and supportive family.
  5. Our brains are not equipped to take in bad news from all over the country and world, all day every day. We cannot process all of that information, and we can’t expect ourselves to carry the weight of the world. Set aside periods of time (at least one day a week, and ideally a portion of every day) when you will not look at media, social media, or emails and expose yourself to the day’s horrors. Try to stay grounded in the Here and Now (“the present”) whenever you can, rather than becoming overwhelmed with the There and Everywhere and Everyone and the Future/Forever. Make time for some humor and comedy, amidst tragedy. Build time into each day when you and your brain can rest and recover. You could try deep/slow breathing exercises that are proven to help us relax (like cyclic sighing and “bee breath“), meditation, or other relaxation or mindfulness techniques. Or listen to music or do something creative. Try to get out into natural settings (e.g., parks, forests, waterbody areas, vista points) and spend time with animals as much as you can. If you still regularly struggle with overwhelm, look for (or establish) a Support Group or find a therapist.
  6. Remind yourself to notice and seek out and appreciate beautiful things (large and small), funny things, good moments, good news, good people (helpers), glimmers of compassion or beauty or joy, to counter the ugliness. Share some of these good things with other people (through conversations, posts, photos).
  7. Self-Care Resources: Good Grief Network; various Pema Chodron books (e.g., When Things Fall Apart, etc.); Yoga with Adriene (free videos on YouTube). A few people/pages to follow online for wisdom and inspiration: Cole Arthur Riley, Anne Lamott, Brene Brown, Rebecca Solnit, Ami Dar, Hell and Earth, Humanity & Peace; and Trae Crowder (for humor!).

“I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.”
– Edward Everett Hale

“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
– The Talmud

We may not be able to stop many or even most of the awful things that are coming (and we certainly can’t do so all by ourselves, as individuals). But together, we can focus on harm reduction strategies. We can try to influence (or delay/stymie) what happens at the national/federal level, but in the near future, more victories and improvements will probably be made at the local/community/city/county and state levels (as well as at the international level, or in other countries), so focus most of your energy on those efforts. Even if we cannot make the world or our immediate future good, we can do our best to make it less bad, and limit unnecessary suffering as much as possible. Small improvements and victories are important. Even if each of us can only help a few beings and make their lives easier—or save even one being (or wild place)—those efforts will be worthwhile.

Working with other people is rarely easy, but it’s necessary and can be rewarding and effective. We’ll have to summon up as much patience and kindness as we can, despite the circumstances, and resist falling into permanent despair or hopelessness/fatalism, or the urge to become cold and unfeeling or to isolate ourselves from others, as that may seem like the easier path. We’ll never agree with or relate to everyone else or their tactics or their way of dealing with things. But we have to continuously try to accept our forgivable differences, to not let our egos get in the way, and to not turn on (or away from) each other. We should strive to be of service, and to give what we can.

“Wealth among traditional people is measured by having enough to give away.” 
– Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

Here are suggestions of some concrete ways to make a difference:

Community Care

  1. Get to know your neighbors, and check in on them or offer to help out if they need anything (especially any neighbors who are elderly, disabled, alone, or vulnerable). Also periodically reach out to friends, and find out what they might need.
  2. Find and support local groups that help the most vulnerable (e.g., immigrants/refugees, unhoused people, the disabled or elderly, poor/low-income people, abused or neglected/foster children, domestic violence survivors, trans and gay people, people with severe mental illness, prisoners and detainees, and animals). For example, you could support local shelters, housing groups, food banks/pantries, and Community Action Agencies. Also search for (or start) a local Mutual Aid group or CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) group. Choose at least one local group to get involved with, through volunteering or donations. (Or choose different groups to support each month or year.)
  3. Support (and use) your library, as well as local arts organizations or venues, and community gardens.
  4. Volunteer at or support the local, state, and national parks in your region.
  5. Find (or start) a local climate action group, even if it’s just with a few friends or co-workers. (Look into the Climate Survival tools provided by The Climate Mobilization.)
  6. Donate needed/requested items to a local group for the unhoused or the poor. Items that are often needed include clothing (e.g., coats, underwear, warm socks, gloves, hats, scarves, snow/rain pants, other layers, shoes/boots); tents, sleeping bags, blankets, and hygiene items. You could also give money, food, and needed items directly to unhoused people.
  7. Put some food items in a Little Free Library box (if there’s room). Or build a Free Food Pantry box in your front yard, or suggest that local churches or grocery stores do this.
  8. Patronize/support small, local businesses, worker-owned businesses/cooperatives (coops), local farms/farmers and farmer’s markets.
  9. Propose that your local Democratic Party office (or a specific candidate’s campaign office) be used regularly as a space for local community organizing and mutual aid initiatives that help meet people’s needs (e.g., food donations and distribution, housing assistance, etc.).

City/County Action

  1. Tell your city and/or county leaders (mayor, city council, county commissioners and officials) to build more affordable housing for low-income people, as well as tiny home communities or apartments and/or RV parking areas (with support services) for unhoused people, and more shelters (that are also set up to accept people who have pets).
  2. Tell your city and county that you do not support the mass deportation or detention of immigrants, and you want them to protect immigrants in your community in any ways that they can.
  3. Ask your city or county to start a UBI (Universal Basic Income) program. These programs have proven very successful.

State Action

  1. Support groups that focus on state and local races/elections (e.g., DLCC, The States Project, Sister District, Oath, Every State Blue, and your state and local Democratic Party). There are important state/local elections (including “special elections” to fill vacant seats) every year. State Supreme Court races are especially important, but often neglected by funders and voters.
  2. Tell your state representatives and Governor to immediately develop and pass Healthcare for All /Universal Healthcare legislation for your state, and to develop state-based programs that could help shore up residents’ Social Security (retirement and disability) and Medicaid benefits if federal benefits are cut. Also demand that they pass anti-poverty laws and initiatives, including a much higher minimum (living) wage, paid medical/parental/caregiver leave and paid sick days requirements for everyone employed in your state, stronger affordable housing regulations/enforcement, more housing and support services for the unhoused, and a UBI (Universal Basic Income) program.
  3. Tell your state representatives to protect and conserve your state-owned public lands, and not to allow them to be used/exploited or leased for resource extraction and profit (logging, mining, rampant grazing, or development). Tell them to designate more land for wilderness/wildlife conservation and state parks.
  4. Tell your state representatives to pass legislation that will protect doctors, patients, and anyone who assists people in seeking reproductive health care (including communicating about or mailing/using/traveling for medication abrtion or surgical abrtion, miscarriage care, emergency contraception, and contraception) from federal or out-of-state prosecution.

Personal Actions

  1. Try to set aside more savings for your retirement and emergency/medical expenses, as ACA health insurance, Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security are likely to be cut or cut back by the new regime (to pay for their tax cuts for the wealthy).
  2. If you know someone who has student loans they are struggling to pay down/off and you are financially comfortable, you could offer to help them with their payments.
  3. If you have a bank account with one of the large, national banks (especially Wells Fargo, Citi, Chase, or Bank of America), one of the best things you can do is to move your money to a local credit union (or a green bank, or a customer-recommended community bank that doesn’t gouge its own members). And if you have any stock-based investment accounts (401Ks, mutual funds, etc.), make sure they aren’t funding evil companies and switch them to socially/environmentally responsible investment accounts.
  4. To stop feeding the beast, opt out of shopping at (i.e., giving your money to) predatory, greedy, exploitative corporations (e.g., Amazon, Walmart, Home Depot, Uline, and most other large, multinational companies) whenever possible. Instead, try to support small, local businesses, and B Corps-certified or benefit corporations or worker-owned businesses that are socially and environmentally responsible and good to their employees.
  5. Start growing some of your own food, and if you grow more than your family can eat, share the bounty. Also buy food from local (organic) farm stands and farmer’s markets.
  6. Subscribe to and share information from media outlets that consistently produce solid, independent, fact-based journalism, e.g., ProPublica, Courier Newsroom, States Newsroom, The Guardian, Scientific American, Mongabay, Mother Jones, The Tennessee Holler, Press Forward, local newspapers and public radio stations, NPR, PBS, etc.
  7. If you are financially secure, consider using some of your money to donate to Land Trusts (local/regional or international) or re-wilding organizations, or purchase a forest or wildland property (or other undeveloped, non-urban land parcel)—to protect it from development, logging, industrial/Big Ag, or other destructive uses, and to conserve (or clean up/remediate and re-wild) the land, or to convert industrial farmland to organic farming. You can work with a regional Land Trust or conservation group to make sure it will be permanently protected beyond your lifetime.
  8. Support and help fund community solar projects, and tell your state and local representatives and your utilities to build more solar/wind projects and renewable microgrids for energy security. If your utility offers a renewable energy program, sign up for it.
  9. In addition to local and state and national groups, identify at least one international organization (or an organization based in another country) to donate to. The next section (Organizations and Resources) lists a number of groups to check out. Also consider doing more direct giving to people in need, in person or through sites like GiveDirectly, Kiva, and GoFundMe.
  10. Implement online/digital privacy and security recommendations, including these and others published by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) or by WIRED. Use the Signal app for private/secure texting. Also check out services that get your personal information off of data broker websites, and consider getting identity theft insurance and other security/privacy protections from a service such as Aura. There are so many scammers and hackers out there (and surveillance), and our federal government is going to destroy its consumer protection apparatus (e.g. the CFPB), so we have to find other ways to protect ourselves from spying, scams, and hacks.
  11. If you don’t want to have kids (or don’t want to have more kids), you could get a tubal ligation (or for men, a vasectomy, which is reversible)—or a birth control implant or IUD (which work for many years)—so you won’t be at risk of getting pregnant or at risk of dying due to life-threatening pregnancy complications or a partial miscarriage that might not receive prompt or proper medical treatment due to abrtion bans. You could also donate to clinics that provide vasectomies and tubal ligation and contraceptive implants and IUDs, so they can provide these services to people who cannot afford them. And you could buy contraception (e.g., the over-the-counter O-pill, condoms, or some packages of emergency contraception e.g. Plan B or other brands) for anyone who might need them now or in the future. Some states have signaled that they are likely to try to curtail or ban contraception.

Organizations and Resources

Also see: Non-Profit Organizations to Know (organized by topic)

Other Relevant Posts:

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December 10, 2024
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Women’s Organizations and Resources: A Directory

This listing includes a wide variety of groups that focus on women’s issues. Most of the organizations that are listed here are based in the U.S. and have a U.S. focus, but some international groups are included, as well. We are not familiar with every group listed below, so inclusion in the listing does not constitute an endorsement.

We‘ve organized the groups into the following categories:

  • Environmental
  • General
  • Political action / representation
  • Health / reproductive health
  • Legal
  • Safety
  • BIPOC
  • Military / veterans
  • International
  • Media and films

A few organizations have been listed in more than one of these categories.

ENVIRONMENTAL

GENERAL (women’s rights, equality, empowerment, advocacy)

POLITICAL ACTION / REPRESENTATION

HEALTH / REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

LEGAL

SAFETY (from violence / assault)

BIPOC women (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color)

WOMEN IN THE MILITARY / VETERANS 

INTERNATIONAL

MEDIA

Films  (this is just a small selection; we’ll add more to this list over time):

 

If there are other groups or websites that you think should be added to this listing, please mention them in the Comments.

Related posts:

 

#womenslivesmatter #womenarepeople #WomensRightsAreHumanRights #personhood #liberty

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July 31, 2024
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Books and Films, 2024

BOOKS

Recently published books that you might want to check out, read, and/or share with others:

Saving Ourselves: From Climate Shocks to Climate Action, by Dana R. Fisher

What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures, by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

Climate Action for Busy People, by Cate Mingoya-LaFortune

Invisible Ink: Writing from the Edge of Extinction, by Leo Joubert

The Language of Climate Politics: Fossil-Fuel Propaganda and How to Fight It, by Genevieve Guenther

The Solutionary Way: Tranform Your Life, Your Community, and the World for the Better, by Zoe Weil

Multisolving: Creating Systems Change in a Fractured World, by Elizabeth Sawin

The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, by Robin Wall Kimmerer

The Weight of Nature: How a Changing Climate Changes Our Brains, by Clayton Page Aldern

Terrible Beauty: Reckoning with Climate Complicity and Rediscovering Our Soul, by Auden Schendler

Life as We Know It (Can Be): Stories of People, Climate, and Hope in a Changing World, by Bill Weir

The Gift of a Broken Heart: How Our Grief Can Connect Us, by Bryan Welch

Troubled Waters (fiction), by Mary Annaise Heglar

—————
Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, by Anne Applebaum

On Freedom, by Timothy Snyder  (He also wrote On Tyranny.)

Kingdom of Rage: The Rise of Christian Extremism and the Path Back to Peace, by Elizabeth Neumann

Wild Faith: How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America, by Talia Lavin

The Conspiracy to End America: Five Ways My Old Party is Driving Our Democracy to Autocracy, by Stuart Stevens

Also, to better understand our current political era from a historical perspective, you might also want to read some of Hannah Arendt’s classic books, such as The Origins of Totalitarianism, and A Report on The Banality of Evil, or other people’s books about fascism, dictatorship, Police State violence, or theocracy. And to see parallels to today presented through very prescient fiction, make sure you’ve read classics like 1984, Brave New World, The Handmaid’s Tale, Fahrenheit 451, Parable of the Sower (Butler), and Animal Farm.


FILMS

New documentary films that you might want to watch or mention to others:

 

I add more books and films to this list as the year goes on and I learn about others that seem important and compelling.

Do you have favorite books or authors or films to recommend? Please mention them in the Comments.

Related posts:

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June 18, 2024
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Election 2024: Ways to Support Voters and Protect Democracy

So many life-and-death issues are on the line in the upcoming election: the speed and scale of climate/planetary breakdown (i.e. the habitability of our planet); protecting women’s lives, personhood, bodily autonomy, and medical privacy; protecting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and affordable ACA health care plans; reducing gun violence massacres and tragedies; protecting marginalized and dehumanized groups of people; protecting and expanding workers’ rights and economic justice; the appointment of future Supreme Court justices and other judges whose decisions will have far-reaching impacts on our lives; the handling of future pandemics; and preventing the use of nuclear weapons, to name just a few.

I know it seems like people always say “This is the most important election of our lifetime.” In a sense, it’s almost always true, if you just add “…so far.” We can’t go back and change the outcome of past elections, and we don’t know what future elections will look like. But every election is extremely important and every outcome has serious and lasting consequences for our everyday lives—and many issues are becoming more dire over time—so the next election is always going to be the next best chance we have to influence the conditions we will be living under in the short term and the long term.

This election is different from previous elections in some important and disturbing ways:

1) New voter suppression laws and tactics are in effect: Since the last Presidential election, some states have passed laws instituting rules that will make it harder for certain groups of people to vote and even to register to vote (especially young people and students, people with disabilities, poor and homeless people, and the elderly), which could disenfranchise many of them. For example, tens of millions of voting-age citizens don’t have the types of voter ID that are now required in their states, and many are not aware of the ID requirements.

2) Insurrectionists are in office and running for office: This is the first Presidential election since the January 6th insurrection (attempted coup) happened. A number of current elected officials at state, local, and federal levels (and other people who are now running for office) participated in that insurrection in one way or another, or are still actively denying the results of the 2020 presidential election (propagating the Big Lie); and many of them are already saying that they will not accept (or certify) the outcome of an election that does not go their way. We have a patriotic responsibility to vote against insurrectionists and election deniers; and

3) AI deepfakes and “cheap fakes” (video, audio, and images) can now easily be manipulated to impersonate candidates or others, or to show excerpted statements completely out of context, to confuse or misinform voters. It can be difficult to tell what is fake or real, and even if they are debunked, last-minute deepfakes before the election could have an effect on how people vote (or whether they vote at all). Intelligence officials are warning that Russia (as well as China and Iran) have been using fake accounts on social media to spread disinformation and sow division in the U.S.  They do this through many means, deepfakes being one of them.

If the U.S. allows a corrupt, sociopathic, Putin-subservient, adjudicated sexual predator and defamer, convicted felon, compulsive liar, grifting conman, and wanna-be dictator (along with his criminal henchmen, “yes men,” and corrupt family) to take power for a second time, it will likely be the end of our long, admirable experiment with American democracy and it could be the last legitimate election we have for a generation or more.

Many people don’t realize how quickly a country can lose its freedoms and how far it can fall in the hands of an authoritarian. Our democracy is far from perfect now, but things can get much, much worse. Basic rights that we take for granted could suddenly be stripped away. We should learn from the recent experiences of countries like Hungary, Turkey, and Belarus. I cannot overstate or adequately express how much I don’t want to live out the rest of my life under that type—or any type—of anti-democratic, authoritarian, or theocratic rule—and how much you and almost everyone else would hate it and suffer because of it, as well.

Ways to help voters and Get Out the Vote

Elections are decided by those who show up to vote and who vote for one of the viable candidates (in the U.S. system, third-party candidates are not viable at the national level), and particularly by voters in “swing states,” which will determine the Electoral College outcome of the Presidential election (please click here to tell your state representatives to pass the National Popular Vote Law in your state; it has been passed in 18 states so far and is getting close to the threshold needed to go into effect).

Current “swing states” include: Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Florida. Other “purple” states include: Ohio, Texas, Minnesota, Virginia, Montana, New Mexico, Colorado, Maine, Iowa, Kansas, Alaska, Nebraska, Missouri, South Carolina, and North Dakota, among others.

Here are some ways that each of us can make sure people are able to vote and to protect the election and democracy:

  1. Look up your state’s voter registration deadline and share that information with others you know, including anyone who might not yet be registered (or who has moved recently and might need to re-register). In some states, people must be registered more than a month before the election in order to vote in that election, while a few states allow people to register right up to or on Election Day.
  2. Remember to check your registration status to make sure it’s still Active, at least once a year (including just over a month before each election, when you should still have time to re-register) and remind others to do so, as well. Go to your state’s Elections/Secretary of State website, or contact your county’s Elections office to check your registration, or go to  Vote411.org. You should also make sure your registration has your correct, current address. Some states are doing overly aggressive purges of their voter registration rolls to “clean them up” but they often remove people who should not be removed.  If your name has been improperly removed from the list of voters, you should not only contact your Secretary of State’s office but also file a complaint with the Department of Justice (online at civilrights.justice.gov, or by calling 1-800-253-3931). In some states, you can register to vote on Election Day (and/or during Early Voting) in person, at your polling place.
  3. Make sure people in your state (and people you know in battleground/swing states) know what types of ID are required for voting there now. In the last year or two, the requirements in some states have gotten much more stringent (for example, some states will not accept student IDs now). Did you know that 11% of American adults (26 million people, including many young people, elderly or disabled people, and low-income people) don’t have a current photo ID? If someone needs assistance with obtaining the required ID or getting it free of charge, they can call or text the VoteRiders hotline: 866-ID-2-VOTE (866-432-8683), or email info@voteriders.org (or contact Spread the Vote/Project ID).
  4. There is a much greater need for poll workers than ever before. Sign up to be a paid poll worker through Power the Polls. It’s important to sign up well before the election so you will have time to get the required training. Because the GOP is threatening to use voter intimidation tactics at some polling places, and because some new poll workers might not always provide correct information to voters, it’s also necessary to have fair-minded poll monitors, or “poll watchers” or “election observers” on hand. Sign up to be a nonpartisan Election Protection volunteer (you can also sign up via Common Cause); there are different roles you can choose from, to help on site or from home. (Alternatively you could sign up as a partisan poll watcher through your local or state Democratic Party office.) Those who have a legal background (lawyers, paralegals, and law students) can volunteer through WeTheAction.
  5. Support some voting/election-related organizations (or campaigns) now. Please don’t wait until the fall to start helping them; that could be too late to make a difference. Here are some groups to consider supporting (or volunteering for):
  1. There are many different ways you can volunteer to help Get Out the Vote, in your state or in one or more of the swing states that will determine the Electoral College outcome of the election. You could volunteer for a specific candidate or campaign, or with your state or local Democratic party. Or you can do postcarding (or writing letters), texting, or calling voters through groups like:

You can find other ways to be involved in expanding voting access and supporting democracy in the Americans of Conscience Checklist, or through many of the other organizations listed under item #5, above.

7.  Vote Early, and encourage everyone else to do so, as well. Contact your county’s elections office to find out where and when you can go to Vote Early in your county (the locations are probably different than your Election Day polling place). On Election Day, there will be long lines at some polling places, and this year it will not be surprising if there are bomb threats (most of which are likely to be hoax calls but could still temporarily shut down some polling places) and various other attempts to intimidate voters or interfere with or delay people’s ability to vote.

8.  If you’re voting via mail-in/absentee ballot, it’s safest to drop it off at your county’s elections office (indoor dropbox, if available) as early as you can. If you mail it, follow all instructions, sign where indicated, and be sure it has enough postage (some ballots might require more than 1 stamp); and mail it at least a week before the election to make sure it will arrive by Election Day. (If you can mail it at a Post Office and get it postmarked at the counter, even better.) If it’s less than a week before the election, it’s safer to bring it to your county elections office or other designated drop-off locations in your county. TRACK YOUR BALLOT status. If you are informed that you need to do something to “cure” your ballot (e.g., due to a signature matching issue, ID, missing envelope, etc.), please follow up to fix it immediately. The sooner you get your ballot in, the more time you should have to take care of any problems. Help contact others with rejected ballots that need to be “cured.” 

9. Spread the word that anyone who has questions about voting or who experiences or witnesses any problems with voting (including voter intimidation, voter suppression, uninformed poll workers, etc.) can call or text the Election Protection hotline: 866-687-8683. (More info here.) If a problem is not resolved at your polling place, also report it to your county elections office/administrator. If it’s a significant or widespread problem, you could also report it to your Secretary of State’s elections division, your local or state Democratic Party, the DOJ (at civilrights.justice.gov, or 1-800-253-3931) and/or to local news outlets. People whose names are missing from voter registration list should demand to get a “provisional ballot” at the polls and then follow up to make sure that it will be counted. In some states, you can register to vote on Election Day (and/or during Early Voting) in person, at your polling place.

 

Other related posts:

 

#VoteReady #GOTV #VotingMatters #ClimateVoter #YouthVote #VoteLikeYourLifeDependsOnIt #WomensLivesMatter #DemocracyMatters #DemocracyIsOnTheBallot

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May 9, 2024
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Goldman Prize Winners, 2024

The Goldman Environmental Prize is the world’s largest and most prestigious annual award for grassroots environmentalists. Many people refer to it as the “green Nobel.” Goldman Prize winners are models of courage, and their stories are powerful and truly inspiring. “The Prize recognizes individuals for sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk. Each winner receives a financial award. The Goldman Prize views ‘grassroots’ leaders as those involved in local efforts, where positive change is created through community or citizen participation in the issues that affect them. Through recognizing these individual leaders, the Prize seeks to inspire other ordinary people to take extraordinary actions to protect the natural world.” Over the 35 years that the Prize has been awarded, there have been more than 220 recipients of the prize.

This year’s prize recipients (representing each of the six inhabited continental regions of the world) are:

  • Andrea Vidaurre—USA: “Andrea Vidaurre’s grassroots leadership persuaded the California Air Resources Board to adopt, in the spring of 2023, two historic transportation regulations that significantly limit trucking and rail emissions. The new regulations—the In-Use Locomotive Rule and the California Advanced Clean Fleets Rule—include the nation’s first emission rule for trains and a path to 100% zero emissions for freight truck sales by 2036. The groundbreaking regulations—a product of Andrea’s policy work and community organizing—will substantially improve air quality for millions of Californians while accelerating the country’s transition to zero-emission vehicles.” (Support/follow: The People’s Collective for Environmental Justice, and Moving Forward Network)
  • Marcel Gomes—Brazil: “Marcel Gomes coordinated a complex, international campaign that directly linked beef from JBS, the world’s largest meatpacking company, to illegal deforestation in Brazil’s most threatened ecosystems. Armed with detailed evidence from his breakthrough investigative report, Marcel and Repórter Brasil worked with partners to pressure global retailers to stop selling the illegally sourced meat, leading six major European supermarket chains in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom to indefinitely halt the sale of JBS products in December 2021.” (Support/follow: Mighty Earth, AidEnvironment, Environmental Investigation Agency, and Repórter Brazil; and please sign this petition.)
  • Teresa Vicente—Spain: “Teresa Vicente led a historic, grassroots campaign to save the Mar Menor ecosystem—Europe’s largest saltwater lagoon—from collapse, resulting in the passage of a new law in September 2022 granting the lagoon unique legal rights. Considered to be the most important saltwater coastal lagoon in the western Mediterranean, the once pristine waters of the Mar Menor had become polluted due to mining, rampant development of urban and tourist infrastructure, and, in recent years, intensive agriculture and livestock farming.”
  • Alok Shukla—India: “Alok Shukla led a successful community campaign that saved 445,000 acres of biodiversity-rich forests from 21 planned coal mines in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh. In July 2022, the government canceled the 21 proposed coal mines in Hasdeo Aranya, whose pristine forests—popularly known as the lungs of Chhattisgarh—are one of the largest intact forest areas in India.” (On Twitter, follow @SHasdeo and @CBARaipur)
  • Murrawah Maroochy Johnson—Australia: “Murrawah Maroochy Johnson blocked development of the Waratah coal mine, which would have accelerated climate change in Queensland, destroyed the nearly 20,000-acre Bimblebox Nature Refuge, added 1.58 billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere over its lifetime, and threatened Indigenous rights and culture. Murrawah’s case, which overcame a 2023 appeal, set a precedent that enables other First Nations people to challenge coal projects by linking climate change to human and Indigenous rights.” (Support/follow: Youth Verdict)

Click on each recipient’s name to read a longer profile—or watch a brief video—about their remarkable efforts and achievements.

Posts on Goldman Prize winners from previous years:

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April 29, 2024
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