international

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 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 breaks, 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 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, poor/low-income people, the disabled or elderly, 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.
  4. 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.)
  5. 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, and blankets. You could also give money, food, and needed items directly to unhoused people.
  6. 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.
  7. Patronize/support small, local businesses, worker-owned businesses/cooperatives (coops), local farms/farmers and farmer’s markets.
  8. 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 have a bank account with one of the large, national banks (especially Wells Fargo, Citi, Chase, or Bank of America), please move your money to a local credit union (or a recommended community bank that doesn’t gouge its own members, or a green bank).
  3. To stop feeding the beast, opt out of shopping at (i.e., giving your money to) predatory, greedy, exploitative corporations (e.g., Walmart, Amazon, and most other large, multinational companies) whenever possible. Instead, try to support small, local businesses, and B Corps-certified or benefit corporations that are socially and environmentally responsible and good to their employees .
  4. 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 farm stands and farmer’s markets.
  5. Subscribe to and share information from media outlets that consistently produce solid, independent journalism, e.g., ProPublica, Courier Newsroom, The Guardian, Scientific American, Mongabay, Mother Jones, The Tennessee Holler, Press Forward, local newspapers and public radio stations, NPR, PBS, etc.
  6. If you are financially secure, consider using some of your money to donate to Land Trusts or to 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.
  7. 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.
  8. Implement online/digital privacy and security recommendations, including these and others published by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) or by WIRED.
  9. 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, as well as 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.

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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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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Climate Organizations and Resources: A Directory

The climate movement has been growing much larger and building power in recent years. The vast majority of people in the U.S. and in the world are concerned about the climate and want to see more climate action. And there’s no shortage of climate-focused organizations. But we do need more people who’ve been sitting on the sidelines to join the existing efforts and turn their climate concern into action, so we can reach a critical mass. There is strength in numbers and in collective action.

strength in numbers

You don’t have to identify as an “activist” to amplify, support, or participate in the work of climate organizations, and you don’t need to wait for an invitation to join or to get involved—but if you’d like one, consider this your cordial, official invitation! All of us in the climate movement welcome you!

If you aren’t already familiar with a bunch of climate organizations, check out the list below. I recommend following at least a few of these climate organizations online (e.g., on social media) to get to know what they’re about and to get a sense of which ones have an approach or a tone that resonates with you the most. Then sign up to join—or get on the mailing list of—one or more of them. And start sharing their posts and actions with others in your social network.

This list of climate organizations is fairly comprehensive but it is not exhaustive. Most of the following groups are based in the U.S. and have a national or international scope, and most are non-profits. Some of these groups have regional or local chapters. (As I learn about other national/international groups over time, I will be adding more to this list.) Many other climate organizations exist, including local, grassroots groups and projects, all over the world. If you can’t find a local group, chapter, or committee in your town, you could start an informal climate group or project in your community, neighborhood, workplace, school, or religious congregation.

Note: In this first list, below, the organizations that are in bold type are the groups that I am most familiar with and feel most comfortable recommending, but all of these organizations have an important role to play. Are you familiar with some of these?

These are organizations for people in particular professions or demographics:

There are also a number of faith-based (religious) climate groups.

Also, many broad-based environmental organizations include climate issues among the spectrum of environmental issues they work on. After all, climate change affects and is affected by every other environmental (and social) issue.

And many other types of environmental organizations with a specific focus (e.g., environmental justice, youth/young people, health, land/forest conservation, animal/species protection, etc.) often also recognize and address climate impacts in their work.

If you would like assistance with identifying a few organizations that are the best fit for your particular interests or your preferred organizational strategies/approaches (e.g., legal, legislative/lobbying, direct action, education/awareness building, etc.), I’m a climate advisor and I can assist you with that.

If you would like to recommend a climate organization that isn’t on this list, please mention it in the Comments!

 

Climate Resources

The following are information sources—including some media/news sites—that provide science-based, fact-based information on the climate crisis and climate solutions. Most of these are based in the U.S.  These sites can help you get more informed or help you educate others about climate issues:

For other environmental and general news sources, see our post on Reputable and Fact-Based News and Information Sources.

For other types of climate resources, also see our post on Books, Films and TV, and TED Talks.

Other relevant posts:

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February 27, 2024
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Goldman Prize Winners, 2023

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 34 years that the Prize has been awarded, there have been more than 215 recipients of the prize.

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

  • Diane Wilson—Texas, USA: “In December 2019, Diane Wilson won a landmark case against Formosa Plastics, one of the world’s largest petrochemical companies, for the illegal dumping of toxic plastic waste on Texas’ Gulf Coast. The $50 million settlement is the largest award in a citizen suit against an industrial polluter in the history of the US Clean Water Act. As a part of the settlement, Formosa Plastics agreed to reach ‘zero-discharge’ of plastic waste from its Point Comfort factory, pay penalties until discharges cease, and fund remediation of affected local wetlands, beaches, and waterways.” (Support/follow: San Antonio Bay Waterkeeper)
  • Alessandra Korap Munduruku—Brazil: “Alessandra Korap Munduruku organized community efforts to stop mining development by British mining company Anglo American in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest. In May 2021, the company formally committed to withdraw 27 approved research applications to mine inside Indigenous territories, including the Sawré Muybu Indigenous Territory, which contains more than 400,000 acres of rainforest. The decision protects a critically threatened area of the Amazon—the world’s largest rainforest and a globally significant carbon sink—from further mining and deforestation.” (Support/follow: Associação Indígena PARIRI, APIB, Amazon Watch, COIAB, and sign this letter.)
  • Tero Mustonen—Finland: “Since April 2018, Tero Mustonen led the restoration of 62 severely degraded former industrial peat mining and forestry sites throughout Finland—totaling 86,000 acres—and transformed them into productive, biodiverse wetlands and habitats. Rich in organic matter, peatlands are highly effective carbon sinks; according to the IUCN, peatlands are the largest natural carbon stores on Earth. Roughly one-third of Finland’s surface area is made up of peatlands.” (Support/follow: Snowchange Cooperative and Global Peatlands Initiative)
  • Delima Silalahi—Indonesia: “Delima Silalahi led a campaign to secure legal stewardship of 17,824 acres of tropical forest land for six Indigenous communities in North Sumatra. Her community’s activism reclaimed this territory from a pulp and paper company that had partially converted it into a monoculture, non-native, industrial eucalyptus plantation. The six communities have begun restoring the forests, creating valuable carbon sinks of biodiverse Indonesian tropical forest.” (More here; and support/follow the Rainforest Action Network (RAN).)
  • Chilekwa Mumba—Zambia: “Alarmed by the pollution produced by the Konkola Copper Mines operation in the Copperbelt Province of Zambia, Chilekwa Mumba organized a lawsuit to hold the mine’s parent company, Vedanta Resources, responsible. Chilekwa’s victory in the UK Supreme Court set a legal precedent—it was the first time an English court ruled that a British company could be held liable for the environmental damage caused by subsidiary-run operations in another country. This precedent has since been applied to hold Shell Global—one of the world’s 10 largest corporations by revenue—liable for its pollution in Nigeria.” (See Conservation Lower Zambezi and sign their petition.)
  • Zafer Kizilkaya—Turkey: “In collaboration with local fishing cooperatives and Turkish authorities, Zafer Kizilkaya expanded Turkey’s network of marine protected areas (MPAs) along 310 miles of the Mediterranean coast. The newly designated areas were approved by the Turkish government in August 2020 and include an expansion of the MPA network by 135 square miles (350 sq. km) of no trawling/no purse seine, and an additional 27 square miles (70 sq. km) of no fishing zones. Turkey’s marine ecosystem has been severely degraded by overfishing, illegal fishing, tourism development, and the effects of climate change—and these protected areas help mitigate these challenges.” (Support/follow: Mediterranean Conservation Society)

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

Here’s the video about Diane Wilson:

 

Posts on Goldman Prize winners from previous years:

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April 24, 2023
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Law Groups and Legal Frameworks for the Common Good

This is a listing of some legal organizations that I recommend following, learning more about, and potentially supporting. They all use the law to try to serve and support the common good in various ways: to protect humans and human rights, civil rights, and civil liberties; to protect animals and the rights of non-human species; and/or to protect nature, our shared environment, and the livability of our planet.

Many human/societal/commercial/industrial activities and practices that are considered “business as usual” are not only unjust, but are truly ecocidal, genocidal, and collectively suicidal, and really ought to be legally deemed (and prosecuted as) Crimes Against Humanity and the planet. Currently, only some of these existential wrongs can be addressed and enforced through legal avenues. While the law has typically focused on the rights of humans (and human entities, such as companies or organizations), efforts have been ramping up to also establish/enact and secure the Rights of Nature (including rivers, etc.) as well as Non-Human Rights for other species.

In recent years, some countries have amended their constitutions, enacted laws, or issued court decisions recognizing the legal rights of nature. Those countries include: Ecuador, New Zealand, Bolivia, Panama, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, and Bangladesh. And recently, the UN formally declared that access to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is a universal human right. However, this is a non-binding resolution; the hope is that it will help spur countries to improve their environmental laws and the implementation and enforcement of those laws.

Environmental law/rights

Animal rights

Also see: our Twitter list on Animal rights and protection; and our related post: Animal Protection, Rescue, and Advocacy Organizations

Human/civil/constitutional rights
(including voting rights, bodily autonomy, reproductive rights, etc.)

For additional organizations and legal experts, see our Twitter lists on:

 

Related posts: Posts related to Democracy, Elections, Voting, and Social Change

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August 2, 2022
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Goldman Prize Winners, 2022

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 33 years that the Prize has been awarded, there have been more than 200 recipients of the prize.

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

  • Nalleli Cobo—Los Angeles, CA, USA: “Nalleli Cobo led a coalition to permanently shut down a toxic oil-drilling site in her community in March 2020, at the age of 19—an oil site that caused serious health issues for her and others. Her continued organizing against urban oil extraction has now yielded major policy movement within both the Los Angeles City Council and Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, which voted unanimously to ban new oil exploration and to phase out existing sites.” (Support/follow: STAND – L.A.)
  • Alexandra Narvaez and Alex Lucitante—Ecuador: “Alex Lucitante and Alexandra Narvaez spearheaded an Indigenous movement to protect their people’s ancestral territory from gold mining. Their leadership resulted in a historic legal victory in October 2018, when Ecuador’s courts canceled 52 gold mining concessions, which were illegally granted without the consent of their Cofán community. The community’s legal success protects 79,000 acres of pristine, biodiverse rainforest in the headwaters of Ecuador’s Aguarico River, which is sacred to the Cofán.” (Support/follow: Alianza Ceibo and Amazon Frontlines)
  • Chima Williams—Nigeria: “In the aftermath of disastrous oil spills in Nigeria, environmental lawyer Chima Williams worked with two communities to hold Royal Dutch Shell accountable for the resultant widespread environmental damage. On January 29, 2021, the Court of Appeal of the Hague ruled that not only was Royal Dutch Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary responsible for the oil spills, but, as parent company, Royal Dutch Shell also had an obligation to prevent the spills. This is the first time a Dutch transnational corporation has been held accountable for the violations of its subsidiary in another country, opening Shell to legal action from communities across Nigeria devastated by the company’s disregard for environmental safety.” (Support/follow: Environmental Rights Action / Friends of the Earth Nigeria)
  • Marjan Minnesma—The Netherlands: “In a groundbreaking victory, Marjan Minnesma leveraged public input and a unique legal strategy to secure a successful ruling against the Dutch government, requiring it to enact specific preventive measures against climate change. In December 2019, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled that the government had a legal obligation to protect its citizens from climate change and ordered it, by the end of 2020, to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 25% below 1990 levels. The Netherlands’ Supreme Court decision marks the first time that citizens succeeded in holding their government accountable for its failure to protect them from climate change.” (Support/follow: Dutch Urgenda Foundation)
  • Niwat Roykaew—Thailand: “In February 2020, Niwat Roykaew and the Mekong community’s advocacy resulted in the termination of the China-led Upper Mekong River rapids blasting project, which would have destroyed 248 miles of the Mekong to deepen navigation channels for Chinese cargo ships traveling downstream. Flowing 3,000 miles from the mountains of Tibet before draining to the South China Sea, the biodiversity-rich Mekong River’s fisheries, tributaries, wetlands, and floodplains are a vital lifeline for more than 65 million people. This is the first time the Thai government has canceled a transboundary project because of the environmental destruction it would cause.” (Support/follow: Mekong School)
  • Julien Vincent—Australia: “Julien Vincent led a successful grassroots campaign to defund coal in Australia, a major coal exporter, culminating in commitments from the nation’s four largest banks to end funding for coal projects by 2030. Because of Julien’s activism, Australia’s major insurance companies have also agreed to cease underwriting new coal projects. His organizing has produced a challenging financial landscape for the Australian coal industry, a significant step toward reducing fossil fuels that hasten climate change.” (Support/follow: Market Forces)

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

Here’s the video about Nalleli Cobo:

 

Posts on Goldman Prize winners from previous years:

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May 25, 2022
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On Current, Converging Crises

Over the past 10-15 years, it’s felt like new, large-scale crises emerge almost every day. It’s hard to focus on or prioritize any one issue, as so many issues are of dire importance.

I wish we could live in a world without any traumatic crises or catastrophes. But given that that isn’t a realistic option: I wish we could focus almost all of our attention and efforts on climate action and environmental protection right now, since climate breakdown (and biodiversity loss) is an urgent and worsening crisis (with new climate-related disasters occurring around the world every week) and it requires a bold and immediate response. But this crisis keeps getting overshadowed and crowded out by other real crises and interconnected, existential threats: from the ongoing and ever-morphing COVID-19 pandemic (and other threats to public health), to the ongoing struggle between democracy/human rights vs. authoritarianism, extremism, and political violence (abroad and at home), to increasing attacks on women’s rights, civil rights, and voting rights in the United States, to war and violence—and all of its attendant issues, including senseless death, destruction, brutality, trauma, misery, and suffering; war crimes, humanitarian crises, mass migration of refugees, nuclear security/safety risks (from threats of nuclear strikes to potentially catastrophic damage to active and inactive nuclear reactors/radioactive waste), environmental contamination (crimes against humanity and nature) and animal suffering, oil and gas supply/dependence, food supply risks, and the resulting economic effects. And this, of course, is only a partial list of significant current issues, the vast majority of which are human-caused.

None of us gets to choose which era we’re born into or what types of historical events and cataclysms we have to live through. But we should all try to rise to the moment we’re in and push for shifts in a more positive direction.

We all have so many personal responsibilities and daily struggles and stressors of our own that it can be very hard to take in what’s going on in other people’s lives and in other parts of the world. Many people turn away because they are already overwhelmed and are in survival mode, and simply can’t cope with or absorb any more sad or scary news or more problems that seem intractable; we all go through certain periods of our lives, or parts of our days, when our own problems (or our families’) are all (or more than) we can handle. Taking on the weight of the world can be crushing. Almost none of us are unscathed or truly OK these days, as most of us are facing numerous challenges at societal and individual levels. It’s important to “put your own oxygen mask on first, before helping others with theirs” because you can’t help others unless you are alive, relatively sane and healthy, and able to function. But whenever we do have the capacity, we should strive to be compassionate, stay aware of what is going on outside of our immediate lives and circumstances, and try to make a difference whenever and wherever we can, however small our efforts may seem, on whatever specific issue(s) we feel we can make an impact on. Helping others (and humanity at large) also gives our own lives a greater sense of meaning and purpose.

“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

These are some of The Green Spotlight’s blog posts that are related to current issues:

Posts Related to Democracy and Social Change 

Climate and Energy-Related Solutions, Tips, and Resources

COVID and Long COVID: Important Facts and New Findings [NEW]

COVID (and Economic Crisis) Response and Relief

Tips for Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Response

Wildfire Prevention and Risk Reduction

Resilience: Disaster-Resistant and Adaptive Design and Planning

Animal Protection, Rescue, and Advocacy

Wisdom from Hope in the Dark

Great Quotations on Action, Activism, and Change

There are countless organizations doing important and noble work to address many of the issues mentioned above. It’s hard for me to narrow down a list of only a few to highlight. But I will try. Below are just a few groups that address big, cross-cutting issues. Because so many of humanity’s issues and crises intersect and spring from the same or similar causes or contributors, it’s helpful to use systems thinking to see the big picture, connect the dots, and synthesize messages and actions; doing so can enable us to address multiple problems at once (to “multi-solve”). While the following are national and international organizations that have a broad scope, more local/regional, decentralized, grassroots groups and efforts are also extremely important and necessary, and big groups should partner up with small and local groups. There are just way too many grassroots groups in every area of the world to attempt to list them here.

As for Russia’s war on Ukraine (and the many terrible consequences of it), here are a few things you can do to help or to show solidarity with Ukraine (as well as greater Europe, other countries facing conflicts, and our entire, interconnected world):

  1. Support Global Giving’s Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund, other humanitarian aid and disaster response groups, refugee assistance groups, the Clean Futures Fund, or other organizations in the region.
  2. Reduce your use of oil and gas, e.g. by flying less (or not at all), driving less, getting an electric or non-gas-guzzling car (or electric bicycle), supporting renewable energy (via your utility, city, and state), using solar power, switching from gas to electric furnaces and electric/induction stoves (and electric leaf blowers and mowers), getting a heat pump, not heating or cooling your home as much, etc.
  3. Lobby/educate against the use (and development) of nuclear power and nuclear weapons, locally, nationally, and globally. Support: the immediate decommissioning of existing nuclear plants and neutralization of nuclear materials, no-first-use nuke policies, nuclear disarmament and arms reduction policies, uranium mining bans, etc.
  4. Support and amplify pro-democracy, anti-authoritarian groups and efforts, as well as pro-peace, anti-war groups and efforts.
  5. Reduce your consumption of wheat/grain-based products, and never waste food. (Ukraine is an agricultural “bread basket” of the world, and its ability to grow grains and other foods has been severely impacted by the war, affecting the food supply and food prices everywhere.) If you have a little space and a little time, grow some food plants on your land/yard or windowsills—ideally enough that you can share some with others. Support local organic farmers and small farms, as well food banks/pantries, gleaning groups, and food security and hunger organizations, locally and globally.
  6. Plant some sunflowers (organic seeds) this spring or summer.
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March 31, 2022
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Best for the World B Corporations, 2021

More than 4,088 businesses around the world—from more than 77 countries and 153 industries—have now become certified as B Corporations, as of September 2021.  (Over the last two years, despite the pandemic, more than 1,000 companies became B Corps.) “B Corps are for-profit companies certified by the nonprofit B Lab to meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.” The B Impact Assessment gives companies (which can be product or service companies) a score based on how they perform on metrics for impact on: their communities, the environment, workers, customers, and internal governance.

B Corporations provide undeniable proof that companies do not need to be greedy, exploitative, polluting, or extractive / resource-intensive (as far too many corporations are these days) in order to be profitable and successful. By showing how business can be used as “a force for good” in society, B Corps provide an antidote to the model of predatory capitalism that has become more or less accepted as the status quo in many countries, including the United States.

2021’s Best for the World ratings highlight the hundreds of businesses that have scored in the top 5 percent of all Certified B Corporations on the assessment, categorized within the five impact areas and within their corresponding size group (i.e., number of employees). Again, the five impact areas are: Environment, Community, Workers, Customers, and Governance.

Click here for more information and to see some stories and profiles of the Best for the World honorees.

And click here to find other B Corps, including ones based in your region. (You can search the directory by location, name, industry, or keyword.)

A few of the largest or most well-known B Corporations are: Patagonia, Seventh Generation, Ecover, Method, Ben & Jerry’s, Earthbound Farm, Eileen Fisher, Athleta, Danone, Natura, and New Belgium Brewing Co. And a few other B Corps that I like to highlight include: Alter Eco, Dr. Bronner’s, W.S. Badger Co., Avocado, Pela, Beneficial State Bank, New Resource Bank, and RSF Capital Management.

Any company can take the B Impact Assessment, a free and confidential tool that allows you to start to “measure what matters” and to compare your company’s practices with others.

 

Related posts:

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September 30, 2021
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