Activist Starter Kit:

Here are some ways you can get started making a difference today.

1.    Sign up your classmates on a petition to auto makers asking them to make fuel efficient. [link to petition]

2.    Forward an important article to those on your e-mail list. If you forward an article to ten people and then they forward it to their ten friends, the thing you know, you have seriously helped to get the word out and influenced public opinion along the way.

3.    Make small changes in your home and lifestyle:

1. •Donate DVDs to a school after you watch them; pass your magazines to a friend.
   

2. •Use compact, florescent light bulbs and turn off lights and unplug computers, IPODs, and chargers from the wall when not using.
   

3. •Recycle, recycle, recycle! And re-use everything – paper clips, envelopes, both sides of paper.
   

4. •Bring a garment bag to the drycleaners so your clean clothes don’t have to be wrapped in plastic.
   

5. •Use recyled postconsumer toilet paper. If every household replaced just one regular role of toilet paper with recycled postconsumer paper, 424,000 trees would still be standing.
   

6. •Call companies and get your name off their mailing lists (use their websites instead) or ask them to print their catalogs on recycled postconsumer paper.
   

7. •Use coffee mugs and glasses instead of paper and plastic cups.
   

8. •Use re-usable coffee filters.
   

4.    Get mad. Write to your local and national elected officials to ask them where they stand on global warming and let them know what initiatives you are supporting (or not!).  Only support politicians who will do something to reduce our country’s emissions. (Check their environmental ratings through the League of Conservation Voters which tracks how every member of Congress votes on every environmental issue. http://www.lcv.org)

Links:

Sample letter to elected officials [link]

Contact local and national elected officials

Massachusetts:

•Massachusetts state legislators by city and town: http://www.mass.gov/legis/citytown.htm

•Massachusetts State Government:  http://www.mass.gov

•Boston City Council: http://www.cityofboston.gov/citycouncil/pdfs/07_elected_officials.pdf

Federal Government:

•US Senate: http://www.senate.gov

•US House of Representatives:  http://www.house.gov

5.Visit these websites for more information and important ways you can get involved:

•www.stopglobalwarming.org 

There is no more important cause than the call to action to save our planet. This is a movement about change, as individuals, as a country, and as a global community. We are all contributors to global warming and we all need to be part of the solution. Join the 652,059 supporters of the Stop Global Warming Virtual March, and become part of the movement to demand solutions to global warming now.

•http://beattheheat.nrdc.org/

Click on the map and find out what people like you are doing to fight global warming. Lots of great information and links to other sites too.

•www.GlobalGreen.org

Simple Climate Solutions Start Here: Green Cars, Clean Energy, and more

•http://www.newenglandclimate.org 

In August 2001 the New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers (NEG/ECP) announced the Climate Change Action Plan, which commits the region to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2010, 10% below 1990 levels by 2020 and by 75-85% in the long term.  Read and support the action plan.