There are two distinct approaches to viral marketing when it comes to Earth Day. In the past, the holiday has been a celebration of the natural beauty surrounding us with footnotes of service and conservation. Now, the balance is inverted with our timelines flashing 10 examples of climate change and suffering for every pristine landscape or baby seal.
Both accomplish some level of raising awareness and appreciation for our deteriorating natural resources, but they lack an important element of activism: lasting impact. There is still a struggle to maintain interest in the cause past the holiday itself.
But we can fix that in a couple of ways, most effectively by each making small contributions instead of waiting for some gray-moraled tech billionaire to invent the silver bullet for our problems.
Making these small changes can start with the actions we take on Earth Day — it is just far more important that they have longer lasting effects. If we are all committed to bettering our planet only one day a year, the 364:1 average result doesn’t exactly bode well for us.
Jonah Baker | Argonaut
Here are a few ways that anyone can take their online Earth Day activism to the next level and make real impacts throughout the year.
The best way to become informed: @ClimateDesk
There are hundreds of news networks. But there are dozens dedicated strictly to climate news. Climate Desk is the best conglomeration of the climate-focused news that matters, allowing concerned Earthlings to avoid following a dozen different outlets with scopes that are either too big or too focused to include what matters.
Prior to any serious action regarding something as serious as our planet’s future, it is imperative to know as much as possible. Climate Desk’s bio reads, “A journalistic collaboration dedicated to exploring the impact—human, environmental, economic, political—of a changing climate,” and the content they curate is a great start toward making a real difference.
A diet change we can all agree on: Managing food waste
Too often, it seems getting involved in climate action means making a drastic lifestyle change or labeling yourself as an enemy of the people.
We don’t all have to go vegan right now, but managing our food waste is something that just about everyone can agree on. This encapsulates a few different smaller approaches like meal planning, composting, and embracing more fruits and vegetables that are naturally packaged. Global food waste is responsible for 3.3 billion tons of CO2, and it is something college students in particular can address in their lives.
For those living in off-campus apartments, planning the week’s meals in advance can prevent unplanned expenditures that create more waste while usually being less healthy and more expensive. Programs like the Sustainability Center on campus also offer tutorials on Earth-conscious cooking and eating for students in any living situation, so there is really no excuse to make some sort of lifestyle change in limiting food waste.
Small action, big impact: Vote consciously and often
Like I said at the beginning, our goals should not be to make over-dramatic changes that solve everything. As students, we don’t always have the greatest ability to make change outside of our own small circles, but our politicians sure as hell do. Climate change is an issue affecting our safety, businesses and quality of life, just to name a few. We simply have no choice but to weigh candidates’ stances on climate change when deciding whether or not we want them to affect our country’s future from an elected office.
This can be done in concert with keeping up with climate-related news. Often, we only hear about the worst offenders like interior secretary Ryan Zinke, so it can take extra effort to find those who are making positive waves. Voting records, fundraising origins and actions prior to public service can all inform us as to whether or not a candidate is informed and capable of staying strong on climate issues.
And of course, most importantly, we each have to actually vote. Ranting about how important it is to participate in our democracy could take up an entire separate column, but there really isn’t time for that when there’s work to be done in stopping our self-inflicted demise.
Jonah Baker can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @jonahpbaker