Greenseniors

How To...Choose Green Events for Senior Organizations

Recently Green Seniors was contacted by a volunteer working with a local community council in New York, USA.  She was looking for ideas for a "greening initiative" to educate the community about the importance of conservation and recycling.  Greengranny replied immediately with ideas off the top of her head.  Since these requests are fairly frequent, we decided to organize our thoughts and share a set of ideas with everyone. 

Volunteers (of any age) who work with communities that include seniors, or paid staff who work with senior residential organizations of all kinds, this post is for you.

 

Have Fork Will Travel

Let's begin with a real-life example, Denise D'Anne, pictured above with her take-away plate that cost $1. She aptly titled the photo "Have Fork Will Travel" even though she rarely drives her car out of concern for the environment.  Denise wrote in,

I am a senior and am on the Board of Directors of a Senior Organization.  I see many areas in which seniors can help the planet for the benefit of their children and grandchildren.  For instance, senior centers provide lunches for seniors and almost all use plastic and paper material.  I use a covered take away plate and fork leaving no throwaway material.   

Little things mean a lot especially when you times it times millions.

Denise didn't stop with her personal action, but actively helps others to change.  She received an award for her environmental work that you can view here, along with her speech.

General Strategies for "Going Green" Actions

Don't underestimate your senior clients.  Giving up the use of a disposable item here and there matters in the sense that it all matters--but when it comes to going green, be ambitious.  Dream big dreams.  If your senior group becomes determined to pursue a challenging goal, it will excite others in the community.  It will be newsworthy.  Before long, many additional people, and the resources they bring along, can be applied to the mission. The whole community can change for the better. (See How To... Build Communities on this website.)

For example, one of the most valuable disposable items in America is the aluminum beverage can.  It takes the mining of ore plus a lot of energy to manufacture the can, and unlike many other "recycled" items, the returned cans actually are made into other products.  However, one estimate said that half of all aluminum cans in the USA end up in landfills from which they are never reclaimed. 

Now, your senior group could take actions on a number of levels. They could decide to stop buying beverages in aluminum cans.  They could take steps to insure that any cans used by their group are turned in for recycling.  Or they could choose to launch a campaign in their larger community to bring awareness of the wasted energy and resources from the use of aluminum beverage cans. The same strategic approach could apply to bottled water, an increasingly "hot" topic lately.  Don't let your vision for change end at the boundaries of your senior group.  Empower them to act more broadly, and they will reap the benefit while giving something of value to the larger community.

The List of Going-Green Actions For and By Seniors

The list of ideas is kept short on purpose to stimulate your own thinking.  Please, use the Comment feature of the blog to send in your own ideas for going green activties, events, and campaigns by and for seniors.

1. Tackle the problems connected with one shared experience of the group, such as the communal meal.  Brainstorm with the group, evaluate suggestions, bring recommendations to the attention of management, and work together to get changes made.  With that mission accomplished, choose another goal that can be addressed with the same strategy, perhaps one that involves the larger community. 

2. Hold an event that helps reuse items.  The classic is the "rummage sale" as it was called when I was a child.  In the Middle West it's called a garage sale. In the American West it's called a Swap Meet.  But you can be more creative.  One Senior Center group collected donations of jewelry for several months and cleaned and repaired the items.  Then they held a publicized sale open to the community, with the items nicely displayed.  Such activities not only help the senior center but they help minimize the purchase of new goods.  Many venues are needed for passing items from those who no longer need them to those who do.  Our culture needs to value vintage and second-hand items more than things that are new and trendy, and seniors are naturals at doing this.

3. Establish a group to look into energy usage including transportation.  Does the senior organization provide bus transportation, and if so, it is fully utilized?  Does electricity come from coal fired or natural gas power plants, and if it does, can greener energy be obtained?  Are prudent energy conservation measures in place for the heating and cooling of the Senior Center building or residential facility?   Residents can initiate an energy audit--these are usually provided at no cost by the local energy utility, or at least, directions for self-audits.

Remember, please comment with activities you have thought up or have tried.

How To...Organize Marches And Rallies

Have you ever taken part in a street demonstration of any kind?  Few of us have.  Perhaps when you were much younger, you watched the civil rights marches or peace demonstrations of past decades on TV and wished you were out there too.  Will you ever find yourself taking part in a march or rally for the environment, or even organizing one?

The Role of Marches and Rallies in Communities and Nations

Although symbolic, marches and rallies are a first step in changing behavior and cultural values that can help the nations of the world to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the degree necessary to avoid the worst consequences of global warming.  The need to publicize issues surrounding global warming and environmental degradation is only going to grow. 

Last year in the United States, Step It Up rallies around the nation told Congress “Reduce carbon 80 percent by 2050.”  The idea was to achieve publicity and raise awareness. At the community level, rallies may show support for local sustainable energy industries and/or objection to new coal power plants or other local proposals that only increase greenhouse gas emissions. 

As the focus moves from awareness of global warming to changes that actually reduce carbon emissions, you can be sure that vested interests will fight tooth and nail to stop them.  The entire community must serve as watchdog and referee, and that includes you and me.  There will be times when the direct actions available to citizens in free societies are needed to counter “the powers that be” and the status quo.   

Until the movement of carbon through a series of interlinked industrial, farming, and cultural practices is better understood, we’ll be playing “whack-a-mole.”  Bash carbon emissions down in one place and they pop up someplace else.  People will try to continue business as usual for themselves and their livelihoods and let some other group bear the burden of rapidly reducing emissions.   When Governor Bill Richardson was running for president of the United States, I heard him use the “S” word – sacrifice.  This is rare to hear from public figures.  Global warming means sacrifice is inevitable.   If everyone bears their share, it need not spoil the joy of living life.  In fact, examining what truly makes us happy could increase our satisfaction in life. 

Can Rallies and Marches Change Anything?

In recent years, marches, rallies, and strong direct action in concert have shown that people of the world can still change government and corporate policies dramatically.  For example, following World Bank advice, in 1999 Bolivia granted a 40 year privatization lease to a subsidiary of the Bechtel Corporation, giving it control over the water on which more than half a million people survive.  The justification was to bring in foreign capital to build a modern water system for the area.  Immediately the company doubled and tripled water rates for some of South America's poorest families.  People were denied access to all sources of water by the government lease, including being denied the right to collect rainwater, and yet they could not afford to buy it without going hungry.  In 2000, protests became widespread and eventually the Bolivian government ended its deal with Bechtel.  Development of the region’s water system was placed in the hands of local people.   

Starting in 2004, demonstrations took place at Coca-Cola bottling plants throughout India.  It takes nine liters of drinking quality water to make one liter of Coke.  Coca-Cola, like many other multinationals, locates large deep aquifers where it wishes to expand business, buys the land, builds its factory, and begins pumping out the water.  The water table falls and local wells supplying the population dry up.  Following massive global pressure and the constant presence of the locals at the plants, Coca-Cola is now scaling back its extraction.  Unfortunately, this kind of predation upon local water supplies is widespread.

These examples may seem far-fetched in developed nations, but as water sources diminish and the demand for water as a commodity rises, people in these nations too are going to find their water being sold out from under them.  Irrigated crops? Mining operations?  Ethanol plants? Water resources are being over committed, often by well-meaning local authorities trying to bring more jobs and financial prosperity to their residents. 

“Water Wars” will be the immediate crises that come from the combined effects of unrestrained development, water sources being sold to the highest bidder, and climate change.  Where only a small portion of the US population joined the Step It Up rallies for a goal involving the year 2050, everyone who loses access to an essential for life will not hesitate to take to the streets and demand change.  Better we should rally BEFORE the situation deteriorates to that degree.

Green Seniors, the time has come for you to be aware of using marches and rallies as a tool for change.  It belongs in the toolkit for environmental action.

New Handbook for Community Marches and Rallies

The Step It Up team has written a book “Fight Global Warming Now—The Handbook for Taking Action in Your Community” (Holt Paperbacks, 2007 by Bill McKibben), which puts their experiences and lessons learned on paper to assist others in organizing rallies and fighting global warming. You can buy this book, but check your local public library first.

Below are some of the book’s key points.  Keep in mind that these points were developed for symbolic actions.  If your water is gone tomorrow and you know who took it, you will not need a handbook to tell you what to do.

* Take action. Do something. Get together with whomever you can and brainstorm. …Plan it, do it, learn from it, repeat.

* Don’t fret about structure.  Far more than we need new organizations, we need nimble, relevant, strategic, and often temporary groups of people who can come together to do what needs to be done at the moment….

* Emphasize openness.  Let people know what you’re up to, invite them in to help, make them leaders. Figure out what you can work together on, not what divides you.

* Have fun.  The best antidote for fear and powerlessness is joy.  If you need to have meetings, make them fun…if you can.  Joy should not be postponed until after we have conquered global warming; it’s precisely the fuel that will keep your passion burning for the long run.

Although “have fun” sounds trite to us at Green Seniors, we take it in the sense that pessimistic and unpleasant people rarely succeed in rallying the troops.  We would prefer the term “inspire,” for to unite people with purpose and meaning is a path to success.  The “S” word doesn’t scare us.  We seniors, especially the elders in our number, have experienced sacrifice and do not consider what passes for “sacrifice” today as doing justice to the concept. 

In Conclusion

Many more of us need to organize rallies and marches or other, more direct, actions on behalf of ourselves and the environment we depend upon for our survival; or to assist others in our communities in doing so.

The on-line technique used by Step It Up made it easy to set up local actions coordinated in a national framework.  However, there is no need to wait on a national group to launch a local rally.  The Handbook for Taking Action in Your Community gives tips on how to organize with little time and less money.   However, just by thinking it through, you can figure out how to take effective action on your own.  People of every age are continuing to build the movement.

How To...Build Communities

What is a community?  Communities are groups of people sharing common characteristics or interests.  The commonality could be living in a specific place — the City of Ames community — or membership in a group — the academic community.  A community can be defined as those having a common interest or goal — the highway safety community — and can even be a group of associated nations sharing common interests or heritage.  Membership in a community implies participation, cooperation, and mutual respect.  Given the availability of communications afforded by modern society, most of us belong to multiple communities and help build each of them.  In the general sense, however, our community is considered to be the place where we live and work.

Why is community building a goal of Green Seniors?  The vitality of our communities is central to our quality of life.  Now that we understand that our impact upon the land, sea, and atmosphere matters for our continued survival, communities are increasingly at the forefront of bringing about positive change.  Change doesn’t really occur until it happens locally.  A plan, a goal, or even a law is nothing until there is implementation locally.  Local acceptance is vital to regional and even global impact

Notice that many kinds of community are in some stage of taking action on global warming.  To mention some highlights:  Some religious communities are concerned about creation care and the impact of climate change on the poor and are altering their activities accordingly.  Some parts of the business community are becoming aware of energy usage by office buildings and of making greater use of “webinars” and other non-travel means of communication.  City governments are helping one another develop green buildings and fuel efficient vehicle fleets.  Retired people are volunteering to help weatherize the homes of low-income residents. In the USA, state governors are forming alliances with other states in the region to better implement emissions reductions.  No matter who you are or what you are capable of doing, there is a community needing your help to meet environmental challenges.

How can you get started?  The first place to look is your current community (or communities).  Are you a member of a civic group, church, club, sport, or other special interest group?  Are you a regular at the neighborhood potluck (where everyone brings a food item to share) or the weekly coffee meeting of fellow retirees?   Are you a part of the academic community as a student, teacher, or school administrator/governor?  Each type of community group has special ways to contribute to greenhouse gas reductions and other environmental improvements.  You don’t need to have the answers to begin discussing the problems and what your community might do to help.  In bringing these issues to the forefront, you take the first critical step in building communities…as they need to become. 

Don’t worry if you are the first one to bring the matter up.  You will find that others are thinking the same thing and are relieved to openly express their concerns and ideas.  Once you start talking to people in your various communities about climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, or about other forms of pollution, you will start learning from them just how many initiatives are already operating, and which ones you most want to join.  You’ll find courageous and creative people who have stepped out in front with new solutions and need your support.  You will also find that there are plenty of gaps.  You could be the perfect individual to call attention to an unnoticed detail and start plugging that hole in the dike. 

Here at Green Seniors we are frequently asked, “Do you know of any groups active in my area?” or “I want to do more about this — how should I get started?”  Many of our readers feel isolated, whether by aspects of health and advancing age, by no longer participating in the workforce, or by similar situations.  Many of the networks and organizations listed in the right-hand column of the Green Seniors blog have “people on the ground” and ways of finding out who is in your geographic area.  Not all networks are designed to bring you face-to-face with others, but they can still provide you with valuable information and support. Explore the sites to determine which ones may be helpful to you.  We are always keen to add more that you may discover.

Don’t expect to find many purely senior groups out there, but please do report back to us any that you find so that we can contact them and publicize their work on Green Seniors.  Meanwhile, do not hesitate to get acquainted with local all-age groups.  You are likely to find many seniors active in them already. 

One of the most amazing things happening today is the way “green” seniors are teaming up with young people such as student environmental activists to get results locally.  It isn’t anything deliberate – it’s more a matter of, when the call for help with environmental activism goes out, young people and seniors show up in the greatest numbers.  Think about that for a moment and it makes sense. 

Why wait?  Becoming active in environmental community building is one of the most rewarding things you will ever do.  Place comments to this post about your experiences good or bad, successful or not, or send an email to Green Granny:  Joyce@greengranny.org.

How To...Blow The Whistle

Think of the last company or organisation you worked for - not the small corner shop or family farm, but the big firm that employs more than a few dozen people and has a turnover of more than a million Dollars / Euros / Pounds / Yuan etc.  Most people in industrialised nations have worked for a company like this.

Do you feel loyal to that company?

What do you think mattered most to that company: money, people, the state of the planet?  Unless you worked for a particularly enlightened company then the bottom line would have been money - even if they told you otherwise. People usually come a poor second and, despite the rhetoric, the planet is just taken for granted. BP never went "beyond petroleum" - 95% of their income is from oil, and they were instrumental in the battle to open up the Alaskan wilderness for oil exploration. Ford and General Motors make vehicles that burn oil that heat the planet, and to make it worse campaigned for years against the science of climate change. Wherever you look companies are saying one thing, yet doing ten others.

Now, what would you have done if you had discovered something bad while you were working for that company - political corruption, toxic waste dumping, inhumane working conditions, unreported carbon emissions? In most countries, you would have risked losing your job, or worse. Many people take the risk and some get away with it, with striking results – some of the more well known ones are listed here but behind the headlines there are people people tirelessly working to reveal the truths behind the million dollar public relations campaigns, and risking so much.

But you are no longer working for the company! What have you got to lose now? Time may have passed but old dogs don't learn new tricks too quickly, and with your information you have the capability of making a huge change in how a company (or a government office) operates.

In his “4 Essential Ways To Save The Earth”, Keith Farnish wrote:

BigCorp…have been a staple of the oil and chemical industry for many years. Unknown to the general public, they have been lobbying the US Government to ensure that climate change never reaches the top of the government agenda; the Government has been responsive and has done its best to ensure the public don’t worry about climate change.

In the UK a conscientious employee in the IT department sees a blocked e-mail coming to the CEO of BigCorp from the UK organisation the Confederation of Big Business. It was blocked because it contained a very large attachment. The subject line of the e-mail is ‘Re: Government climate policy. Lobbying successful.’ The employee is worried enough by this to invoke the company Whistle Blowing Policy, and also speaks confidentially to a friend who works for a local newspaper.

In India, a local environmental activist, concerned that an oil refinery is about to be built on an area of wetland by BigCorp India, invokes the Freedom Of Information Act to find out how planning permission was granted. After a delay of 4 months a redacted letter between BigCorp Inc. and the local state government is sent out, which shows clearly that BigCorp had threatened to pull out of India had the refinery not been granted planning permission.

Frustrated by the lack of internal action, the UK employee asks her journalist friend to publish an article citing an anonymous source, which suggests that the UK Government has caved in to a lobbying exercise by the CBB on behalf of BigCorp. Someone in the USA carries out a search on Google News and comes up with a UK online newspaper article about BigCorp’s suspected lobbying activities. He is interested enough to invoke the USA Freedom Of Information Act to find out whether any Senators have interests in BigCorp. It turns out that there are three Senators who have sat on the board of BigCorp Inc.

The Indian activist gets to the last item in his FOI request and finds a redacted letter from one of the American ‘BigCorp’ Senators sent to the Head of Planning for the Indian state that is being put under pressure. It contains misinformation about the usefulness of wind power and how India needs to accept the continued growth of fossil fuels.

The American and Indian activists go public. In the USA the Washington Post publishes an article about the oil interests of American Senators, using their contacts to expose a web of BigCorp misinformation. In India, the activist decides to contact the BBC World Service web site, who publishes an article including the two redacted letters.

Two months later, BigCorp admits that climate change is partly caused by humans and that they are about to commence the largest renewable energy investment in living memory.

(From http://earth-blog.bravejournal.com/entry/16666)

"But," you say, "How can I do that? I'm a loyal person." So I ask you again: What do you think matters most to that company? Is it more important to protect the financial bottom line of a company doing great harm to the environment, or to protect the very substance that everything, including you own family, friends and former co-workers, depend upon?

Seniors are in a wonderfully privileged position where they are not dependent on the wages of companies to sustain them, and they are free to tell the truth about their former employer. It may not be to everyone’s taste, but please remember this - when you left work your responsibility to that company ended, but your responsibility to the thin shell of life that sustains us all will never go away.

How To…Write Letters To Newspapers

Letters to newspapers, magazines and other forms of print media are one of the most powerful tools in the armory of the Green Senior. They give you the opportunity to communicate with an audience that is appropriate to what you want to say - an audience that may be very receptive in responding to your words.

Although it may seem that the world is being swamped by electronic information such as blogs and mass e-mailings,  “Letters To The Editor” remains one avenue that is usually open to everyone. In fact there is a huge section of the population for which the Internet remains unwelcome or closed, but for which newspapers and magazines are a valuable source of information. 

According to Nielsen/Netratings, less than 50% of the USA population is actually “active” on the Internet. This figure is considerably less for most other parts of the world.

Research by Pew Internet shows that around 50% of over 60’s do not use the Internet at all, and this figure could be as low as 35% “active” users. Pew also says that “the best place to reach someone age 70 and older is still offline”.

This means that a large part of the audience for Green Seniors can only be reached through the print media, and that is where Green Seniors really have an impact in getting other seniors actively involved in the environment.

Our first “Green Hero”, Irene Willis, had the following letter published in a local free newspaper (circulation of over 60,000) this week. Her letter is a great example of how Green Seniors can get powerful messages across to ordinary people:

“The politics of the last century keep repeating themselves in this, the 21st century.

“The third road off Canvey [Island, Essex, UK]. Local MPs always remind us of this just before an election and a petition has started online.

“I cannot believe that with all the evidence that the climate is warming up beyond a point which the planet can sustain we still have these outdated campaigns based on the needs of the last century.

“One of the main causes of CO2 emissions is transport and cars play a large part of this. Before the claim by motorists that the cars are now designed to emit less emissions, this is negated by the increase in traffic.

“The green solution is to travel less and if you do, cycle or walk first, then use public transport and lastly use the car, unless you are disabled, old or there is no other choice.

“Until the 4x4 driver gives that vehicle up because he cares about those killed in the floods in Bangladesh we will not save the planet.

“In these days of instant news it is clear now that we are all linked together and rely on each other and therefore we must all share the responsibility and the suffering that each of us cause.”

There are a lot of things that make this letter good:

· The words are simple and easy to understand by almost everyone
· A lot of useful information is put over in a short space
· The letter is short, punchy and to the point
· It is topical and linked to an issue that is relevant to many people reading it

If you want to write a letter to a newspaper or magazine then keep all of the above in mind, and follow the tips below to ensure that your letter gets published:

1. National newspapers and magazine receive thousands of letter submissions every week, local publications far less.  You stand a better chance of being published if you start small.

2. Find out a bit about the audience, based on the type of publication you are writing to, so you can alter your letter to make it more appealing and relevant.

3. Write to the address given on the letters page, not forgetting to give your name, address and telephone number. Publications rarely publish letters without this information.

4. Keep the letter to below about 300 words, unless the publication encourages longer ones. A short paragraph that reads well is better than a long, sprawling letter that loses the audience.

5. If possible, type your letter, and make sure you have someone check your grammar, spelling and the readability of your letter. Don’t be afraid to change it completely if you cannot get your point across well the first time.

6. If you don’t get published, then persevere. If you do, you must have got something right, so write to other publications, and keep writing – you have become a campaigner!


A single letter in a newspaper with even a small circulation may be the difference between someone doing nothing and doing something, so what are you waiting for?

Good luck with your letter writing.

How To...Help Green Seniors

Since our launch in December 2006, a number of generous people have asked us how they can help Green Seniors carry out its work in creating a new global movement of people who can change the world.

So, we have drawn up a list of three things that people can do to help this happen:

1) Spread The Word

If you have a web site of any kind, or know of someone with a web site, then we are always grateful for a link to www.greenseniors.org. Even if you can't link to us, you can always tell people about us, and tell them what Green Seniors actually means.

2) Send Us Network Details

We want to build up an exhaustive list of all the best environmental networks out there. If you know of any, especially those that are particularly welcoming to seniors, then please e-mail us using the addresses in the "ABOUT US" link.

3) Offer To Help

If you have any special skills to offer, especially in networking and journalism, then we would love your help. We need people who can find out more about environmental networks and green heroes - so we can feature them on our pages - and also write letters to the press to let more people know how important building a Green Seniors movement is. Again, please contact us if you can help.

Many thanks to all of you for helping to make this world a better place.

The Green Seniors Team

How To...Find Information

You are probably here because you are worried about what is happening to the natural environment, and the impact that will have on the future of your children, grandchildren and those that come after; or perhaps you just have a love of nature and want to protect and renew what is left. Whatever your reason for coming, you may be asking "what do I do next?", and in almost all cases, the answer is “find out as much as you can about the thing that concerns you”.

There is nothing more effective than a well reasoned and consistent argument, and nothing more frightening for a environmental skeptic than a campaigner with the facts at their fingertips. As well as this, information can give you confidence to go much further with your letter writing, networking, media campaigning, protesting - whatever you want to do. If you have time, read this short article to find out how powerful information can be.

At Green Seniors, we understand that most people who visit here are not climate scientists, physicists or oceanographers; but that does not mean that useful information is beyond the reach of these ordinary people who just want to make a positive difference. You have the information at your fingertips, and a few clicks of a mouse.

The sections on the right hand side contain links to web sites that have been specially chosen for their relevance to the Green Seniors ethos. The “Environmental Information” section should be the first stop for you. Hold your mouse pointer over each of the links to see what kind of information they lead to, and then click on the link to go there. If you are immediately put off by the presentation, then you might want to try something else first, but if you like what you see then spend some time there – read everything there is to offer, and you will be amazed what stays, and adds to the knowledge you already have.

The first place we would recommend would be the Open University. The Open University is a highly regarded education institution in the UK, and this particular site is a wonderful introduction to the subject of climate change -  the Energy House is particularly useful.

If you want to look a bit closer at the science – and it’s well worth it – then try UNEP’s Vital Climate Graphics, particularly the Introduction To Climate Change. There are more links from Green Seniors for the statisticians and keen scientists amongst you.

But if you are going to change the way people think and behave, then it is essential to know what people can do themselves in the short, medium and long-term. This kind of information can make the difference between engaging people and making them think that what they do won’t make any difference. The link to An Inconvenient Truth will provide all sorts of information, but most useful are the What You Can Do pages. Simple things that individuals can choose to do at their own pace, and pass on to others.

We would also encourage you to look at the press, in particular magazines such as Scientific American, New Scientist, Discover and National Geographic, which almost always have articles related to both environmental damage, and environmental preservation.

With information comes knowledge, and with knowledge you can change the world. Good luck!

How To...Join Networks

What would Martin Luther King have been without his flock of millions of followers? What would have become of Gandhi without the masses of underprivileged Indians who joined him in peaceful protest? Where would Grace Armitage have taken us without the countless thousands of older people who joined in her calls to act now on climate change?

Who is Grace Armitage? It could be any one of you out there, with an idea, a passion, a desire to change the direction we are veering in; but with no-one who will listen to you because, although so many people feel the same, they also have no idea what to do about it. If a strongly held belief is to be heard, a single voice is too quiet. Green Seniors need to join together to be heard.

There are many special individuals out there who can make changes on their own, and we completely respect the wish of those of you who are content to find out more, and do your own part as a letter writer, political lobbyist, spreader of good ideas or whatever you want to do to help make the environment better. You are welcome at Green Seniors, and we hope you will stay.

We do believe, though, that for every individual action that makes a difference, there are many more actions taken by a group of people with a similar purpose, that make a much bigger difference. The logic is simple : it is easy to ignore one letter, much harder to ignore a hundred; it is easy to ignore a lone protester at the factory gate, much more difficult to ignore a thousand people blockading the entire factory; it is easy to say one vote doesn’t matter, impossible to say 10,000 votes don’t matter.

Group action works because groups of people cannot be ignored.

But groups cannot be run on the basis of a single individual’s activities; they must be well organised, be able to cater for a range of opinions, and in most cases have the necessary funding to be able to provide services to a large number of people. Unless you already have a group in operation, or are a remarkably organised individual (and there are quite a few out there), then your best course of action to make a difference is to add your voice to an existing group.

Some groups use their membership as a single voice rather than a large number of individuals, and we won’t rule out listing one on that basis; though we prefer groups that want to mobilise their members in an active way, in letter writing or direct action, for instance.

We like to call these kinds of groups, “networks”, because they allow people to work collectively, as a network. We especially like those networks that want to join smaller groups and networks together for a common purpose, for these kinds of organisations have huge potential power.

At Green Seniors, we aim to take much of the confusion out of finding a suitable network to match your requirements. The links on the left hand side largely contain specially selected groups and networks that fulfil our basic criteria:

· They are of a broadly environmental nature, e.g. preventing climate change, preserving forests, reducing consumption.

· They are in line with the main body of scientific thinking, e.g. they are not climate change skeptics.

· They are not overtly commercial in nature, i.e. they don’t exist just to make money for someone.

· They are not funded by companies or bodies that contradict the aims of the group, such as oil companies, coal mining firms or aircraft manufacturers.

So if you are keen to take part, then use the links on the right, and find out more about something in your area, or further afield – you may find you have more in common with networks in another country than you realise.

And if you have a group that you want us to recognise, then drop us a line on groups@greenseniors.org - we are always willing to spread the word.

How To...Make A Difference

Can one person make any difference in addressing a problem as huge as global warming and worldwide environmental degradation?

Yes, indeed!  The problem may be vast, but there are over 6 billion of us on this planet to work on the solution.   Nations will take actions, but this web site is dedicated to what can be done by any of Earth’s inhabitants.  Cumulatively, that could be more powerful than any national or international policy.

There are examples throughout history of individuals who become pivot points for good (or ill) in society.  And there are even more examples of how groups of people have solved problems through teamwork and cooperation.  If you look at your own city or town, you likely will see these dynamics playing out on all sorts of local issues.  The same methods by which people grow a thriving community that is healthy, safe and prosperous are the methods that can help that community preserve its own habitats, air quality, water sources, and so on.   

You may ask how local environments can affect the entire globe?  It is really straightforward. All forms of pollution, all emissions of greenhouse gases, come from individual homes, businesses, factories, power plants, aircraft, vehicles...and have caused the cumulative mess we now have worldwide.  What is new about all this is our realization that every local form of pollution sooner or later affects every part of the globe, and that those effects are not merely predictions but are already here, changing the world where we live. 

The thin layer of atmosphere coating the planet is highly vulnerable to change. We know that since certain chemicals we invented destroyed so much of the protective ozone layer that huge holes appeared, exposing life to harmful solar radiation.   If I accidentally punch a hole in an old refrigerator and release Freon gas, all six billion of us plus future generations will suffer for it.  If I see that an old refrigerator has the Freon captured and is properly disposed of, I have helped all six billion, plus future generations.   

Likewise, if I skip an auto trip to town or buy an energy efficient light bulb or plant one tree (or stop one from being cut down), I help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect a proportion of the entire Earth. I will have helped all six billion people with my small action.  This is incredible power!  What power to do good do I have if I buy an energy efficient automobile? What if I help my community conserve electricity and use more renewable energy sources?  What if I tell three other people what I am doing about global warming and why?

Each of us can make a difference, more than we ever realized was possible.