Did you ever hear a stirring story about a distressing social issue or ecological problem and feel like you desperately wanted to do something, but you just didn't know what?
Gut wrenching news is presented to us every day yet our impulses to help are often simply met with a phrase like "write your representative". That seems unsatisfying to us at MofT, and we know that people are capable of changing things for the better in more practical ways. So, here's a list of ideas, we've compiled from our work, research and continual meetings with experts, suggesting hands on, elbow grease, actually gettin in there and doing what YOU can do.
Please feel free to email any comments, suggestions, questions and corrections.
GARBAGE CRISIS
The problem
Did you know that the only two manmade sites you can see on Earth from outer space are the Great Wall of China and Fresh Kills Garbage Dump in New Jersey, USA. Not only do we purchase far more than we need; but we purchase it in ridiculous amounts of packaging. Also, the items are often manufactured in composit materials so that they are impossible to recycle. And too many items have batteries or toxic materials that contaminate the soil and water when dispsed. Now let's face it, of all the problems on this page, we're pretty lucky that, for now at least, this is one of our biggest ones. Because it is SO easy to fix. But if we don't, this imbalance will lead to greater and greater issues, so we've put it at the top of our list.
What you can do
- Start by simply buying less junk. Everytime you're about to impulse shop imagine yourself 3 months from now and if you'll be very glad you have it.
- Stimulate the economy through supporting LOCAL shops, farmers, craftsmen and talk to these people about reducing their packaging.
- Buy items that have less packaging and tell the store owners that you prefer that.
- Buy gift certificates to services like massage and gym memberships for friends and family at holidays.
- Buy quality and take care of your things so that they last longer.
- Buy things that are easily disassembled or, ideally, made all of one material; such as all wood, wicker, glass, metal, even all plastic, so they can be recycled at the end of their useful lives.
- Buy protective washable items, such as covers for furniture.
- Donate items that are still useful to charities or people in need. Do an annual Spring Cleaning and post your surplus on Craigslist, Freecycle or our own Excess Access. Goodwill, Salvation Army and your neighborhood ARC or other local charities will accept drop offs and often pick up large amounts from your home and some leave flyers in your mail when they'll be coming through your area.
- Choose reusable over disposable every time. Examples: rechargeable batteries.
GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE
The problem
New weather patterns are having devistating affects on populated areas and Polar regions. The reasons for these are, in our opinion, multiple and still in discovery. However, there are direct lines between certain human activities and the growing risks for all species. These factors can be greatly reduced in large scale by individuals. Lets start there.
What you can do
To start, check out our Green Energy Millions (GEMs)
a free awareness campaign with a goal of 100 Million commitments to a brighter,
greener future.
Second, look at the problems one at a time and think outside the box. For
example, the polar bears that are dying from exhaustion because the ice
burgs they rest on are melting. We are working to place environmentally
friendly floating platforms in areas where they inhabit so the cubs have
a chance to survive and the species doesn't go extinct. Sometimes treating
the "symptom" has its benefits until you can cure the "disease".
And doing nothing doesn't help at all.
Third, smart growth is a term used for city planning. Low income populations
ALWAYS get the brunt of natural disasters, so, evidently, somebody knows
where it's safer to live and where it isn't. New Orleans, for all it's beauty,
is built 20 feet below sea level. And even though strategically it is very
wise to have a city at the foot of the Mississippi River and near gulf oil
drilling, marshlands were naturally there for a reason. Areas that are in
known danger zones should be redesigned through Summits of architects, city
planners, smart growth experts, politicians, social justice experts and
ecologists. An excellent example of success in this is a documentary
called A
Convenient Truth - Urban Solutions From Curitiba, Brazil. We urge everyone
to see how an area can spiral up out of problems as easily as we are spiraling
down into them.
ENERGY CRISIS
The problem
Our current energy infrastructure (that uses gas, nuclear and coal) is very convenient. We don't like to admit it, but really we are too lazy to make the necessary sacrifices until alternatives prove just as handy or until scarcity forces us to change. We feel guilty about our part to blame for pollution, illnesses from pollution, the wars that are fought over oil, and, most horribly, the children that die in those wars. Sometimes, when we see the suffering we feel compelled to change but we also feel hopeless, and life's daily grind quickly blots out our impulses to act. Also, there is safety in numbers and we can fall back on how small our footprint is compared to the big picture.
What you can do
We have to start at home and at work with small changes towards cleaner technology. And until we have that infrastructure securely in place, we should conserve energy by
- spending one day hooking up everything to smart strips.
- Solar purchases like computer and cell phone chargers and Solio.
- Solar panels for your home are more and more aforadable in Massachusetts, California, anywhere, or do it yourself.
- And we love wind and here's an excellent article regarding bird safety and wind power, lets start to break that excuse here.
- Local energy companies are often excellent resources for these sollutions. They understand the problem more than anybody, whenever possible work with them, not against them. They have created the ease of this infrastructure and now together we'll find the healthy next steps. That being said, we strongly recommend paying extra to install the switch for "off-grid" capability, just for peace of mind.
FOSTER CHILDREN & PRISON CRISIS
The problem:
According to the Bureau of Justice as of June 30, 2005, there are 2,186,230
inmates in the US. And 518,000 children and youth in foster care according
to Casey.org September 30, 2004. Many of these kids are given little transitional
assistance when they're 18 and out of desperation feed right into the prison
system. 80% of released prisoners get arrested again. The system is not
set up for rehabilitation because prison labor is extremely inexpensive
and used by many fortune 500 companies. Also, society is skiddish about
hiring people with prison records.
Many foster care kids change homes 4 times or more before they're 18 and
then lurched out of the system. Prescriptions of psychotropic medication
for foster care kids far exceeds the amount of prescriptions to non-foster
care youth. And a recent study
showed nearly 20% of youths in foster care received two or more such drugs:
attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (38.8%), depression (35.5%), adjustment/anxiety
(33.7%), bipolar (17.2%), and oppositional defiant disorder/conduct disorder
(20.6%). It is not surprising that drug dependency is common amongst youth
transitioning from foster care and, without insurance, that many turn to
street drugs and eventually crime.
What you can do
Realize that there are people in prison that have good hearts, just as
there are people in public office and corporations that have committed terrible
crimes. Yet, we all eat, love, make mistakes, have ideas that surprise us,
lose dear friends and family, and want a good life that lasts as long as
possible.
In our opinion, and this is not a joke, every adult should watch all seasons
of HBO's The
Wire on DVD. And perhaps a slightly edited version should be shown in
inner city schools to middle and high school students then followed up with
discussion groups and volunteer counselling by sociology and psych major
college students for credits. Yes, it has violence, but pretending these
kids never see violence won't make it go away from their lives. Only improving
their situation can do that. This show in particular portrays how every
level of a city's infrastructure (government, law enforcement, businesses,
inner cities, schools, drug circuit, prisons... ) has key people, ambitious
people, reasonable people and people who "live in the now". Our
collective awareness that communication between the peer acknowledged leaders
in each of these sectors would be a huge advantage for progress.
The necessity for programs that help people released from the system is
clear. But at Matter of Trust, we look at things first as ecologists and
there are 2 things we'd like to hear more often. There is no such thing
as waste and no such place as away.
First, there is a great danger in using the word "away," since
away doesn't exist on Earth. You can't put people away. They're still here,
feeling, hurting, needing, thinking and the dreaded "wasting away".
Don't even get us started on the word "waste."
Second, realize prison is an environment and should, therefore,
be made as healthy and acceptable by its inhabitants as any other. Of course,
obviously, these people have a greater purpose than sitting in a cell. And
as one inmate joked with us, when it comes to teaching, you can't ignore
the value of a captive audience. Why are boxing programs promoted when there
are calm, zen, tension releasing, healing practices available such as yoga
(see Yoga
Behind Bars).
An interesting article
on prisons growing their own produce, shows a creative start. Next should
be a placement structure for released inmates with farming training to be
able to enter an organic farming or local produce network. Otherwise the
value of prison labor could become a little too valuable.
Connecting to people and putting a face and soul to any group, including
people behind bars, creates a mind shift in society. You can start with
simply sending cards, letters, food care packages to inmates. Just to brighten
their day. Applaud forward thinking programs
and support programs like Prison
Pet Partnerships. These and after prison programs such as The
Second Chance Program and The Andrew
Glover Youth Program can always use funding and volunteers.
At Matter of Trust, we're launching our recycled oil
spill hairmat site and hiring transitioning youth from foster care,
18-22 year olds. We're providing a computer lab at our site, so that the
youth can get time online and learn skills to move on to other positions.
Youth will also be responsible for giving guided tours for school field
trips and telling classes about the benefits of recycling. Dignity is essential
to a possitive outlook and successful, healthy lives.
CORRUPTION (CORPORATE / GOVERNMENT)
The problem:
We live in an age where the separation gap between classes is reaching extremes again. Guillotines were made popular when this happened last time. Luxuries, even basics enjoyed by developed countries vs. developing countries are also at opposite ends of the scale. Greed is one of the ugliest words in the english language and examples of greed at the expense of the health of populations are guaranteed to turn your stomache. But greed isn't the true problem. It's ignorance and complacency. And that, fortunately, we can fix, because it comes from us.
What you can do:
There is nothing sure in life but change. But change is scary. Unless every US citizen gave a penny a day towards advancing fair trade (that would be $3.2 Million a day. Now that's serious change!)
Do you know about the products you buy everyday? Do you know if child slavery is involved in making it? Can you say that it isn't, for sure?
Do you know where the water in your soft drink comes from? Do you know if corporations are rerouting waterways from needy African villages' drinking wells and farms for their bottled water manufacturing purposes? Do you know that they aren't for sure?
There are easy ways to begin to live a kinder life. Shop locally grown and produced products. Farmer's markets, artisan furniture and green business catalogs. If you know the name of who made what you bought, chances are slavery wasn't involved.
Our 25% Rule: We love exotic foods and items, so we buy 25% of our goods from total strangers. BUT we support local businesses and actually call, email or visit their suppliers. Afterall these are things you are eating, wearing, handing to your kids, bringing into your home, commuting in... don't you want to know where it's been? It's very generous and trusting of you to allow large, anonymous, entities create everything in your lives. But we suggest that 75% of everything you buy should be no more than 3 degrees of separation from the source. And by source we mean Mother Nature, not Walmart. If you don't know the name of the person who picked the fruit you're eating, then you should at least know the name of his boss (and make sure he knows each of his employees). If you don't, then you should know the name of the shopkeeper who bought from that boss and befriend all the shopkeeper's clerks. If you all know each other, you'll understand that prices go up when crops are hurt by bad weather. They'll know your kids and you'll know theirs. Suddenly, fruit doesn't have to look falsely red and round and spraying 14 poissonous chemicals on your artichokes won't be desired by anyone. Same for the materials for your furniture, cleaning products, clothes... This promotes entrepreneurialsim and stimulates economy. If you can't get to the source within 30 minutes of phone calls - the product is too composite and your're too far removed. There's no accountability... and that quickly leads to corruption. LOCAL LOCAL LOCAL Vote with your dollars! Supply will follow demand.
PRO CHOICE VS. PRO LIFE
The problem
We like to call this Common Ground With Common Sense. We have polled and asked and debated this issue till the country often thinks more about gynocology than international affairs during election time. Recent polls show almost 70% of the US population feel that women who have been raped or are truly not in a position to raise a baby in a safe, healthy environment should have the freedom to elect to abort a pregnancy within the first trimester. And they also believe that abortion is not frivolous and that it can be dangerous and that all life deserves a conscious amount of respect. This means that it isn't right to judge people who need to get abortions. Just as it isn't right to use abortions as an alternative to condoms. Life is to be celebrated, we agree. And ceremony around death should be acknowledged, we agree. One could say that visectomies effect births, just as colonoscopies affect deaths. But I don't see politicians with banners probing into that crucial medical procedure. In reaction to the activism of pro-lifers, abortion has become increasingly sterile. Multiple abortions are not uncommon despite their health risks and there is a taboo around the posibility of emotions conected to the proceedure that blocks any of the benefits of mourning that hormonally may be very beneficial closure to the patient.
What you can do:
Removal of this discussion from politics (if ever there was a place for seperation between spirituality and state, this is it), Education and Open Communication are our answers to this problem. Sex is never going to go out of style and restrictions only make problems hide in the shadows where they become sinister and unsafe, but they don't go away.
Advocates For Youth is an excellent resource. Scroll down on their page to see what they provide for parents to give to their kids, for local schools, even on how to comprehensively start community programs. They also help with international overpopulation and HIV awareness. We recommend donating to this excelent group.
Another practical grassroots solution is to coordinate with teachers or
local PTA for a school community service volunteer program for teenagers
to spend time at local daycare centers. Crying babies demonstrate an exhausting
responsibility. And being able to leave at the end of the day and enjoy
your youth is a strong message if reinforced by safe sex education in schools.
Hands-on, real-life experiences help to drive home a point that needs to
be remembered later in the heat of the moment.
OIL SPILLS
Well, it just so happens we have our own solution
for oil spills. It can help world wide and at any budget, so no community
need feel disenfranchised. If only every section of this page were so easy
:)
This page is still in progress...
FAMINE
WATER SHORTAGES / DROUGHT
CHILD ABUSE
SENIOR ABUSE
ANIMAL ABUSE
VIOLENCE (IN INNER CITIES AND THROUGHOUT THE WORLD)
We welcome new ideas, contributions and emails. We have a very optimistic view of the future, thanks to all of the ecological progress we see. And we believe that there is a huge conscious shift internationally towards seeing earth as Matter of Trust.