Friday, April 6, 2012

The Three Kinds of Activism

I think that there are three kinds of activism: public awareness, pushing for legislation, and direct action. Today I'm going to give an overview of each, so that you'll be able to decide which one you might be most interested in doing.
  1. Public Awareness: By far the easiest form of activism, public awareness strives to teach people about the issue-- and persuade them to act differently-- in order to make the world a kinder, more sustainable place.
    • Popular examples: Earth Hour, King Corn (documentary)
    • Ways you can get involved: Start a blog, write an article, submit a letter to the editor, film a video, organize a litter clean-up, place posters on telephone poles, e-mail people and tell them about being eco-friendly
    • My example (warning-- prepare to get a little motion sickness! I filmed too quickly. Also, if you plan to do this, don't use colour ink; the rain washed it away after only about a week!):
  2. Legislation: This is all about pushing for the government to act differently. It is more difficult than public awareness, obviously!
    • Example: Any group that gets you to sign petitions to the government.
    • Ways you can get involved: Sign petitions, start petitions, write letters, sign letters. Don't spend all your time doing this, though. Public awareness is important, too.
    • My example:
  3. Direct Action: Direct action is all about physically getting up and changing things to be the way you want them to happen. This category includes mostly doing things without permission. If you take this route, make sure that all your actions are non-violent; that is, you don't hurt any human or animal by doing it. And direct action needs to be well-planned. Some people will go around blowing up (empty) cars, but that won't really help the environment, will it? I don't know where to draw the line, exactly, but I think that it can probably be useful at times.
So, what do you want to do to help the environment? Remember as they say, "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem."
If you need help with any of your activism efforts, don't hesitate to e-mail me at
rabbit-catATvegemailDOTcom
Until next week...!

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