Beyond Recycling: Use Less

- Arable Land Required: how much land is needed for growing crops for fiber, food, animal feed, etc.
- Forest Resources: the resources required for furniture, fuel, houses, etc., and for ensuring the ecosystems are secured from climate change and erosion.
- Ocean Resources: water required for fish and related products.
- Pasture Land Required: how much land is needed to raise animals for meat, dairy production, hides, etc.
- Energy Costs: the amount of land needed to absorb carbon dioxide emissions and other waste products.
- Infrastructure Needed: how much land is required for transportation and creating factories, houses, etc.
- Land, water and air pollution, and species extinction, are not yet factored in for the calculation of this Eco-footprint.
End Captive Hunts

Leafleting & Tabling

- Do I need a permit? Permits are usually easy to apply for, although they may take two or three weeks to process.
- How often can I use this spot?
- Are there restrictions on the type of equipment that can be set up?
- Are there any regulations on selling items such as buttons and bumper stickers at a table? If so, you can ask for donations instead of charging for the merchandise.
- Ask for several copies of the application form to save for future use.
- one or two card tables or a folding display table
- folding chair
- pamphlets
- posters
- a plain table cloth to cover the table, long enough to reach the ground
- a donation can
- signup sheets (so you can contact activists for future events)
- paperweights - small but heavy
Don't Blame Deer For Lyme Disease

12 Steps To Become An Environmentalist

Help Save Bears

Save The Earth With Your Car

- Recycle motor oil and batteries
- Call your local transit system for bus schedules
- Call your local carpool program or start one in your town
- Carpool the kids to their school events
- Carpool to the ski slopes
- Carpool to go shopping
- Eat lunch at the office instead of going out
- Call stores first to see if they have what you want
- Combine several small trips into one
- Shop by mail and catalogs
- Plan an evening at home with your kids
- Do errands on the way home from work
- Encourage your teens to walk or ride their bikes rather than taking the car, and do the same yourself
- Shop for a neighbor when going to the grocery store or form a neighborhood co-op
- Have your car's emissions tested regularly
- Tune-up your car, especially before winter
- Check for proper tire inflation when gassing up
- Don't repair your car's air conditioning yourself, have it serviced at a station that recycles CFC's
- Don't buy a car with air conditioning
- When buying a new car, let dealers know that fuel efficiency is important
- Park and go inside instead of idling at a drive-up window
- Remove unnecessary articles from your car; each 100 lbs. of weight decreases fuel efficiency by 1%
- Enjoy sports and activities that don't require gas or electricity
- Avoid accelerated starts to save gas
Choose The Right Light Bulbs

How To Recycle

Go Veg!

Save The Fireflies

Ban Mountain Lion Trophy Hunting
In the forests of Colorado, a mountain lion runs as fast as he can, away from the deadly snarling of a pack of hunting hounds. It is dawn, and he has been running all night. He is exhausted, limping on a bloody leg that was caught in a trap, but the sound of the hounds spurs him on. He staggers further - and is confronted with an enormous cliff. The snarling grows louder. He looks desperately for an escape, but is cornered, too tired to fight back. The last thing he sees is the band of hounds bounding toward him, their teeth at the ready, before bang! The bullet hits him, and he feels no more.
This was the tragic fate of over 29,000 U.S. mountain lions in the past decade. They were forced to undergo unbearable pain, torture, and terror before meeting a gruesome death - all so that their body parts can hang from a trophy hunter's wall.
Mountain lion trophy hunts are justified by hunters as protecting humans, by controlling mountain lion numbers and decreasing the risk of human-animal conflict. However, such hunts can actually increase the likelihood of being attacked. This was demonstrated last February, when a Colorado jogger was attacked and managed to strangle the animal. Trophy hunters used this instance, and others, to advocate for the right to hunt mountain lions freely. However, the reason the jogger was able to strangle the lion was that he weighed only 40 pounds - in other words, he was a kitten, three or four months old. There were no other mountain lions found in the area, indicating that the attacker was an orphan, and much too young to survive on his own. Without a mother, who was likely killed by humans, the starving kitten had no choice but to attack the jogger in his desperation for food.
Mountain lions do not naturally attack humans. Since 1890, there have only been 25 fatal attacks; it is far more likely to be struck by lightning or stung to death by bees. They will, for the most part, only attack if they are in desperate circumstances - for example, in the case of the Colorado jogger, if they have lost important family members. The killing of mountain lions does not prevent attacks, only upsets their delicate social structures and forces the poor animals to lash out at humans in starving desperation.
Since mountain lion trophy hunting does not prevent attacks, why do we do it? Why do we subject these majestic animals to torture, pain, and death, for no reason except to give trophy hunters a deranged sense of satisfaction? Why do we orphan kittens, slaughter mates, and shoot young, full adults, with their whole lives ahead of them? Help end this horrific practice in the United States to save thousands and lives and create a kinder, more humane planet.
Ethical Choices

- The planet and its plants and animals are worthy of our ethical concern.
- Plants, animals and the environment have intrinsic value; moral value because they exist, not only because they meet human needs.
- We should consider whole ecosystems, including other forms of life, in our daily decisions.
- Industrialization has created pollution and ecological imbalance. It is not only the duty of that industry to make changes to protect the environment, but all of us must make daily decisions that help to restore the environment and make it sustainable.
Recycling Basics

Fundraise For The Earth & Animals

Become An Earth & Animal Activist

- Public Relations: This subcommittee does all of the canvassing, handles advertising, books tables, creates banners and posters, and serves as a press contact to drum up media attention.
- Outreach: This subcommittee liaises with other organizations, local businesses and anyone that might be able to support your cause through advertising, funding, in-kind donations of space or food, etc.
- Logistics: This subcommittee takes care of all practical matters such as scheduling, booking performers, finding needed equipment and services, getting necessary permits, arranging for parking, taking care of food, etc.
- Financial: This subcommittee keeps track of the budget and makes sure everything runs smoothly where money is concerned. Tasks include creating a budget, paying performers and service providers, setting any event prices, arranging for donations and identifying pre-event fundraising needs.
Plan A Campaign

- Try to communicate with your opponent. Write to the head of the company or organization, politely state your grievance and ask for action.
- Give them time to respond, but set a deadline so they don't keep you dangling forever. It's always possible that your opponent is unaware of abuses, and there may be room to negotiate a change. Regardless, if you don't go to the source first, your credibility will be impaired.
- Document your communications. Keep copies of letters and a written record of telephone calls.
- Before you go public, try to get some expert opinions to back you up. Such statements lend credibility to your campaign and make it easier to convince both the public and government officials. Approach scientists, veterinarians, doctors, or anyone else who has the experience and credentials to be considered an expert on the issue. Inform them of the situation and ask them to give you a written statement criticizing your target and recommending alternatives.
- Produce some basic campaign literature first: a fact sheet, a background/history sheet, an alternatives sheet, a page of expert opinions, and a short leaflet that lists your demands and tells people what they can do to help. These provide essential factual information for the public and the media.
- Arrange a meeting with the mayor's office and/or the specific regulatory office related to the issue. Clarify the facts about the issue and the changes you are proposing and try to get their support.
- Write letters to local government officials, congressional representatives, and the head of the organization you are targeting. State the problem, your demands or alternatives, and specify what you want the official to do.
- Arrange to meet personally with as many elected officials as possible. Try to enlist their support.
- Write to news editors of local papers and to related trade journals to try to interest them in doing a story on the issue.
- Educate your community. Setup tables and hand out leaflets to publicize the issue. Run an advertisement in the newspaper if your budget allows. Create a website and/or social media pages.
- Try to get support from other national and local groups. Contact civic associations, the League of Women Voters, Rotary Clubs, and political clubs and ask for their support.
- Give your opponent a second chance to negotiate with you. This may also be the time to issue an ultimatum if negotiations are unsuccessful.
- When you escalate to a new level, don't abandon your original activities. Public education should be a constant effort, complementing all your other tactics.
- Escalation means finding ways to exert more pressure, such as picketing, holding a candlelight vigil, organizing a march, encouraging a boycott or holding a rally.
Cut Out Dissection

Shop For Vegan & Eco-Friendly Clothes

Hold A Public Meeting

- Distribute and post flyers.
- Create social media event pages.
- E-mail details to the people on your contact list.
- Make a public service announcement over the radio or on TV.
- Get a newspaper listing in the "event" or "calendar" section.
- Send a news release to local newspapers.
- A few days before the meeting: Call your speaker to confirm the date and time he or she is expected. Find out how the speaker would like to be introduced, and take a few minutes to write and practice the introduction. Confirm your room rental. Make sure your equipment is reserved and that you have adequate extension cords to hook up the equipment.
- The day of your meeting: Arrive at the room at least an hour ahead of time. Set up the equipment you'll be using and make sure it works. Lay out literature on a table in the back of the room, and arrange chairs near the front of the room.
- As people arrive: Be at the door to greet people. Circulate a signup sheet, but remove it when the meeting is ready to start.
- Introduce the speaker to start the meeting and thank him or her at the end of the meeting. Ask people if they've added their names to the signup sheet, and thank them for coming to your meeting. Urge them to get involved. Give them something specific to do: write a letter, make a telephone call, share your social media pages, or hand out leaflets. Always end on an upbeat note.
- A few days later, send a short thank-you to your speaker; you may want to invite him or her again.
- Send a follow-up message suggesting specific actions to people who attended the meeting, and be sure to add any new contacts to your mailing list. Post photos and videos of the event on public media.