Year of the planet, environmental activism, and us
Hi! I'm Micycle_the_Bichael! I'm a pretty passionate local environmental activist. Short summary: I think climate change is bad, but even if climate change wasn't happening the way we interact with nature is still gross and leaves a lot to be desired (ex: over fishing, whaling, landfills). While there definitely needs to be governmental action on corporations on climate change, there are still changes that can be made in your daily life to help make the world a better place! Enter the year of the planet. This is a community group for making one small change a month to help the environment. Some may be things you're already doing, some may be new. For example: the January goal is to start using a reusable coffee cup when ordering coffee at a cafe since most paper coffee cups are lined with polyethylene and thus not recyclable. The biggest difference for me between this and many other (very great and valid) projects like it is that it heavily emphasizes building a sense of community.
The group who organized this is The Good Empire, who describe themselves as:
"Year of the Planet is an initiative of Good Empire. We’re makers of startups and projects for good.
Inspired by and aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, we bring ideas to life that are good for the world. We help change the things that need to change.
And most importantly, we’re a tribe. A global community of good people, united in purpose, to help create a better and more sustainable future for all.
Good Empire is not a registered charity, but we partner with registered charities in everything we do.
We will take no management fees from Year of the Planet, nor will any of the funds raised come through us. All donations will go directly to our charity partners."
Some of those partners being Wildlife Emergecy Fund and the seabin project which is a project close to my heart along with the ocean cleanup project
This post has been what feels like a really long rant on a couple of groups and causes that I'm very passionate about. I'll probably DM one of the other Tildes members who does scheduled posts and see about making a bi-weekly environmentalism thread to discuss what people are doing to make a positive change not only in the local environment, but in their community (a lot of good environmental initiatives also make your neighborhood/local community nicer and happier places :) ), struggles people are having, questions, products they have found, etc. and we'll see if it sticks or if it is just me shouting into the void.
Joint response to @cfabbro @tempestoftruth:
Glad you like the idea. I think what I will do in order to make the post as helpful as possible: I think I am going to try to break it down into a few sections (in no order):
With many points being open-ended questions for people to answer. Though now that I have written all this out I think I may edit the layout so the template is more static and then write my answers as a comment when it is posted.
That all sounds great to me. I look forward to seeing what you come up with!
Awesome initiative, and idea, although I am always a bit wary of giving out my email address... so is there any way to see the monthly challenges without having to sign up for the email newsletter?
p.s. I don't drink coffee, but after recently watching a mini-documentary on plastic waste issues in SE Asia here on Tildes (which I sadly can't find anymore, but it really disheartened me and woke me up to the issue), I finally bought a Nalgene water bottle so I could stop having to rely on single-use plastic water bottles... and already the difference is profound. Before making the switch, every week I would have an absolutely full recycling bin, mostly full of crushed water bottles, but now I only need to empty the box every 2-4 weeks. I honestly feel rather guilty for not having made this switch earlier, but better late than never, I suppose.
I don't think so, but that does look interesting. I just spent some time looking through my YouTube History, and I think it was this CBC report: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8aVYb-a7Uw
And in retrospect, given that it's from the CBC (who I regularly watch) I may not have actually found it through Tildes, which probably explains why I couldn't find it anywhere here.
I like this idea and will try to contribute if you would like some help, but like @tempestoftruth mentioned, I am also skeptical of the pro-business aspect here.