#environmental action

A very dear friend of mine is an Indigenous activist who is part of an Indigenous and BIPOC delegation of activists to the UN Climate Conference, COP 30! However they are struggling to secure housing due to the exorbitant price gouging surrounding these conferences and the absolutely massive cuts in funding and grants for Indigenous and environmental orgs made by Trump.

If you are able to donate, they would really appreciate it and it would make a huge difference!

They need 350 people to donate $20 by Monday or they will lose what might be their only opportunity to secure housing for less than, I fucking kid you not, the going rate of $35,000 (for about 10 people, for two weeks, in Brazil), which would force them to leave most of their delegates behind.

"Constantly fighting in colonial spaces is exhausting. For many of us, we already have to combat the dehumanizing narratives thrust upon our Peoples before we even get to open our mouths. Narratives that try to keep us confined to tokenized roles like blessings or performances instead of listening to our actual advocacy. Because confronting how much you need to change is uncomfortable; demanding systemic reform for the sake of our planet is impolite. Just stand there and look sacred or diverse for a picture you didn’t consent to but don’t you dare open your mouth to speak truth because what you have to say is unpalatable to the colonizers in control. We reject that kind of objectification. When we stride through the white-washed hallways where they didn't want us to even tentatively tread, we mean business. No matter who it makes uncomfortable. One of the tactics used to keep out grassroots organizations is exorbitant price gouging. However, thanks to the hard work of some dedicated organizers, there are some more affordable housing options available. However, the slots are limited and going fast. While we have secured some funding, if our delegation isn’t able to raise $7,000 more dollars by Monday, we’re back to square one and may need to leave some of our delegates behind. We have applied to multiple grants, but even if we are selected as awardees, we won’t get the funding quickly enough, making direct grassroots crowdfunding our only option to secure housing. Please support us by sharing this post and donating if you are able. https://lnkd.in/gQ3EPXz6 Needless to say, advocating at UN conferences is not fun. We’re not going on vacation. We’re going to COP because there is no substitute for intervening in Earth-destroying policies where their creators plot. [Note: Extremely literally. Big Oil sends thousands of representatives to COP each year, many of them undercover, and petrostates have used the last two COP conferences to make massive oil deals. x, x] If we can just find 350 people to donate just $20, we’ll be able to meet our intermediate goal. Keep your fingers crossed that philanthropy will smile upon SustainUS and make crowdfunding for the additional costs obsolete. For now though, this is really the only option we have. We understand that not everyone agrees with the idea of even attending spaces like COP, and we respect those choices. We all have different roles to play, and for us, we feel like this is one of our responsibilities. Thank you so much for reading this far. Hang in there everyone."

-via Sheelah Bearfoot, September 4, 2025

You can donate here!!

Dark Fountains Causing the Apocalypse? ❌😒

1. Just show up to stuff. Ok, I know this sounds stupid and obvious, but I do feel like this is truly the best way to get a sense of what’s going on around you. Search online for activist groups near you, check local news for references to anyone doing work that you care about. Find those organizations and see if they have any public actions, info sessions, or other public events that are coming up. This could be anything from a protest, a rally, an onboarding session, a tree-planting festival in the park, an educational event, a local union standout outside the grocery store, a farm volunteer day, what have you. You can even go to a town meeting, although I can’t promise that will be interesting. It may be that the organization you find is not working on an issue that you’re the most interested in or that you don’t like the way they operate or something, but going to events can be a great way to learn about other orgs or campaigns where you live that maybe have less of a high profile. By showing up to these kinds of events, you will get a better sense of the activism landscape, which will help you find out if there are orgs that you want to join 2. In-person events are better for getting to know people, I find, but if you aren’t able to go to in-person events for health reasons, or because you are in rural area, virtual events are great too! I recently moved to a city, but previously was working with a regional activist group while I lived in a rural area, and I basically worked with them on Zoom that whole year. 3. If you’re going to an in-person event, bring a friend! Maybe they’re also interested in getting involved in activism, maybe they’re just going to help you out, but its good to have a buddy, especially if you’re at a rally or a protest. Not only is this safer, this way you have someone to debrief with and talk through whether or not this is a group that you want to commit to. 4. Sometimes, other orgs will be mentioned in an activist meeting. If those interest you, check them out, especially if they are more aligned to the kind of work you’re interested in doing. 5. Talk to people at the event! I know this can be intimidating (believe me I’m an introvert), but this is honestly the best way to get information about the general vibe of this group, or if there are other groups in the area doing things closer to you or more aligned with the work you are interested in. In my experience, people at activist events are always excited to help other activists. 6. Keep a critical eye! All activist groups are imperfect, some are deeply dysfunctional, some are legitimately dangerous. If you’re at a group or event and you think they seem sketchy, disorganized, ineffective, or anything that you are not interested in, leave! Don’t settle to join a group that you have bad feelings about because they seem like the only game in town. That could be frustrating at best or dangerous at worst. 7. Don’t commit to anything at the first meeting! Maybe you’re at an activist meeting for the first time and you think, hey this group is amazing, I want to get involved right away! Or maybe you’re thinking, this is the only group I could find, so I guess I better commit. Don’t do that on your first meeting! Go to a few more public events, meetings, or info sessions. This will let you have a better sense of the group before you commit and will let you see if this is a group that you really want to join. If an activist group requires you to commit to anything at this first meeting (or if they strongly suggest that you do), run! That is a very bad sign, 8. This is the exception for most volunteer opportunities, which may need you to commit for a certain amount of volunteer shifts before you show up. That’s fine! Volunteer groups are also great because they’re a lot more common than activist groups in my experience and more likely to exist in small towns. Some, like Food Not Bombs, have an explicitly political angle which makes them a great place to get to know fellow leftists in the area. Others, like your local soup kitchen, won’t have that angle. But it’s a great way to get involved in your community, get to know people, and do something material to help others. Other kinds of volunteer opportunities may be helping with refugee resettlement projects, pulling up invasive plants, helping a nonprofit with administrative work, all kinds of things! 9.Be patient. I spent most of my late teens/early 20s beating myself up that I wasn’t involved in the kind of activist work that most interested me. But then I met someone at a larger nation-wide event that was from my area, asked for similar things to get involved with at a local level and joined that org. Now, I am doing the activist work that I always dreamed of doing.These things take time and you may not find the exact right kind of opportunity right away. That’s ok! Take your time, keep your wits about you, and don’t be too hard on yourself.

Yesterday (August 9th, 2023) the land defenders of Appalachians Against Pipelines were able to halt production twice. Support their efforts and the efforts of others where you can, and don’t forget that this pipeline project got fast-tracked by Biden.

In Hawai’i, an Indigenous stewardship and conservation system known as ahupua’a is slowly being revived on a mountain-to-sea scale in partnership with U.S. government agencies.

Three Indigenous communities that have successfully reintroduced the ahupua’a system are seeing some conservation successes, such as a 310% increase in the biomass of surgeonfish and an increase in the Bluespine unicornfish (Naso unicornis) population.