Green Citizenship

Green Citizenship: Taking an active role in strengthening our government at all levels so that it can make the policy changes required to effectively respond to the global environmental crisis.

Here are some examples of Green Citizenship in action ..

· Be an informed voter. Take the time to learn about the candidates and vote for highly qualified candidates who have a strong environmental record.

· Provide financial support to help elect environmental candidates and defeat candidates who have a poor environmental record. In this way, you can help to improve the elected representatives in all congressional districts and all states. League of Conservation Voters and MoveOn.org do a great job of evaluating elected officials at the Federal level and recommending which election races can most benefit from your financial support. Consider subscribing to their newsletters.

· Keep informed about environmental news by subscribing to the free email newsletters provided by most environmental groups. Here are some good ones: Union of Concerned Scientists, Earth Policy Institute, Environmental Defense Fund, and Sierra Club.

· Sign petitions, write letters, and make phone calls to elected officials to provide them with support when making politically difficult choices and to thank them when they have done so. Both traditional paper petitions and letters and their Internet/email equivalents are effective. If you subscribe to email newsletters from environmental groups, you will get frequent and convenient opportunities to do so.

· Participate in rallies and demonstrations to show your support for causes that you care strongly about.

· Support campaign finance reform that would decrease the excessive influence that large contributions from special interest groups have on our elected representatives. Public Citizen and Common Cause are excellent organizations that are working on these issues.

· Influence public opinion by writing letters to the editor.

· Talk to your friends about the importance of green citizenship and help them to get started.

Green citizenship is nothing more than active, involved citizenship with a focus on the global environmental crisis. Like a good marriage, effective government doesn’t just happen by itself. Instead, it needs constant vigilance and attention by citizens who care about what kind of world we will leave for our children.