10 Ways You Can Change the World - Right Now

We’ve been hearing them for years - the easy little things everyone should do to help save the world: switch your incandescent light bulbs to CFLs, turn off the water when you brush your teeth, ride your bike to the store instead of taking the car. Hopefully those kinds of things have become second nature to us by now. So what else can you do? Here are some small and painless options that have a big impact.

1. Be Robin Hood. Visit a website that gives advertiser dollars to charities in a per-click program. There are many variations of this, my favorites are freerice.com, freepoverty.com, thehungersite.com (and its affiliates: breast cancer site, child health site, literacy site, rain forest site, and animal rescue site, which all link from the hunger site), and care2.com/click2donate. Oneclickatatime.org lists similar sites. You can also “rob” from the rich (advertisers) to give to the poor just by going about your everyday web searching, emailing, and even instant messaging.

2. Shop consciously. The less you buy, the less needs to be made; the less is made, the less resources are used. Therefore, don’t go shopping unless you really need something. Big Corporations’ wallets get fat and our landfills get fatter all because of impulse buying, and that’s a cycle we can put an end to. If you do need something don’t just head to the nearest Wal-Mart out of habit, do some research first. You can spend $20 at Wal-Mart on a product, or you can find a seller online, spend the same $20 (a lot of online sellers are willing to drop or reduce shipping costs to lure you in), have a portion of the proceeds donated to charity, and be assured that you are bringing something into your home that is green, organic, free trade, energy efficient, cruelty-free, non-toxic, natural, vegetarian … whatever is important to you. Petamall.org, marmaladepink.com, and veganessentials.com are great places to start for conscious products; shop and donate through igive.com or thehungersite.com.

3. Give directly. Don’t want to blindly donate money online? GreaterGood.org’s Gifts That Give More program allows you to purchase supplies for those in need such as feeding kits and bed nets. There is nothing quite like the feeling of knowing you just bought medical supplies for a sick child! They also offer opportunities to help animals.

4. Disconnect. Take a break from the computer right now: get up and turn off and unplug every appliance that isn’t in use. Turn off all lights not in use. It’s a myth that it takes more energy to turn something off than to just leave it on, so switch away.

5. Rock the email. Visit sites such as PETA, Amnesty International, International Action Center, Greenpeace, MoveOn.org and One.org to sign petitions and write to people in charge who let stupid things happen. Use congress.org to write to congress people about issues that concern you. Find your local newspaper’s website and email a letter to the editor.

6. Love trees. Forget Amazon, the library is where it’s at! Get a library card and find out about your local library’s website. In my county all libraries are linked, so you can go online to search the entire catalog and have books sent to the branch closest to you. They even accept suggestions for new titles they should consider adding to their shelves. Best of all, you can renew online and never pay a late fee again. Another way to conserve books is to try a swap site or a thrift store. Ecolibris.net is a program for those feeling guilty for buying brand new books; you decide how many books you want to balance out, donate, and they plant trees for you. For help saving paper, visit www.printgreener.com to download a program that works with your existing printer to cut down on unnecessary pages and lines of print. Other simple ideas: buy recycled paper and always recycle your paper, use both sides, cut printed papers that you no longer need into scrap paper, use email and text messaging whenever you can including party invitations.

7. Take the pesticide pledge. Make a decision to stop using pesticides for good with the help of Refusetousechemlawn.org. Remember that flea treatments for your pets are pesticides too and can be very harmful over time to you, your family, and the pets themselves. There are safer alternatives.

8. Give yourself. Pick up the phone right now to make an appointment to meet with the volunteer coordinator at a local hospital, nursing home, food bank, shelter, thrift store, pregnancy center, or other charity organization. It doesn’t require a huge commitment; even a few hours one weekend a month is enough to make a difference. Can't find a charity or opportunity? Try Volunteer Match.

9. Localize. Find out about seasonal, local foods; farmers markets; coops; and CSA’s.

10. Just be idle. At World Community Grid you can “donate idle time on your computer to nonprofit research projects. Today, hundreds of thousands of volunteers around the globe are donating processing time when their computers are on but not in use. World Community Grid is using this computing power to conduct research on promising humanitarian projects, reducing research time from years to months. As more and more individuals donate the unused capacity of their computers, World Community Grid will be able to complete more critical research.” Did you hear that? You can help change the world and not even have to do anything! It doesn’t get any easier than that.