Action is the Antidote to Despair
Joan Baez
How do you want to take action with Move Faster: Learn more, Attend a public demonstration, Organize a public demonstration, Create a chapter in your home town, Help run Move Faster? All of these are great ways to help us move to a cleaner, safer, and more stable world. Please see below for details.
Act with Move Faster for our future
Learn More
A great way to take action with Move Faster is to learn more about how humans influence our surroundings and how humans influence each other.
Our Blog has educational information. Please subscribe to our social media to be notified when we add a new Blog post.
The details under Personal Actions contain links to organizations that can help with home energy efficiency and clean energy options, clean transportation options, reducing waste with your purchases, and influencing others in your community. Our Building Electrification in Depth page has links to many organizations that can help you switch out dirty, gas or fuel-oil appliances with clean electric appliances.
Check out Organizations We Like for other organizations that are also welcoming to people in the center-right. We hope you will stay with Move Faster and find other ways to improve our home.
YouTube
These YouTube channels have some great information on the transition to a cleaner environment.
Global Weirding - Climate scientist, evangelical Christian, and now Chief Scientist at The Nature Conservancy, Dr. Katharine Hayhoe produced a series of videos that are simple and approachable. These cover our changing climate and the religion and politics around it. 23k subscribers
Just Have a Think - Mainly focused on climate and air pollution, host Dave Borlace covers many cutting-edge technologies that could reduce our reliance on fossil fuels or, at least, reduce their pollution. He tends to be optimistic, but we can all use some optimism. 440k subscribers
Undecided with Matt Ferrell - Matt provides a balanced look at many technologies that could improve our environment, including some videos on his own attempts to reduce his personal impact. Over 1 million subscribers can’t be wrong.
Engineering with Rosie - Rosemary Barnes (Rosie) has a PhD in mechanical engineering and 15 years of experience working as a professional engineer developing new energy technologies. For those who want the engineering/physics details of how we switch to sustainable energy, with an Australian sense of humor, this is the channel. 55k subscribers
Answers with Joe - Joe Scott covers many topics, some related to our environment. More cynical, but always humorous, Joe gives a different view on the world. 1.4 million subscribers.
Epic Gardening - If you want to grow some of your own food or flowers, Kevin Espiritu gives easily followed instructions in these videos, along with follow-ups to show whether or not things worked out and how to do better the next time. 1.9 million subscribers.
If you think a YouTube channel should be added to this list, please let us know at info@movefasterenv.org
Books
These books influenced the formation of Move Faster. They may be available in your library so you can try before you buy.
The Righteous Mind - Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt. Provides understanding that people on both sides of political or religious disagreements are usually basing their arguments on deeply held moral values and believe that they are morally correct and the other person is morally wrong. This understanding can prevent your discussions from devolving into heated arguments. Also, why Republicans have a built-in advantage over Democrats in moral arguments.
Saving Us - A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World by Katharine Hayhoe. A master class in how to, and when to, talk to someone you disagree with about climate change and, more importantly, how not to, and when not to, talk to someone. Shows that our inclination to lead with facts and statistics is doomed to failure, leads to frustration, and unfortunately results in contempt and talking past each other. Dr. Hayhoe demonstrates that leading with shared values and respect for others’ opinions is much more fruitful. Applies to non-climate environmental discussions as well.
Made to Stick - Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath & Dan Heath. Provides an easily understood strategy to make your writing and speaking memorable. Explains why too much knowledge about your topic can lead to forgettable speaking and boring writing, and how to avoid that trap. Demonstrates how to identify your “core idea” and focus on that. Recommended for anyone who will be engaging in public speaking or writing. (Thanks to Jim Tolbert at co2mmit.org for the recommendation.)
Attend a Public Demonstration
The best way to find when and where we will have a public demonstration is on our social media pages. Use the links at the top and bottom of this web page and subscribe.
We plan three types of public demonstrations: protests, pro-fests, and mixed.
Protests focus on governments and businesses that are slow to clean up their pollution. We will encourage them to Move Faster to a cleaner future.
Pro-fests celebrate governments and businesses that are ahead of their peers in switching to cleaner operations. We will publicly thank them and, for businesses, encourage people to buy their products.
Mixed demonstrations combine a pro-fest, where we celebrate action by a government or business, and a protest that, while they’ve made a good start, they need to Move Faster.
For details on what to expect, please see our Guidelines for Demonstrations page.
Important Note: To maintain our eligibility to become a 501(c)(3) charity, and therefore receive tax-deductible donations, we cannot endorse or oppose the election of any politicians or political parties.
Can I attend if I’m left of center?
We have a broad view of “the political center.”
If you feel comfortable carrying a US flag, can stay positive, polite, and respectful towards people with different political views, agree that a regulated capitalist economic system - with all its flaws - is good for the United States, and can abide by our other values, you are in the center as far as we are concerned. Welcome!!! Come take action with Move Faster.
If you don’t feel comfortable with the above then there are a number of environmental groups that are probably a better fit for you. They are working towards the same end-point we are, but are trying a different path. We wish you well finding your way to help us to a clean, safe, and stable future.
Organize a Public Demonstration
Supporting our Mission and Vision
All public demonstrations should support our mission of “broadening political support for a safe environment” and our vision of Move Faster as “an organization where people in the political center and political right feel comfortable accelerating society’s return to a clean, safe, and stable environment.” To help with this we strongly encourage you to include at least one person who is right of center politically in your planning.
Living our values of Focus, Accountability, Humility, and Self Reflection
Among our values, focus, accountability, humility, and self reflection are important for planning a demonstration and evaluating its effectiveness afterwards.
Focus - We focus on our physical environment: air, water, soil, and climate. Any reasonable person wants cleaner air, safe and plentiful water, to preserve our natural lands and healthy soils, and a stable climate. Concentrating on our physical environment in a positive way will broaden political support for improving that environment.
While aspects of our social environment - our economic system, the minimum wage, education reform, labor unions, universal health care, etc. - are very important topics they are also divisive and may divert people from efforts to broaden the political support for action on our physical environment. We ask that you avoid aspects of our social environment in your demonstrations.
Accountability - We hold ourselves accountable and will try to correct mistakes when we make them. However, it is much easier to avoid a mistake through research and advanced planning than it is to correct it after the fact.
Thus, we hold ourselves accountable to select the target business or government of a public demonstration (protest or pro-fest) carefully and with sufficient research so that we do not have to try to correct false accusations or green-washing after the fact.
Humility - We don’t demand perfection of ourselves or other people, and we don’t demand immediate perfection of businesses and governments. We strongly encourage businesses and governments to change their behaviors ASAP to clean our air, water, and soil and to stabilize our climate.
Self Reflection -We always seek to improve our public demonstrations and other actions. We ask that you fill out a demonstration plan before your demonstration so that you can, after the demonstration, compare your actual impacts to what you planned and identify areas where things could be improved.
We are glad you want to organize a demonstration. Move Faster was founded because we wanted to join a demonstration but were unable to find a local environmental group we were comfortable with. We hope you find this rewarding.
If there is a Move Faster chapter near you, please contact them to help with planning if you have not already done so. If there is not a chapter near you, please consider creating one (see below).
To ensure that any demonstrations align with our mission, vision, and values we ask that you study our Guidelines for Demonstrations. They include details on how to plan a demonstration that support our goals. The sections below introduce the guidelines, but are not a substitute for it.
We also ask that you fill out a Demonstration Plan and send it to info@movefasterenv.org
After the event, please put pictures and videos of your event on your social media with hashtag #movefasterenv and set to public so we can share them.
Create a Chapter
Please send an email to info@movefasterenv.org if you would like to start a chapter. We will set up an email alias for your chapter and put the information on our Chapters web page. This will help people find you.
We can also give some advice on setting up chapter-specific social media pages/accounts.
Help Run Move Faster
Move Faster is just getting started, and we could use some help with content creation, event research and planning, and at least 10 things we haven’t even thought of yet. If you would like to help, please email us at info@movefasterenv.org