Earth Week Challenge 2020: Civic Friday

As Earth Week moves into the weekend, the Earth Week Challenges move from personal to collective action. Day 5 of Earth Week is "Civic Friday," the first day with no cutesy alliteration, and its challenge is to "be vocal and exercise your power as a voter and influencer." Specifically, the challenge asks voters to:

1. Write letters to their elected officials on "policy and business actions" of their choice, and
2. Recruit at least two friends or family members to take part in the Earth Week challenge

For those who can't decide on an issue to write about, the website suggests the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act, which I blogged about here back in January. I'm definitely gung-ho about this issue, but I've already written to all my elected officials about it, not to mention calling up my Representative every month to noodge him on the topic.

So, instead, I decided to settle for a smaller actions related to another topic they suggested: fossil fuel divestment. I don't work for a company or other organization, but I'm associated by marriage with Rutgers University, so I signed a petition urging the university to immediately stop all new investments in fossil fuels and ditch its existing ones within five years. (I even shared it with my whole dozen friends on Facebook, for all the good that will do.) If you're interested in finding (or starting) a similar petition for your workplace or another organization you're involved with, you can look for one on GoFossilFree.org.

As for the second part of the challenge, recruiting people I know to take part in the Earth Week Challenge — well, I'm doing that right now, right?