One of the difficulties of trying to be a responsible person is that a lot of harm is done in your name indirectly. Investments are one example: the money you've innocently saved or plugged into a retirement fund could be contributing to rainforest destruction, pollution, oppressive regimes and other not-so-nice things. Friends of the Earth has a useful guide for making sure that your money isn't being used in an exploitative or damaging way: http://www.foe.co.uk/news/ethical_investment_index.html. There are suggestions for various people, whether you're a shareholder, pension holder or newbie to investing.
Effort involved: it depends on how dramatically you want to shape your investments. You could simply write a letter to the manager of your fund, or you could hire a financial advisor specializing in ethical investing to draw up a list of possibilities.
The website World Wide We doesn't even exist yet, making this action extremely low-commitment. But the idea of connecting people interested in social justice is a promising one. If you sign up to the prospective website at www.wwe.org (yes, I know, it's odd to basically be agreeing to the idea of something), you may just be the first kid on your block to be part of something tech-y. And how often do you get to say that?
Effort involved: a sign-up to something theoretical. Easy peasy.
Image from: http://jezzbean.wordpress.com/2009/12/30/funny-clouds/flogo-2/
Foreign aid is a contentious topic, with ever-swirling debates about how to maximize its efficacy. To fully understand and thus improve aid it's necessary to gain as much information as possible about the process. That's why Publish What You Fund has started the Make Aid Transparent campaign (www.makeaidtransparent.org), which calls on governments to make it clear exactly how their foreign assistance funds are being spent. For example, spending on abstinence education programs in sub-Saharan Africa is much less effective than, well, plenty of other things. We have to know where we stand before we call for those 'plenty of other things' to take precedence.
Effort involved: signing a petition. Or spreading the message, as the website has handily provided a 'campaigning and advocacy toolkit'.
These buy-one-get-one-free offers are everywhere: on books, groceries, car parts, what have you. If you spot one of these and don't really need two, why not give one of the items away? It costs you nothing.
Effort involved: no more than usual.
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One of the difficulties of trying to be a responsible person is that a lot of harm is done in your name indirectly. Investments are one example: the money you've innocently saved or plugged into a retirement fund could be contributing to rainforest destruction, pollution, oppressive regimes and other not-so-nice things. Friends of the Earth has a useful guide for making sure that your money isn't being used in an exploitative or damaging way: http://www.foe.co.uk/news/ethical_investment_index.html. There are suggestions for various people, whether you're a shareholder, pension holder or newbie to investing.
