Many of us are surprised to learn we are investing in making climate change worse through our savings and mutual funds. We need to shift the billions we invest in fossil fuels to clean energy and tech instead.
You can take this on as an individual right now by contacting your financial institution, but even better, you can magnify your impact many times over by inspiring others to join you.
A good team project is to host a public forum on divesting from fossil fuels with a speaker or two who know what they are talking about. See this story about a grandparents group in Peterborough that hosted such a forum. Here are some tips:
1) Find a good speaker (or two). Look on the internet for local investment advisers who specialize in green investing and call them up to chat. They may well appreciate the public exposure to potential future clients and do an event for free. Be sure there's no hard sell for their business though. This is an educational forum.
2) Book a public venue. Find a venue that's accessible and choose a time likely to maximize interest. It's good to have lots of lead time for promotion.
3) Do lots of promotion. We often put most of our energy into the event itself and forget to promote it well enough! Alert the local media to get a story in beforehand. Put up posters. Reach out to your social circles. Reach out to other groups to contact their supporters. Post on social media. Work hard to get a good turnout.
4) Recruit. In addition to the topic at hand, this is also a good opportunity to talk about the work of your team or group and to ask others to join, so don't forget to circulate a sign in sheet and to follow up with people.
5) Tell the story. See if you can write up the information from the event and pitch it to your local media, or even do a short video for posting on social media. You can reach more people than were in the room with the message. And, if you have specific stories of people acting on the information, all the better!