Protesting Pipelines without Picket Signs

Protestors at the Women’s March in San Francisco, CA in 2017

Does it make your blood boil to know that Keystone and DAPL may soon be transporting millions of gallons of tar sands oil across the US? Or that the recent nominees to head the EPA and serve as energy secretary aren’t exactly tree-hugging hippies? And yet you can’t commit to taking a week off work and camping on the frigid earth that is North Dakota in February to fight for your cause. Or maybe you just question whether bright-colored card stock and sharpie are effective tools for change.

But there are ways to protest that are more effective than chaining yourself to a bulldozer. And unlike your standard protest where you are always unsure of how much of a difference you’ve actually made, these methods guarantee tangible and quantifiable results.

Here’s what you need to do:

Minimize your energy use in every way imaginable, by as much as possible.

Before you shrug off the ideas you’ve heard a thousand times before like carpool to work, keep your tires inflated, or upgrade your light bulbs, remember this: If we unchain ourselves from the bulldozers and really focus our energy, the pipelines may get built, but the only thing they’ll ever be is empty.

So, let’s get started!

For Beginners — The Easy (and cheap) Stuff:

• Seriously, change your lightbulbs! LED bulbs are getting really cheap, and they will save you money. Start with the bulbs you have turned on most often. This 6 pack on Amazon is $23. Neat fact: they run cool — even after being on for hours you can grab it like a baseball without consequence.
• I know it’s delicious, and salad is dumb, but eat less red meat! There are a lot of delicious things out there you don’t eat all the time, like doughnuts, Cadbury Eggs, and double fudge brownie sundaes with sprinkles. (And to be fair, people are making some pretty bitchin’ salads these days) My point being, raising beef uses 10 times more resources than poultry, dairy, eggs or pork, according to Smithsonian Magazine, so consider some alternatives. Or, better yet, go pescatarian (no animals except seafood and dairy), or vegetarian, or vegan!
• Buy better drapery! Huh? You heard me. These days you can buy insulated and thermal curtains that will maintain the temperature of your house or apartment much better than regular old venetians. Even closed, doubled-pane windows exchange significantly more heat than the insulated walls of your home. In the summer, leave thermal curtains open overnight to let in cool air, then close during the day to keep out the summer heat, and vice versa in the winter. Then reap the benefits of lower gas and electric bills!

Customers taking delivery of the first Chevrolet Bolt EVs in Fremont, CA

For the Hardcore Activists:

• Buy an electric car! The Chevrolet Bolt EV just came out for 2017. Go buy it. It’s all electric with a range of 238 miles. It starts at $36,620. You can get that under $30,000 with state and federal tax rebates depending on where you live. And if that’s too expensive, used Fiat 500e’s and Nissan Leafs cost about half that. If you think you will suffer from range anxiety, there’s a plethora of cars available that get great mileage and won’t leave you searching for a charging station in a sweat. The Toyota Prius and Chevy Volt come to mind, but if you’re a super cheap S.O.B. like myself, you may be interested in a decade-old Honda Insight (66 mpg!) or Toyota Echo, both easily found for under $5k. Still too much? Many motorcycles and mopeds are cheaper still and get upwards of 60 mpg!
• Make your own energy! Install solar panels for electricity or water heating. The city will pay you for any excess energy you generate. It may wind up saving you tens of thousands of dollars! Google even has this super handy tool for calculating how much you might stand to save with solar panels:

Don’t stop at home either, tackle the office as well. Then tell your friends and family about how little you pay for gas and electricity, and make protesters out of them too! This is your protest after all, and rather than a fresh blast of mace to the face, you’ll just have a bunch of extra money in your checking account.

Now, let’s get to work!

#greenup #protesteveryday

For some additional pointers, check out this article on Forbes.