Petition Coalition, 1/14/15 - Environmental Edition

Join the "Petition Coalition" by following these links and signing those that you agree with!

One of the new Congress's biggest goals is to push through the dangerous Keystone XL pipeline, which would create only a handful of permanent jobs in the United States, while pumping a huge volume of one of the dirtiest fossil fuels through America's heartland (and using eminent domain to destroy farmland and grazing pastures for hundreds of property owners). Tell the House and the Senate that we have better things to do than help Big Oil transport Canadian fossil fuel to Texas refineries: https://secure.nrdconline.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=3638&s_src=TWOKXPETTKSC#.VKxhVriUL3k.twitter

Trains full of highly toxic, highly flammable petroleum products course through cities and towns throughout North America every day. Unfortunately, they all too often derail, leak, crash, and/or explode, killing residents (47 alone in one Quebec incident), polluting residential areas and wildlife habitats alike. Unbelievably, when Big Oil is making record profits, many states (including my own, New York) are subsidizing the costs of these dangerous “bomb trains.” Speak out against public money being funneled to support them: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/661/032/375

Hardly a day goes by that I don't see someone purchasing a single item and then putting it in a plastic bag instead of stowing it in their bag or pocket, or just carrying it home by hand. And never does a day go by that I don't see plastic bags floating down the street, sidewalk, or flapping in a tree here in New York City. It's high time that we disincentivized the reckless overuse of plastic shopping bags by implementing a ten cent surcharge on each one. Ask Mayor de Blasio to support the campaign: http://www.congressweb.com/nylcv/2

There's no arguing that Doritos are delicious, but unfortunately, that's also the flavor of deforestation: parent company PepsiCo buys almost a half million tons of palm oil every year, which is produced by cutting down rainforests even though there are plenty of vegetable oil alternatives. Watch the video below and then put the pressure on them to cut palm oil out of their products and make less of an impact on our global environment: http://action.sumofus.org/a/doritos-palm-oil/

Thanks for fighting the good fight, and for all the little ways you change the world!

Throwing away money that could help your local school? Well, cut it out...literally!

As a public school kid in the '80s, collecting Labels for Education from Campbell's soup and related brand products was a year-round endeavor. Parents and teachers liked it because it meant that the school system could cash in those labels for free educational and sporting goods; kids liked it because most schools turned the collection drive into a contest, with the winning classroom or grade winning a prize. Who doesn't want a pizza party or a field trip?!

My sister and I used to enlist aunts, uncles, neighbors, and family friends to clip and save their labels for us (and since my uncle brought a couple cans of tomato juice in his lunch bucket every day when he worked at General Motors, we always had a pretty epic haul for our respective classrooms). As an adult, I've always followed suit, saving my labels over the years first for friends' kids and now for my own nephew.

It's not just the Labels for Education program that I save for these days, though: since 1996, General Mills and their partners have been running the Box Tops for Education program, with snippable tokens worth a dime each placed on a panoply of products from a wide variety of food and home supply brands. In the nineteen years since its inception, their program has provided a whopping $600 million to schools, daycare centers, and libraries across the nation (compared with $114 million over the 40 year history of the Campbell's program).

I pulled the baggy of labels and box tops down from my kitchen cork board the other day so that I could ship them off to my nephew, and the tally since my last shipment was 140 snipped box tops (worth $14) plus a Pathmark bonus slip with another 50 box tops (a $5 value), along with 41 Campbell's points (which don't have a set monetary value, but I reckon are worth about $1).

That's right around an even $20 that'll help support my nephew's school this year. Bear in mind that I'm a bachelor who lives alone, so that's just one man's soup (Progresso, Campbell's), cereal (Cheerios, Basic 4), bread (Pepperidge Farm) and pasta sauce (Prego). Imagine if every household in every school district took a moment to clip and save their points before recycling the cans, jars, and boxes bearing them? In my building, that would amount to almost $400. On my block, $16,000. Get the picture? Then get on board!

If you don't already, I encourage you to set aside a baggy or jar in your kitchen and start collecting box tops and labels from participating brands. I'm sure you'll be surprised at how quickly they add up. Even if there's no child in your life to whom you can pass them along directly, you can find a local school participating in the Campbell's program by entering your ZIP code at this site (if a school collects the less-valuable Campbell's labels, it will almost surely also collect General Mills box tops). It will list your local schools, along with the name of the coordinator at each institution. Just pop them in the mail to their attention!

Can you think of an easier way to generate FREE money for a good cause? I sure can't...but if I do, I'll certainly share it with you here at Little Ways to Change the World!

Petition Coalition, 1/7/15 - Domestic Cornucopia Edition

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TLC (who are now a far stretch from “The Learning Channel”) are planning to air a special called “My Husband's Not Gay,” promoting the completely debunked idea that homosexuality is something that can be (or should be) “overcome” through prayer and/or the scandalous and widely banned “reparative therapy” that has damaged so many who believed in its ability to change their sexuality. Tell TLC that airing a special about something completely refuted by the medical and psychiatric communities is appalling: https://www.change.org/p/tlc-cancel-your-upcoming-tv-show-my-husband-s-not-gay

Cosmetics companies like L'Oreal promote their campaigns to fight cancer, but at the same time, they serve as a carcinogen delivery system to their customers, putting dangerous chemicals into many of their products—even baby products. Tell them that it they're going to talk the talk, they have to walk the walk, and remove all of these cancer-causing chemicals from their product lines: http://act.credoaction.com/sign/loreal_cancer

“The Volcker Rule” was passed to prevent banks from making the risky gambles that crashed the economy under President Bush and created the massive recession out from which we are still digging ourselves. Last month, the Federal Reserve announced that they were instituting a two year delay in implementing the law, allowing banks to act as hedge funds and put your—our—money at risk. Tell the Fed that this element of Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation must be implemented NOW: http://act.credoaction.com/sign/Volcker_Rule_fedreserve?sp_ref=93209231.4.11086.e.42969.2&referring_akid=.1276313.llp5N5&source=mailto_sp

92% of gun owners and even 86% of Republicans polled support expanding background checks to cover every gun purchase in the U.S., regardless of where and how it's bought. Rep. Mike Thompson of California plans to introduce a bill to expand background checks to cover the loopholes of online and gun show sales. Ask your member of Congress to stand with him and pass this sensible firearm safety legislation: http://act.watchdog.net/petitions/4804

Thanks for fighting the good fight, and for all the little ways you change the world!

Petition Coalition, 1/6/15 - Congressional Issues Edition

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Suicide is a huge problem among both our active service members and our military veterans, with nearly two dozen taking their own lives every day. In December of 2000, when I was on a USO tour with Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen in Eastern Europe, he and his wife told me how distressed they were at the problem then...and it's only escalated with the huge deployments of troops for our incursions in Afghanistan and Iraq. We need to provide the Department of Veterans Affairs with the funding the tools they need to effectively counsel our returning troops afflicted with PTSD or depression, so please tell your member of Congress to pass the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention Act without delay: https://www.change.org/p/pass-the-clay-hunt-suicide-prevention-for-america-s-veterans-sav-act 

Congress recently passed a law written by Citigroup which repeals many regulations that were protecting citizens from some of the biggest abuses practiced by the banking industry in the past, which have fleeced American citizens and had profound negative effects on the economy numerous times in the past. Demand a breakup of the “too big to fail” banks and passage of a 21^st century version of the “Glass-Steagall Act” to protect all of us little guys: http://act.boldprogressives.org/survey/survey_endtoobigtofail/?sp_ref=91950171.219.11029.o.1.2&source=c2c-sp 

Professional sports bring a lot of pleasure to fans and spectators, but there's absolutely no way to argue that they deserve the same tax-free designation as actual charities...especially when they rake in hundreds of millions of dollars every single year. Stand against the NFL's tax exemption and tell them to pay the fair share of taxes that every massively profitable corporation should pay: https://vk.rootstrikers.org/petitions/28?n=2653236.MsMH_h 

The right wing frothed at the mouth for months because of their relationship with the firebrand pastor whose church the Obamas frequented in Chicago. Now, however, the same people are unperturbed by the fact that one of the highest ranking Republicans in Congress spoke to a white supremacist group associated with former KKK grand wizard David Duke. Tell Speaker of the House John Boehner that it's an embarrassment to his party to allow Majority Whip Steve Scalise to continue in his leadership role in Congress: http://site.pfaw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=scalise 

Thanks for fighting the good fight, and for all the little ways you change the world!

Petition Coalition, 1/3/15 - Environmental Edition

Join the "Petition Coalition" by following these links and signing those that you agree with! 

Bee populations have dropped precipitously in recent years, largely due to pesticides so wide-ranging that they not only kill pests, but the very necessary insects who pollinate our crops. Now the EPA is considering approval of this class of indiscriminate killer chemicals on a whole slew of foodstuffs, from oats to alfalfa to corn. We can't let “agro” be so “aggro.” Plead with the EPA to deny the Dow Agroscience application for expansion of sulfoxaflor use: https://secure.earthjustice.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1591 

As much as Starbucks heralds its accomplishments as a pro-social, environmentally friendly company, they are a part of a lawsuit to prevent the state of Vermont from mandating labels on any genetically modified foods. While there may not actually be any harmful effects from eating GMOs, every person has a right to know whether or not their products are modified and make an educated decision. Tell Starbucks that this lawsuit flies in the face of their company's public profile: http://act.credoaction.com/sign/starbucks_gmo_lawsuit 

Big business—and their allies in Congress—are attempting to water down the Endangered Species Act (proposed and signed into law by a Republican president, before that party by and large abandoned its environmental conservatism). Let the House Natural Resources Committee know that you stand strongly behind the protection of dwindling wildlife: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/671/843/641/ 

U.S. energy policy tips the scales in favor of dirty energy products like oil and coal through tax breaks and subsidies—perks that the renewable energy sector don't get because their profits and lobbying power are so much lower than the “mainstream” fossil fuel companies. Tell the new incoming Congress that clean energy deserves the same legislative privileges as Big Oil: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/875/264/845/

Thanks for fighting the good fight, and for all the little ways you change the world!

Find a penny, pick it up; give to charity quite a few bucks!

My favorite thing about New Year's Day is tallying up all the money I've found over the previous year, which I donate to the Sean McGrath Fund at the Princeton Area Community Foundation.

As many of you know, Sean was a close friend of mine who worked with me at MTV after he had been a member of New Jersey bands Saves The Day, Hands Tied, and Mouthpiece. He was stricken with cholangiocarcinoma (the same hard-to-diagnose bile duct cancer that took the life of Ray Manzarek of The Doors) and fought valiantly for two years before finally succumbing to the disease in 2004.

In the decade since, we've raised and granted nearly $35000 to assorted health and humanitarian charities with the help of our many donors and musical supporters (most prevalently Thursday, Taking Back Sunday, Midtown, and The Movielife, who volunteered to perform at our inaugural "Hold On To Your Friends" benefit concert, and have continued to offer support throughout the years).

The money that I stop to pick up each year is just a drop in that proverbial bucket, but I challenge each and every person reading this to match the amount (at minimum) with their own donation so that we can continue doing good work in Sean's name and memory!

And now for this year's tally...

It was a banner year for the campaign, in part thanks to an unfortunate circumstance: I was freelancing at a company in the spring when they were sold to a new owner and fired the vast majority of their staff, who left behind a collective total of $26.49 after they cleaned out their desks and walked out the door for the last time. Even aside from that windfall, though, I found a sizable sum abandoned or lost on the streets of New York, in subway stations, at checkout counters, in cabs, and even at the bank. Here's the breakdown of denominations (including the inadvertent donations from my former colleagues):

$10 - 1

$5 - 1

$1 - 5

$0.25 - 50

$0.10 - 114

$0.05 - 87

$0.01 - 636

All told, that comes to $54.61--but wait a second, I'm not done yet!

In addition to the American currency, I found two separate NYC MetroCards with a combined value of $4.65 (essentially found money), as well as the following foreign currency (US exchange value in parenthesis):

1.32 Euros ($1.60)

.03 Canadian dollars ($0.03)

.06 British pounds ($0.09)

5.00 Peruvian soles ($1.67)

1.00 Hong Kong dollars ($0.13)

.01 Singapore dollars ($0.01)

1.25 United Arab Emirates dirhams ($0.34)

That makes this year's grand total a record-setting $63.13, more than tripling the puny tally from 2013, and easily surpassing the 2012 and 2011 hauls.

And now my two-part challenge: 1) for each of you to make a matching donation by the end of January in honor of what would have been Sean's 39th birthday on the 27th of this month (I'll set the pace by making a personal donation to match the money I found), and 2) for you to set aside a can or jar to store your own found money in 2015, with the end goal of tallying and donating it next January.

To make your own $63.13 (or greater!) donation to the Sean McGrath Fund, hit the orange button on the PACF site and make sure you specify "Sean McGrath Fund" in your note. Thanks in advance for your generosity, your support, and for helping us keep Sean's name and spirit alive through charity!