Many old-time activists lament how passive our society has become.  What ever happened to ‘rage against the machine’?  Not the rock band, but the real thing!  Have we become a society where even our impulse to protest what is wrong can be coopted and sold back to us for our vicarious listening pleasure?

In a day and age when our votes can easily be ‘bought’ by following the plans of highly paid media consultants with precisely planned ‘media buys’, one of the remaining bastions of democracy must be our right (if not ability) to speak out.

Wherever you are on the shyness to outspokeness scale, you must use your voice as a tool to help slow and reverse our headlong rush toward unsustainability and climate change.  If you are at the ‘shy end’ of the scale, find your voice.  That may be literal, in learning and practicing talking to friends and family about the problem, or figurative, in writing for whatever outlet you have, from blogging to letters to the editor, to letters to your local, state, and congressional representatives.  If you are at the ‘outspoken end’ of the scale, go for it!

One thing to remember, when trying to make allies and influence people, the tone is as important as the message.  Railing against the wasteful habits of a sibling, for instance, will not get you very far.  Rather one must learn how to tell people things in ways that do not provoke opposition and resistance, but rather provoke agreement and action.

Finding and using your ‘voice’ is one of the most potent of tools in our arsenal to combat global warming since, alas, the majority of humanity may still be in a relative state of sleep to the problem.