Eco-friendly ideas for activists
To spare more ink in the world, it would be better if mankind used better
fonts. In current word processor programs, there are quite good fonts which can
save more paper, for example, "Liberation Sans Narrow". However, we want to
save more ink as well, and we could possibly do that by omitting some parts of
the glyphs, for example, we could omit the upper straight part of the letter P,
making the glyph something like a hook. In fashion and branding, there are
already similar solutions for other letters, and they are popular. The creation
of a public domain font which would change all or most of the letter glyphs in
a similar manner, could cause a considerable saving of ink for mankind, if it
becomes fashionable. This font could differ so much from the conventional latin
letters that we could use another name for it. I (the author) am not a
professional font developer, but I found a public domain font on the Internet,
and changed it with the open-source program FontForge, spending much of my free
time on it for many days, and it turned out that the font would consume more
paper than others. That is why more time and expertise is needed here.
Some environmentalist organizations offer translation work to some activists,
but a translator activist can translate environmentalist materials even without
cooperation. Books that are already in the public domain are a good choice for
this. The text of the CIA World Factbook, for example, which can be found on
the website of CIA, is in the public domain and it contains very much
information relevant to environmentalism, so it would be welcome to read it in
other languages. There are also some classic works which are relevant to
environmentalism, for example, "The Coal Question" by William Stanley Jevons,
or "An essay on the Principle of Population" by Thomas Malthus. As there are
lots of new and free, but not public domain environmentalist materials
issued by organizations like the UNEP and others, a translator activist could
also have the idea of translating a specific publication, and try to ask
permission for it. However, it is really worth of translating only those
publications which were successful in their original language, and will be read
by many, because there are many choices in free environmentalist works, and
quality matters very much.
On the Internet, there are lots of free documents in connection with
environmentalism. An activist who has a computer and an Internet-connection,
could create one or more collections of documents from these, to fit on one CD
or DVD, like the 2008/9 Wikipedia Selection for schools, or the Project
Gutenberg's CD and DVD project. (Note that the licenses should be read
carefully before doing this.) This CD or DVD could even be shared with other
activists. This way the activists would depend less on the Internet service,
and this can be handy in case of a crisis. However, it can be useful not only
in a crisis, but when suggesting reading ideas to other activists, or in case
when it is feared that there is a surveillance on the Internet about what a
person reads. However, if an activist creates a collection of documents, the
trustworthiness of that activist is really important. It is better if there are
more activists working on this, preferably associated with an environmentalist
organization, and check their work multiple times.
In the time of the writing of this, many petitions can be found on the Internet
connected to environmentalism, which can be signed by anyone. By signing these,
we may contribute to the success of the petitions, which means environmentalist
success. Here it is important to note that it is not worth signing all of the
petitions, because the texts of many petitions are not perfect. For example, I
(the author) probably signed some imperfect petitions formerly, but I do not
want to sign any more such petitions in the future. Petitions which are sent to
their recipients in a different language than the signers' known languages
are not perfect. Petition websites that do not show exactly what is signed
by the signer and what is got by the recipient, are imperfect. Petitions that
tell anything about the future as a certainty, or present uncommon knowledge as
certainly known by the signers, are imperfect. Anyway, the petition is only
worth signing if we deem it probable that
the petition is beneficial, and
the statements written in the petition are true, and this holds
usually
more often
if the
petition was made by a famous organization. In addition to that, for our own
sake it is probably not worth signing those petitions either that need our home
addresses to sign them,
or which are only hosted on a website
that has too strict or risky conditions of use,
or that send separate emails to the recipient in the
name of each signer. Those petitions, however, in which we do not find any
error, are worth signing for the sake of our environment
, and it is worth sharing them with
some of our acquaintances
.
Further readings
(these were not necessarily read by the author):
Dr. Gene Sharp - The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Vol. 2: The Methods of
Nonviolent Action (Boston: Porter Sargent Publishers, 1973)
Randy Shaw - The Activist's Handbook (University of California Press; 1996,
2001)
Eco-friendly ideas for passive people (chapter left out)
In a world where the good learners were richer, the free version of this
book could have more chapters by this, too.