Christmas Climate Strike

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Boycott Christmas

Capitalists want business-as-usual. Tell them no.

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Buy Me No Gifts and I’ll Do the Same

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Dear family, friends, co-workers, and others,

I am not buying any holiday gifts this year. I am not accepting any gifts either. Please honor my wishes and do not buy anything for me this Christmas and Holiday season.

Why? I am joining the Christmas Climate Strike.

Climate change is real, and we only have about 10 years to halt catastrophic and irreversible damage. Many governments are still not taking the threat seriously. We must do all we can to get their attention. When revenues from economic boycotts cause a loss to the bottom line, politicians and big business alike start to take notice. Boycotts helped to end apartheid in South Africa, segregation in the US, and most recently anti-transgenered ‘bathroom’ bills in North Carolina.

We go into debt to buy ill-received presents that go unused, get returned, or thrown away, and produce billions of pounds of waste in the process. We must stop mindlessly consuming and producing waste because it’s ‘tradition’, many of which are merely marketing campaigns, not genuine long-standing customs.

Let’s create new traditions based on spending quality time with one another instead of buying junk none of us really wants or needs. Please join me and pledge to neither buy nor receive gifts this holiday season. Forward this blog post to others to let them know.

Give the future, not presents.

Low-Waste Love

It’s not just Christmas that is a huge waste of time and money, resulting in tons of garbage. Valentines Day is fast approaching. Like Xmas it’s all about marketing that equates love with money. You have to buy cards, flowers, heart-shaped balloons, and so on, otherwise do you really love someone?

What About the Adults?

I was standing in line at an outdoor kiosk, third in line and doing my best to social distance despite being outdoors with a mask on. A UPS delivery guy walks by, pushing a cart of packages to be delivered. He recognizes the man in line in front of me and they start to chat. From the snippets of conversation I picked up, they both are still working at their respective union jobs (“I’m still with local 488…” or something like that), presumably making a comfortable middle-class living.

Mr. UPS guy is 61 years old, has a full-time union job, but tells his friend he is working this extra job part-time to earn money for the holidays. He says he likes the exercise, and…well…he isn’t quite old enough yet to retire and get his pension. Does he really like it, or making the best of the situation?

What About the Kids?

The most common pushback to the idea of a gift-free Christmas is related to children. Adults are happy to give it up, but societal pressures make them reluctant to ask their little ones to forego presents as well. I understand, but also urge parents to at least give it some more thought. Here’s why.

My no-gift Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving by design is a gift-free holiday, and compared to Christmas it’s far superior. Why can’t we make Christmas more like Thanksgiving?

Sorry for the Ads

Sorry. It costs money to get rid of ads via WordPress. Times are tough, and work is sparse for me at the moment. This is a pet project of mine as well and I am the only one financing it. Therefore, for now, there are ads on this website.

Also, what little extra money I do have is being donated to organizations to defeat Trump. If you are in the US, have you voted?

GO VOTE!!!!!

https://iwillvote.com/

Vote for Biden/Harris in the hopes we can fix the untold damage done these last four years. It will take time to clean up this mess, but if we vote in numbers vast enough, even his cheating will not buy him this election.

Super Saturday

When you run a campaign called “Christmas Climate Strike” your window for outreach narrows as the big day approaches. Today is December 19th, and yet it’s not too late to get the word out!

Do Nothing for Climate Change

I responded to a post on Twitter which asked the following:

If I told you all we could still save koalas, we could still save the coral reefs, we could still save the wild places we love so much — but it would require us to form a revolution that demands radical change in all aspects of society — what would that change for you?

Spread The Word

Why join the Christmas Climate Strike?

Climate Strike Alternatives

I sometimes take for granted the right to free speech and assembly that I have as an American citizen. I can go to local climate strikes without fear of retaliation or arrest by the US government. Not everyone is so lucky.