Who Needs to Hear You
It's important to raise awareness about environmental issues with everyone who will give you the opportunity to talk to them, but there are specific people who hold the power to actually change the laws or change the way things work.
Finding Your Reps
Our democracy is a representative democracy, meaning people vote for others to represent them in government decision-making. Everyone has a wide variety of people representing them every day, from the school board and city council to the state legislature and the U.S. Congress.
To find your national and state representatives, visit www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml.
To find your local government representatives, visit www.usa.gov/Agencies/Local.shtml.
To find your school board, park board, library board, or any other very localized government representative, simply call the office or visit the website of the institution.
For state and national officials, you can give your students a prequiz by printing pictures of each one of them and mounting them on a poster along with pictures of celebrities and other random people. Can they pick out any representatives? Can they at least pick out the president and vice president? If you want to look up voting records to see how your reps have voted on environmental issues, visit www.votesmart.org.
Finding Business Bigwigs
Chief executive officers (CEOs) of large businesses also hold a lot of power, and their business practices have an impact on the community and the environment. You can visit www.scorecard.org to find your community's biggest polluters and the names of the CEOs to contact. Likewise, most major corporations have websites where you can find names and contact information. If you want to go smaller and work with a local business on something like adopting energy conservation practices or eliminating plastic bags, just call or visit the business to set up an appointment to talk to the appropriate person.
