You might have already started your green campaign at home with changes to your lifestyle but these won't prevent road-widening schemes that encourage more traffic, airport expansions that increase carbon emissions, the polluting of rivers or the exponential growth of packaging waste. They won't stop the destruction for rainforests for wood or for cattle-grazing areas to produce globally marketed beefburgers.
As an individual it's difficult to persuade your council to provide more cycling lanes or to protect local wildlife habitats, let alone tackle these bigger issues, but by uniting in a campaign you might succeed.
Friends of the Earth lobbies decision-makers and provides information briefings. Through 200 local groups it supports community action for the environment.
Some organisations focus on specific themes. By promoting cycling and walking, Sustrans campaigns for safer roads, cleaner air and a better quality of life.
The Women's Environmental Network (WEN) has publicised rising breast cancer rates and health risks from chemicals in cosmetics and toiletries. Through 40 local groups, they encourage consumer action for environmental change. WEN pioneered the Real Nappy Project, to reduce waste and energy consumption.
Your area may have its own environmental campaign. The UK Marine SACS project protects wildlife habitats around Britain's coast. In Hackney, the Tree Musketeers plant and protect trees. Worthing residents fighting plans to build a Tesco hypermarket and a housing/commercial development on greenfield land have formed Protect our Woodland.
A grassroots network called Rising Tide has published 50 ideas for radical local action to combat the global threat of climate change, go to www.risingtide.org.uk/pages/resources/fifty.htm
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