Things we can do about things instead of doomscrolling and posting links to bad news. Mainly UK focused. Where we earn, spend and invest our money matters, plus what we do ourselves and what organisations we support.
Remember the powers that be will try and dissuade us from reducing our working hours and how much we spend with their corporate friends. There are various defeatist arguments employed by the media and parroted by idiots to try and make us give up; It's too hard/expensive, what about China, blah blah.
Some of these things are quick and cheap/free to change in our lives. There are also benefits beyond external change to all this. It feels good to get our agency back and doing something instead of just giving up and staring at corporate social media while wearing clothes made by slaves & sipping a sugar water drink.
TO-DO; Rankings of effort/impact/likely cost impact
Bold things are guestimated as being low effort & high impact
- https://www.which.co.uk/ magazine
- https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/ - have well researched guides for a huge amount of product types, balancing ethics, cost and availability
- Cooperatives - An alternative to shareholder capitalism and often have better prices and service
- Local Coop food (but not the shitty brands they sell), Suma
- Your local shops that sell local produce (not corner shops selling Coke, Cadburys and Hovis)
- Farm shops
- Zero waste and/or circular companies - Rapanui, Miniml etc
- Local cafes & coffee roasters; not Greggs, Starbucks or Costa
- Brands who are at least trying - Chocolonely, Rapanui, Howies, BAM, Miniml, Bio-D
- Reduce supermarket usage - they exploit us, workers AND their suppliers and are primarily focused on investor profits
- Preloved clothes - Vinted et al, eBay
- Sign up and use your local library
- Use and volunteer at repair cafes
- Libraries of things
- 3D printing repair parts
- Coke - biggest plastic polluter https://www.breakfreefromplastic.org/2024/02/07/bffp-movement-unveils-2023-global-brand-audit-results/
- Amazon - https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/ethicalcampaigns/boycott-amazon
- Low quality, often copyright infringing tat; Amazon trash 'brands', Shein, Primark, Temu, Wish etc
- Starbucks
- Nestle
- McDonalds
- Refuse to work for bad companies
- Reduce support for tax dodging companies - Amazon, BT, Starbucks & all the usual suspects https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/ethicalcampaigns/tax-justice/tax-avoidance-rankings
- Banking: Coop bank, Triodos, Ecology. Not Barclays, HSBC etc. who often fund fossil fuels and weapons
- How good are Revolut, Monzo, Starling?
- Make My Money Matter - https://makemymoneymatter.co.uk/banks/
- Green pension or at least green plan with current provider (probably at least some greenwash with that though)
- Avoid crypto or AI - both an environmental disaster due to power usage, and borderline scam in a lot of cases
- Reduce (non mortgage) debt
- 'Time banking'
- Boycott Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp), X/Twitter, Google, Amazon streaming/web services, Microsoft
- Framework laptops - user repairable and upgradeable
- Murena De-Googled Fairphone - fair supply chain, user repairable, reduces privacy invasion from Android
- https://www.shift.eco/en/ - Phones, tablets, screens, speakers, headphones, ebikes
- https://b4rn.org.uk/ rural broadband cooperative
- Use a VPN - free Proton works well, Mullvad is cheap and good
- Switch from Chrome and Chrome based browsers like Edge, Ecosia, Brave etc - Vivaldi or Firefox work great
- Adblocker for your browser
- Avoid main telecoms providers - use GiffGaff, EcoTalk and/or Phone Coop if you can
- No need for latest phones and computers - make them last, use reconditioned or repaired items
- Use Linux if you can - most folks don't know how to use Windows anyway, so Linux probably won't be any harder. Ubuntu works fine on most recentish laptops/PCs and can keep older machines in use rather than landfill
- Don't use AI or support companies that do - based on theft, huge power and water usage
- Community energy - solar, wind turbines
- https://degooglisons-internet.org/en/
- https://fullfact.org/
- https://www.bestforbritain.org/scandalous_spending_tracker
- https://ground.news/
- https://allsides.com - bit right wing?
- Join the Green Party and organise with other like minded folks - they offer an actual alternative to corporate captured 'managed democracy'
- https://timetoassemble.org/
- https://hopenothate.org.uk/ - exposing and countering right wing nonsense
- Not XR or Just Stop Oil - they are actively annoying the people they should be speaking on behalf of and their reputations are trashed.
- Animal rights groups
- Adbusters, Badvertising and other anti-advert groups that stop giant ad screens going up in your town
- Local MPs?
- Precious Plastic - local recycling of plastic into products to reduce landfill and exporting/burning of waste
- Support or volunteer at local food banks
- https://goodlawproject.org/
- Sharing things that help on social media, not just sharing more problems
- Speaking up to racism and other bigotry when friends or neighbours do it, doesn't have to cause a conflict if done right. Eg 'Say maaaate to a mate' https://www.london.gov.uk/maaate
- Laugh at racists when they try and recruit us
- Complain to OFCOM about GBNews and other grifters when they spout lies
- Be aware of the Alt Right pipeline and how to counter it https://archive.org/details/the-alt-right-playbook-how-to-radicalize-a-normiee
- Include and look after the older generations
- (Anti) SUV Alliance
- Tyre Extinguishers, if you're brave..
- Cycling pressure groups, Critical Mass
- Reduce or stop flying https://flightfree.co.uk/
- Reduce car usage and use public transport, walk, cycle