A single phone call is more powerful than a thousand emails!

Don’t be shy, use your voice. Democracy only works when you participate! Click here to go to a convenient zipcode-based interface for getting the phone numbers of your elected representatives at the Federal and State levels.

It really isn’t hard to do, and it gets easier and easier. They are just people, and they are paid to listen to you! There’s no lower age limit to call. You don’t need to be of voting age. Your call may be worth more than your vote. You only need to care enough about the future of your world to say something. You won’t sound foolish, you’ll sound like a hero.

What to say? Try any one of these topics. Ask them to pass legislation to…

• combat global warming
• give incentives to renewable energy sources
• revoke incentives for fossil fuel producers (oil, coal and natural gas)
• comply with the Kyoto Protocols for greenhouse gas reduction
• move up the start date for the Kyoto successor from 2012 to 2010
• freeze carbon emissions at current levels and create a program to reduce emissions by 90% by 2050
• start a long-term shift to decrease payroll taxes and increase tax carbon emissions
• put aside some of the carbon tax revenues to help low-income people make the transition
• do not permit construction of new coal-fired power plants unless they are compatible with carbon capture and sequestration
• create an ‘Electranet’, a smart electric grid where businesses and individuals can feed electricity back into it at market rates (’net metering’)
• raise vehicle fuel efficiency (CAFE) standards
• set a date to ban energy-wasting incandenscent light bulbs
• create ‘Connie Mae’, a carbon-neutral mortgage association to promote energy-efficient building
• Require corporations to disclose their carbon emissions in annual reports as a relevant ‘material risk’
• pass stict campaign finance reforms to reduce the corrupting influences of special interests (like automakers, oil and coal companies, etc.)

Got any more ideas for talking points? Email them to us.