Help Us Take Real Action on Climate Change

Find positive events, actions, volunteer opportunities, and meaningful ways to protect our environment and communities.

When we started Brightest we made two simple commitments to ourselves and you: anytime someone completed an act of good or volunteer shift through Brightest, we'd plant a tree. Second, we'd operate as a net zero carbon (CO2) service, offsetting all our servers, travel, and anything else we use to run our website and build our community. Thanks to the commitment of our climate community (and people like you), we've already planted over 10,000 new trees, capturing more than a hundred tons of CO2 this year. All thanks to individual acts of good adding up to big change. Now, with your help, we're taking our tree projects and sustainability commitment to the next level with a new service: a Zero Carbon Living tree-planting offset subscription. Using our existing project and partner infrastructure, each month we plant plant trees and invest in carbon-neutralizing clean energy and waste projects on behalf of our members, then verify the work to report back impact, allowing you to go carbon neutral (or gift zero carbon living to a friend) for less than the price of a weekly coffee ☕ While we don't think this alone will solve the climate crisis (one of the many reasons we provide digital infrastructure and tools to groups like Fridays for Future, XR, and Sunrise Movement), little differences DO add up when we spread the word and work together. To illustrate this, if every Spotify or Netflix customer went carbon-zero, it would carbon offset the environmental footprint of a country the size of Australia or Brazil. If you'd like to help us reach our next planting target of 1 million trees, we'd be extremely grateful, and you can start right here. Your contribution to plant trees and go carbon neutral is tax deductible. Trees planted through Brightest are planted in partnership with The Brightest Foundation Incorporated, a registered US 501(c)(3) public charity, EIN 83-3516335, alongside our local reforestation partner network. Your contribution to plant trees and offset your carbon footprint with us is tax-deductible within the guidelines of U.S law.

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Plant a Tree ($1 a Tree)

Brightest (Climate)

Flexible times

Trees are the most efficient, natural carbon dioxide (CO2) absorbers on the planet. Planting a tree helps limit climate change, restart water cycles, keep deserts from spreading, and also provides vital natural resources to local communities. Every time you plant a tree on Brightest, you're making the world a little better (and more carbon neutral), while offsetting your personal carbon footprint. Each tree you plant offsets approximately 1% of a metric ton (MT) of CO2 each year, sometimes up to 2%. Healthy, protected trees live to be 50, 75, and often 100+ years old, making them one of nature's most important ecosystem protectors and climate change fighters. For easy reference, planting 30 new trees is equal to taking one car off the road for a year and neutralizing all its emissions and carbon footprint. By supporting our tree planting projects, you'll help protect forest biodiversity, restore degraded land, fight climate change, and promote local economic development in front-line communities. Our partners work with local conservation groups, farmers, and tree planters in the United States (including wildfire areas like California and Montana), Brazil, Haiti, Peru, Madagascar, Mozambique, and Tanzania to establish sustainable agroforestry systems using native tree species, create good-paying green jobs, and help protect the local environment. Trees planted through Brightest are planted in partnership with The Brightest Foundation Incorporated, a US 501 (c)(3) public charity, EIN 83-3516335, alongside our local reforestation partner network. Any contribution you make to plant trees with us is tax-deductible within the guidelines of U.S. law.

Amazônia, Codajás

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From Strike → Change: Building an Unstoppable Climate Movement in Every Community (Video Interview)

Brightest

Flexible times and locations

Watch our climate justice interview with Chivona Newsome (Co-Founder of Black Lives Matter NY and NY-15 candidate for Congress in 2020) and Zaynab Elkolaly (Head organizer of Michigan Youth Climate Strike and Women's March Youth Michigan) in conversation with Chris Bolman (Co-Founder of Brightest). We talk about: 1. What's next for the climate movement after an inspiring, 7 million+ person week of global climate strikes this September. 2. How we can work together around the country to build community power to elect climate champions in 2020 and bring a Green New Deal to life. 3. Steps you can take in your own town/city/community to build positive climate momentum and create a safer, more sustainable future for everyone. Please RSVP to watch the recording.

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Join Youth Strike for Climate (Connecticut)

Youth Climate Strike (US)

Flexible times and locations

We, the youth of America, are striking because decades of inaction has left us with just 11 years to change the trajectory of the worst effects of climate change, according to the Oct 2018 UN IPCC Report. We are striking because our world leaders have yet to acknowledge, prioritize, or properly address our climate crisis. We are striking because marginalized communities across our nation —especially communities of color, disabled communities, and low- income communities— are already disproportionately impacted by climate change. We are striking because if the social order is disrupted by our refusal to attend school, then the system is forced to face the climate crisis and enact change. With our futures at stake, we call for radical legislative action to combat climate change and its countless detrimental effects on the American people. We are striking for the Green New Deal, for a fair and just transition to a 100% renewable economy, and for ending the creation of additional fossil fuel infrastructure. Additionally, we believe the climate crisis should be declared a national emergency because we are running out of time. Join our movement. The time is now.

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ESA Weekly Meeting (7pm Mondays in TCC 450)

USC Environmental Student Assembly

Flexible times

ESA encourages and facilitates the academic, pre-professional, cultural, social, and political self-realization of the University of Southern California’s environmental student groups as individuals and as a unified student community and advances and develops the green culture of the University and neighboring community. It is our mission to... 1. Engage: connect students to the environmental community through our programming and bring in new students to ideas of sustainability. 2. Inform: provide students with correct information about environmental issues and about university action to confront them. 3. Empower: give students the resources and opportunities to get involved, voice their interests, and have an impact. We meet every Monday from 7pm - 8pm in TCC 450

3607 Trousdale Pkwy TCC 450

Los Angeles, California

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Advocate for Clean Water & Environmental Policy

Clean Water Action

Flexible times and locations

Clean Water Action advocates for clean water and other environmental priorities across the United States. As a grassroots movement, you can lend your voice by contacting your local representatives and advocating for more sustainable outcomes, particularly at a time when environmental protections are under attack on multiple fronts from the Trump administration and our Republican-led Congress. For a list of current advocacy actions and recommended next steps, click the "get involved" button.

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Register to Vote (US)

Brightest

Flexible times and locations

Want to register to vote online? Awesome - it's easy, fast (takes 2 mins) and free to register to vote on Brightest. You also couldn't have picked a better time. Here's why: The upcoming 2022 election is just as historically important as 2020. Voting rights are under attack in states ranging from Arizona to Georgia, where state assemblies have significant power to decide (and potential overrule) election rules and laws. 2022 will also decide the future direction of our country across healthcare, job creation, social equality, fighting climate change, and a host of other critical issues. Those things matter, and you should help decide what happens. Not sure if you're registered or moved recently and want to check? Use this voter registration lookup tool: https://www.vote.org/am-i-registered-to-vote/ If you're 17 but turning 18 by election day, in most states you can also register to vote (and should). In the following states, you can only register if your 18th birthday is within a certain numbers of days or months before election day: - Alaska: must register 90 days before election day - Georgia: 6 months before - Iowa: 6 months before - Missouri: 6 months before - Texas: 2 months before If you're 17 years old and qualify under these rules, make sure you get registered.

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17 Easy Ways You Can Personally Fight Climate Change (Each Day)

Brightest (Climate)

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Climate change is one of the most important issues of our lifetime. At the current rate global temperatures are rising, in the coming years our planet (and us, and our children) will see rising sea levels, threats to wildlife, lands, and agriculture, and more frequent, stronger natural disasters like hurricanes and droughts. But climate change also can feel like a big, daunting problem. After all, it effects the entire Earth. So what can the average person do to help prevent it? While we do all need to work together to fight climate change, the good news is there are many easy things you, your family and your friends can do to reduce your personal carbon footprint. Best of all, many of them are easy, small changes. Here, we've compiled a list of 17 easy actions you can take to fight climate change and reduce your home's carbon footprint.

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