Posted on March 7, 2018
Victory: Chaco Canyon saved from fossil fuel drilling
Activism works. Thanks to the more than 178,000 CREDO members who took action and local leaders fighting on the ground in New Mexico, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke canceled the proposed oil and gas lease sale in Chaco Canyon set for March 8.
Trump and his fossil fuel regime were ready to hand over drilling rights near the Chaco Culture National Historical Park to the fossil fuel industry by putting up nearly 4,500 acres of land for sale in Greater Chaco, some of which lay within a critical buffer zone threatening sacred 1,000-year-old Puebloan artifacts and structures of immense cultural, historical and tribal value.
We couldn’t have won this victory without the activism by CREDO members, our environmental allies and local tribal leaders – so thank you to everyone who made their voices heard.
Posted on March 7, 2018
Five ways you can stand up to the NRA right now
Within hours of the horrific massacre at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida — which took the lives of 17 people — Republican politicians were issuing their well-rehearsed “thoughts and prayers” social media posts and rejecting any calls for serious gun control reforms that would prevent these killings in the future.
But the very next day, the brave Parkland survivors took action. And in the weeks since the shooting, they have taken to the halls of the Florida legislature, Congress and the White House to call out the true enabler of these repeated mass killings: the National Rifle Association.
In response, the NRA has dug in its heels, rejecting any form of common sense gun reform and even empowering dangerous conspiracy theories to discredit the survivors. But the momentum for real gun control is on our side. Since Parkland, corporate partners have been abandoning the NRA in droves. And people all over the country have been publicizing and criticizing the amount of money their representatives have taken from the NRA.
CREDO stands with the Parkland students and everyone else who is ready to fight for real gun control and call out the NRA for its complicity in gun deaths and gun violence.
Here are five ways you can take action right now to stop the NRA:
Posted on March 6, 2018
How to easily save energy at home
One consequence of human-caused climate change is extreme weather, including more intense heat waves. And a consequence of that is higher energy use at home. For example, a 2015 study by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences estimated that a boom in air conditioning use alone over the rest of this century will nearly double residential electricity consumption.
This is what’s known as a positive feedback loop – and it’s a problem. If you want to be part of the solution, here are 10 easy ways to reduce power use in your house or apartment, five for the winter and five for the summer.
In the winter
- Turn down the thermostat. Lower your thermostat at night – you know this already, but you might not know how much energy you can save with this simple step. You can cut 1 percent from your heating bill for each degree you set back your thermostat, according to the Department of Energy. Turn it back for 8 hours every night and you can reduce your bill up to 10 percent per year.
- Use your windows wisely. During the day, open the curtains or blinds on any windows that receive sunlight and free heat will shine in. At night, close the curtains to keep heat in. When drawn during cold weather, most conventional curtains can reduce heat loss by up to 10 percent, says the DOE.
- Close the doors to unused rooms. If there are rooms in your home you don’t use a lot, don’t spend heat on them. Instead, close them off. Shut the vents in those rooms, as well as the doors, and it will take less energy to heat the rest of your home. Also: use an old towel to block the gap under exterior doors. A one-eighth inch gap under a door will let in as much cold air as a 2.4-inch hole in your wall.
- Insulate your radiator. If you have a radiator against a wall, cover the wall in foil. This will prevent heat escaping and reflect it back into the room. You can buy foil made for this purpose, or you can use plain-old aluminum foil. Also: large furniture will absorb heat from the radiator, so move it away (unless you’re sitting in it).
- Cover bare floors. Bare floors can pull as much as 10 percent of the heat out of your home. Cover them with rugs or carpeting to you save heat – and keep your feet cozy.
In the summer
- Close your curtains. Shut your curtains or blinds to keep out the heat during the day. Doing this can reduce heat gain by 45 percent, according to the DOE. Curtains are not as effective as blinds, but even a medium-color curtain with white plastic on the back can cut heat gain by 33 percent.
- Set your AC higher. If you use air conditioning, set it at the highest temperature you can tolerate comfortably. You’ll save 10 percent percent a year on your cooling bill by setting your thermostat 10 to 15 degrees higher for 8 hours each day. Also: AC will not cool a room faster if you crank it down. Dialing the thermostat to 60 won’t get you to 70 any quicker. You’ll just waste extra energy and money.
- Make a personal AC. Put a bowl of ice in front of an electric fan. The fan will blow the cold air in your direction and keep you cool. This uses a lot less energy than air conditioning. Also: using a fan without ice will allow you to comfortably raise the temperature on your AC.
- Plant trees. If you own a home, plant more trees, shrubs and bushes around your house. They not only provide shade, but they cool the air before it reaches your walls and windows.
- Line dry your clothes. Clotheslines are making a comeback. There’s even a nonprofit, Project Laundry List, devoted to the promotion of line drying. And summer, of course, is the best time for line drying. The sun is available, and you’ll keep radiant heat from the dryer out of your home. Running an average electric dryer costs about $200 a year.
Posted on March 5, 2018
This month and every month, CREDO Mobile stands up for women’s rights
March is Women’s History Month, a time to commemorate and honor the incredible achievements of women throughout history. But here at CREDO, every month is a time to recognize the accomplishments of women – and to protect our progress, fight for equality and expand opportunities for all women.
For 30 years, CREDO has always stood for gender equality – from the millions we’ve donated to groups fighting for women’s rights to the grassroots activism we fund to the way we run our business. It’s at the core of our company’s values.
Right now, as a repressive regime in the White House and right-wing conservatives in Congress and state houses across the country wage a war against women, CREDO is more committed than ever to fight for pay equity and against discrimination, expand access to reproductive services, raise wages, expand social security, and fight for universal health care and paid family leave.
Here are just some of the ways we as a company are being recognized for and standing up for women this month – and every month:
- Fighting for women’s rights is at the core of much of our grassroots activism. Just recently, we’ve engaged our more than 5 million supporters on campaigns calling on key lawmakers to protect abortion rights and funding for Planned Parenthood, stop attacks on birth control access, protect Title IX and survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence, and hold Trump and his administration accountable for their misogyny and sexism.
- Since our founding, we’ve donated $10 million to organizations fighting for women’s equality, abortion rights and reproductive choice, women’s empowerment here and abroad, pay equity, and stronger protections for women in the workplace. We’re also proud to be one of the largest corporate donors to Planned Parenthood.
- CREDO Mobile was given the Best Corporate Giving for Gender Equality award in January by Philanthropy Women for our commitment to gender equity funding, which is approximately 11.7 percent of our total donations. As Philanthropy Women put it, “Imagine if every corporation gave 11.7 percent of their philanthropy dollars to gender equality. We would be able to accelerate the progress of gender equality movements and reach critical mass sooner.” We agree!
- Last November, we proudly joined Planned Parenthood’s #BusinessForBC campaign, which calls on employers to publicly commit to providing their workers with birth control coverage. As the Trump regime rolls back the Affordable Care Act’s birth control benefit, allowing employers to discriminate against women, CREDO Mobile remains dedicated to providing no-cost birth control coverage for our employees.
We owe a great debt to the women’s rights activists throughout history who have made all the work we do today possible, and we urge other companies to follow our lead this Women’s History Month and every month of the year.
Posted on March 1, 2018
Our February grantees thank you for your support
Each month, CREDO members vote on how we distribute funding to three incredible organizations. Those small actions add up – with one click, you can help fund groups fighting to build and empower the progressive grassroots to take our democracy back from corporations, defend the environment and produce news about reproductive rights and justice. Just last month, more than 80,000 CREDO members voted to distribute our monthly donation to Democracy for America, Friends of the Earth and Rewire.
These donations are made possible by CREDO customers and the revenue they generate by using our services. The distribution depends entirely on the votes of CREDO members like you. And for that, our February grant recipients thank you.
Democracy for America
Thank you CREDO members for being essential allies in our fight to build a country and Democratic Party that’s unflinchingly committed to an inclusive populist political agenda up-and-down the ballot in all 50 states.” To learn more, visit democracyforamerica.com.
Friends of the Earth
“Thank you for your support and partnership! We value your dedication to our work to defend the environment and champion a healthy and just world. CREDO members like you help us fight – and win – many important battles for our planet. ” To learn more, visit foe.org.
Posted on March 1, 2018
Vote now for three great progressive groups this March
Each month, CREDO members help decide how to donate tens of thousands of dollars to three great progressive causes. This March, you can help fund groups fighting for civil rights, press freedom and net neutrality, and workers’ rights by voting for Center for Popular Democracy, Free Press Action Fund and OUR Walmart. Learn more about each of these groups, and then cast your vote for one, two or all three by March 31.
Center for Popular Democracy
Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) builds the power of communities to ensure our country embodies our vision of an inclusive, equitable society where people of color, immigrants, working families, women and LGBTQ communities thrive together.
CREDO funding will help CPD to protect the gains it has made fighting the repressive Trump regime and build a national mobilization effort to activate supporters on a wide range of progressive issues, including civic engagement, climate justice, racial justice, combating wage theft and more.
Free Press Action Fund
Free Press fights for press freedom and your rights to connect and communicate, leading more than a million members in campaigns for net neutrality and other protections online.
Posted on February 26, 2018
Tuesday Tip: How to turn off push notifications on your Android cell phone
What are push notifications?
They’re called push notifications. And they certainly are pushy. They’re those constant messages on your phone (ding!) that alert you to a new text, sports score, promo, sale, and everything in between. Some of them you want to see like an email from your boss. Some make you want to throw your phone out the window (do not do this). If you’ve had it up to here with notifications, help is on the way!
You can deal with these distractions several different ways.
Setting up Do Not Disturb mode
Do Not Disturb mode blocks all Android Notifications, turns off push notifications and keeps your phone from making noise at inopportune times. Like when you’re sleeping or in a meeting at work (or sleeping in a meeting at work).
- Pull down the Quick settings menu from the top of your home screen
- Tap the Do Not Disturb button.
You can also set Do Not Disturb preferences to let through only important calls and texts.
- Tap Settings
- Sound
- Do Not Disturb
- Priority only allows
- Then choose your options. For instance, you can set “priority only” to include incoming calls and texts from your contacts, repeat callers, reminders and event alerts. You can receive call and text alerts from only your innermost circle by setting Calls and messages to Starred contacts only (you can star people by going to your Contacts list). The Repeat callers setting will let callers through if they call two times within 15 minutes.
Enabling Priority Mode
Choose who or what app you want to receive a push notification from by enabling priority mode. Enable this feature by pulling down the Quick settings menu, tapping Do Not Disturb and turning on Priority only.
There are three Do Not Disturb options in Android:
- Priority only blocks some calls, texts and app alerts.
- Alarms only blocks all alerts except your phone’s alarm clock.
- Total silence stops all alerts.
These are perhaps the most annoying alerts, those notifications that light up your lock screen, usually, it seems, when you least want to be disturbed. You can manage them with varying degrees of rigor—cut them down or shut them down entirely.
To prevent your phone’s lock screen from lighting up whenever a push notification comes in:
- tap Settings > Display
- then toggle off Ambient display
Another way to do this is:
- tap Settings > Sound > Do Not Disturb > Block visual disturbances
- then enable the Block when screen is off setting.
- Choosing this option will prevent any alerts blocked by Do Not Disturb from lighting up your lock screen.
Blocking notifications from specific apps
Do you wan to entirely block alerts from specific apps? There are two ways to accomplish this.
Block All or Enable Silence Mode
- Tap Settings > Notifications.
- Tap the app you want to silence and enable Block all.
- Or you can choose to show an app’s alerts in silent mode only.
Long-Press An Alert
Another way to disable notifications from a particular app is to long-press an alert from that app when it appears. You’ll be given the option of blocking all future alerts or showing them silently.
Turning off the blinking notification light
You can also turn off that light that starts blinking (and keeps blinking) whenever you get a notification.
- Go to Settings > Notifications
- Tap the Settings button at the top right of the screen
- then toggle off the Pulse notification light
- Just below the Pulse notification light toggle is a very handy setting that will block all lock-screen alerts even when Do Not Disturb is not switched on.
- Tap On the lock screen
- Then choose Don’t show notifications at all
We hope you find these tips helpful and enjoy your new, quiet phone.
Posted on February 22, 2018
How CREDO is fighting to protect net neutrality
When Donald Trump’s Federal Communication Commission (FCC) decided on a party-line vote last year to dismantle regulations governing net neutrality, Big Telecom took a victory lap. Their plan to install former telecom lobbyist Ajit Pai as chairman of the FCC appeared to have paid off.
Fortunately, CREDO and our allies aren’t wavering in the battle to protect net neutrality. In fact, we’re ramping up the fight.
As Big Telecom continues to wage a full-scale public relations and lobbying effort to prevent any restoration of the net neutrality rules, CREDO and our allies are pressuring lawmakers in Congress and statehouses across the country to protect net neutrality.
In the wake of the FCC’s chaotic comment period – which was corrupted by millions of fake comments – and its subsequent disastrous decision to overturn the 2015 Open Internet rules, we called on Congress to pass a joint resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act to restore net neutrality. Nearly 200,000 CREDO activists signed our petition, and our members generated close to 5,000 calls to key Senate offices. Fifty senators have already signed on, and we’re just one vote away to ensure this passes the Senate.
In addition to our pressure campaign on members of Congress, we’ve taken the fight into states across the country. We’ve called on the California State Legislature to pass legislation to protect a free and open internet in California, and at least 17 states have introduced net neutrality legislation, four governors have issued executive orders and more than 20 states have filed lawsuits to stop the net neutrality repeal.
CREDO is working hand-in-hand with our allies, including Demand Progress, Fight for the Future and Free Press, to organize and push back against Trump’s FCC. In fact, through CREDO Mobile’s donations program powered by our customers, we’ve donated more than $2.6 million to progressive groups fighting for a free and open internet.
If you’d like to help us keep up the fight to protect net neutrality, here are some ways you can take action:
- Sign our petition urging Congress to pass a joint resolution to overturn the FCC’s decision to repeal net neutrality.
- Call key Senate offices urging senators to sign on to the joint resolution. We only need one more Senator to sign on, and calling these offices could make the difference.
- Join us and our allies on Feb. 27 for Operation #OneMoreVote, an internet-wide day of action, where we’ll be targeting Senate offices and demanding that senators sign on to the joint resolution.
Posted on February 20, 2018
How Earthjustice is Fighting Trump’s Attack on National Monuments
Most Americans can agree that our national monument lands shouldn’t be turned into coal and uranium mines. But not Trump. His illegal decision to gut two monuments in Utah – Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante – opens these American treasures to private profiteering.We filed two lawsuits to stop this decision almost immediately after his announcement in December. We are poised to sue again if he takes aim at more monuments.
At Earthjustice, our slogan is “Because the Earth needs a good lawyer.” In the fight over national monuments, the fossil fuel industry has an immense amount of resources to push for their private interests. We proudly defend the public’s interest.
In Grand Staircase, we are fighting to protect the last great dinosaur boneyard in the United States from coal mining. More than 20 types of dinosaurs previously unknown to humanity have been discovered in the monument lands. The finds have opened a rare window onto the Mesozoic Era, a time of global warming that could help us understand future conditions on Earth.
Scientists have much more to explore, but the area is suddenly vulnerable to coal mining thanks to Trump’s move to strip monument status from nearly half the original lands. As one dinosaur expert told me recently, when it’s a competition between paleontologists and mining companies, industry wins.
Bears Ears National Monument, meanwhile, encompassed more than 100,000 Native American archeological and cultural sites, some dating back to 12,000 B.C. Trump has gutted the monument, leaving just 16 percent of the original land protected. Uranium miners have eyed the area in the past. According to Trump’s proclamation in December, anybody with four wooden pickets can now stake a hardrock mining claim in lands he stripped of national monument protections.
Posted on February 20, 2018
Tuesay Tip: How to Make a Boomerang Video
A boomerang flies forward, then it comes back. The Boomerang app from Instagram works the same way. It’s a video loop that plays forward for 1 second, then back, then forward, then back…endlessly, for as long as you want to watch it.
It sounds trivial but Boomerang videos are oddly mesmerizing and, once you start doing them, it’s hard to stop. As Instagram notes, “It makes everyday moments fun and unexpected.”
Creating a Boomerang on Instagram
To create a Boomerang, download the app separately or, if you already have Instagram, you can access Boomerang from Instagram Stories. (Instagram owns the app.)
At the bottom of your Stories camera screen, you’ll see two buttons: Normal and Boomerang. Tap Boomerang. Or, if you’ve downloaded the Boomerang app as a standalone app, just open it up.
You know you’re in Boomerang when you see the infinity loop (∞) in your shutter button. Now just choose the camera you want to use (front- or rear-facing). Then find something or someone interesting and tap and hold the shutter. (Keep your phone steady for the best result.)
Boomerang does the rest. It quickly shoots a series of 10 photos, assembles them, smooths out the gaps and, in a few seconds, creates your video loop.
More Boomerang Tips
A tip: Your Boomerang will be more eye-catching if you “boom” a subject that’s in motion. Say, you and your friends raising your glasses in a toast. A kid throwing a ball. Yourself eating a carrot. Whatever. As we mentioned, Boomerangs are weirdly fascinating no matter the subject. Epicness is not required.
When your Boomerang video is done, the app takes you directly to a preview screen where you can watch it and share it to Instagram or Facebook. You can also text it to a friend, email it, tweet it or send it with Facebook Messenger. Or save it to your phone’s video gallery. If you export it to Instagram, you can edit it.
Thanks for reading. We’ll see you next week with another Tuesday Tip. Or check our CREDO Facebook page for progressive news every day.
