What else can you do?

Here are some other practical steps we can all take to make a difference, in solidarity with the word's poor.

Food

How was your food produced? Agrochemicals could be polluting the water supplies of people living near the farms. The food could be grown or raised on land owned by a multinational corporation, while local people have no access to land on which to grow food to eat or sell for a livelihood. And how did your food get to you? It could have come four miles down the road from a local farm, or been flown 4,000 miles in the hold of a cargo plane. And at what cost? Producing it could be undermining sustainable lifestyles, damaging the environment, using scarce water resources, exploiting poorly paid farm labourers.

What you can do

• Buy local, seasonal (and preferably organic) food from local greengrocers, farm shops or farmers' markets; or subscribe to a vegetable box scheme.
• When buying food produced overseas, buy fair trade and/or organic.
• Buy from small, independent and ethical producers and retailers.
• If you shop at a supermarket, ask them what their policy is on stocking local food and fair trade produce - and keep pressing them to do more.
• Order or download the Progressio Comment Food sovereignty by Ernest Cañada.
• Donate to charities like Progressio that support sustainable agricultural projects.

Trade

Money makes the world go round - but how much of what you spend goes to the people who actually make what you buy? And what is the cost to the environment - is the wood in your furniture from a sustainable source? Are the chemicals used to produce your clothes damaging people's health and polluting the environment? Are people being exploited in sweatshops? Are the products you buy fairly traded, or are they keeping poor people and poor countries locked in poverty?

What you can do

• Buy fairly traded products.
• Buy clothes made from organic cotton and natural fibres.
• Reuse or repair instead of replacing consumer goods.
• Buy from small, independent and ethical producers and retailers.
• Ask companies that you buy from how they guarantee the conditions under which their products are produced. Do they have a code of conduct? Ask to see it and challenge them to demonstrate they are following it.
• Make sure your investments are ethical - not supporting exploitative or environmentally damaging industries or the arms trade.
• Support fair trade campaigns such as the Trade Justice Movement (of which Progressio is a member)
• Donate instead of spending - and if you are a taxpayer, don't forget to Gift Aid it, as your donation will be worth more.

Energy

Climate change might mean warm winters for us, but it means devastating floods, crippling droughts and increasing 'natural disasters' for people elsewhere in the world. We are the polluters, we have created the problem, but they suffer the consequences. It is our moral duty to take responsibility for the solution. We need to reduce our energy use and tackle our addiction to cars, cheap flights and cheap holidays. If everyone makes their own individual efforts, it sends out a message to policy-makers, who are already starting to respond to the public mood on climate change.

What you can do

• Reduce your energy use - fit low energy light bulbs, turn down your heating, turn off your television and your computer.
• Switch to a renewable energy supplier - and tell your old electricity supply firm why you are switching.
• Use your car less - walk, cycle, use public transport. Fly only if there is no alternative - take a boat or a train.
• Write to your MP about the need for real action on climate change.
• Support climate change campaigns run by environmental organisations.
• Order or download a copy of the Progressio Comment People and the environment on the edge by J Timmons Roberts and Bradley C Parks.
• Donate to charities like Progressio that work to reduce people's environmental vulnerability.