Colorado-based ski resort Aspen recently launched a new activist campaign, called Give A Flake, which invites skiers and non-skiers alike to speak out against climate change inaction. It has a number of online tools that help people to easily contact their elected officials and pressure them to act on climate change.

Under the banner of ‘Protect Your Passion. Join the Movement’, Aspen says ‘Sometimes caring about an issue isn’t enough. You have to do something. It’s time to turn our concern about climate change — and yours — into action’.

USA residents can use the Give A Flake website to find out where the elected officials in their area stand on climate change. Then, via Twitter, users can tweet at their local leaders with images and statements that Aspen Skiing Co. has already curated.

Now they’ve taken another step, by inserting campaign postcards into outdoor magazines. The idea is that people will then send these to key politicians, urging them to act decisively on climate change issues. As the mid term elections in the USA get closer, more and more people, organisations and businesses are encouraging people to get out and vote (Patagonia have even taken the unusual position of endorsing two candidates).

Aspen notes that:

“We are the last generation that can fight climate change. We have a duty to act.”
–Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary General

And hence its time to get off the fence and take action.

“There’s a lot of fossil fuel use in Aspen, that’s for sure. But because of that, and as a privileged community, we must lead in reducing our own emissions, and serve as a model. Americans have the technology and policy know-how to rein-in carbon pollution. Taking action will be far cheaper than doing nothing and will offer huge benefits, including preserving Aspen as we know it”.

It’s good to see them take the next step and move into political action.