For the last two weeks, the Amazon Rainforest has been burning relentlessly, destroying the “lungs of the world” at more than 100 square yards a minute and displacing some of the 400 tribes and 30,000,000 people living in the area. Though forest fires are by no means uncommon during the dry season and are even ecologically replenishing, the rate by which fires start has nearly doubled since 2018 and is beginning to cause irreparable damage to the ecosystem. It’s no surprise, then, that advocacy groups across the world are sending money and volunteers to Brazil, hoping to salvage the carbon sink responsible for storing 100 years of humanity’s carbon production. 

It’s also no surprise that social media users have begun to show their own, significantly less helpful version of “support” online in the form of thoughts and prayers. 

This is not to discount the effort in typing a hashtag, nor to challenge the power and efficacy of prayer. Simply speaking, regardless of your religion or walk of life, there is inarguably a more tangible way of inciting positive change: volunteering, both time and resources. Organizations like Greenpeace, World Wildlife, and Conservation for All have specific volunteer opportunities and funds set up–not just for the Amazon, but for environmental conservation in general.

That being said, I recognize that not everyone has extra time to volunteer, or extra cash to put toward donation. Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean you can’t put your money where your mouth is.

Modern life is inherently and indubitably damaging environments worldwide. As a result of logging for paper goods and deforestation to compensate for a growing population and agricultural needs, the Brazilian portion of the Amazon Rainforest has shrunk by nearly 25% in the past forty years. Plastics also are contributing to the Amazon’s destruction, contaminating the rivers and leaving more than 80% of fish with particles in their gills and bloodstreams. Perhaps you have an excuse for not volunteering or donating, but if your “thoughts and prayers” are truly with the Amazon, then change your lifestyle accordingly. Use biodegradable materials, don’t waste paper products, and wholly invest yourself into the betterment of the environment. 

I genuinely wish that this article could end there. Unfortunately, false activism is a blight that extends far beyond the Amazon, across Central America, and into the heart of our schools. It’s been nearly seventeen months since the horrific shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School, one month for each of the victims, and there is still no concrete legislation in response.  Like the existing glut of shootings, Parkland spurred on countless calls for prayer, countless promises of “thoughts”. What sets it apart from many others, though, is none other than the Parkland students themselves. 

Rather than simply accept the baseless support and condolences from Instagram and Twitter, certain students continue to advocate for gun control and for the victims of senseless violence. Delaney Tarr, a Parkland survivor, was interviewed on CBS about the more recent shootings in El Paso and Dayton. She and her peers have brought light to the horrid reality of gun violence and were even named among the most influential Americans of 2018 by former President Barack Obama. Still, as laudable as their actions are, I find it shameful that seventeen students, and countless others in different schools across the nation, have to die to inspire people to true advocacy. 

In this case, it’s less about volunteering time than it is about volunteering ideas in a civil manner. Today, political change relies heavily on PACs and donors rather than individual opinion — party because of the money, but mostly because of party politics and the blind support of those who think that thoughts and prayers are enough. They are not.

Simply put, “thoughts” aren’t useful until they’re applied in volunteering or discussion, because that’s the whetstone for progress. That’s how we cut through the polarizing rope that’s strangling our country. That’s how we’ll save the Amazon, that’s how we’ll make schools safer, and that’s how we make positive political change — not in 280 characters, but in true, American advocacy.