[updated July 24, 2020]

In an earlier post which featured my interview with Moms Clean Air Force National Field Manager Gretchen Dahlkemper. This week’s post continues the conversation about the climate change agenda, drawing on information from that interview and from recent studies that suggest that that time for sounding the warning bell is over: now is the time for taking action.

Taking action on climate change is not just something for policy makers and governments to tackle: there are things you can do, too. So we end this post with a list of 6 things you can do to take action on global climate change problems. But before we get to that it’s important to understand something about why action now is so crucial, and so timely…

As the previous post mentioned, there seems to be a groundswell of interest nowadays in climate change; arguably, there hasn’t been this much interest since the signing of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 (it fell apart, mostly because of the inaction of the US on this issue those 14 years ago). There are reasons why the interest in climate change has spiked lately, and reasons why it has become one of the most important, if not THE most important, environmental issue of our generation. Here are a few of them.

Recent studies have suggested that extreme rainfall, flooding, and drought will continue to increase in parts of the country, such as the Great Lakes region and the Southwest. The Fourth National Climate Assessment, completed in 2018, the increasing surface temperatures and evaporation rates of the Great Lakes are putting ecological communities at risk. The species put at risk by climate change are essential to prevent flooding, ensure water purity, and maintain pollination patterns. Some of the apparent benefits of climate change, namely longer growing seasons, are being offset by the occurrence of extreme weather events (heat waves, droughts, floods).

The Southwest region, this hottest and driest part of the United States, is expected to get hotter and drier, increasing stresses on crops, affecting tourism, and making extreme weather events more frequent. Reduced crop yields and stresses on certain high-value specialty fruit, nut and vegetable crops (because of shorter chill seasons) means that your grocery bill will continue to increase. There will be shorter ski seasons, lake and river recreation will be negatively affected, and you’ll see more outbreaks of insects and parasites, and the diseases they can spread. Rising sea levels, extreme high tides, storm surges, and wildfires will pose increasing risks to homes and property, ecosystems, highways, power plants, and sewage treatment plants, while shipping in the port cities (which handle half the nation’s incoming shipping containers) will also be threatened. The Southwest is not the only region that has been suffering drought: California suffered an extreme drought from 2011 until 2017 and has recently slipped back into drought conditions following major precipitation shortfalls during the first two months of this year.

That is just a small part of the greater climate change picture. If you have noticed summers getting longer and hotter, winters getting shorter and warmer, heavier downpours of rain, longer allergy seasons, more flooding around the country, higher bills at your grocery store, fewer jobs in your neighborhood, longer fire seasons, more drought, or poorer air quality, then you have been noticing some of the effects of climate change. It affects all of us, in many of the major aspects of our lives.

The good news is that individuals, state governments, and now, the federal government, are finally getting serious about acting on climate change. The Nicholas School for the Environment and the Duke Cancer Center (both at Duke University) recently reported in a study that state and federal air pollution controls in place since the 1990s have resulted in fewer emergency room visits for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma and emphysema, and fewer deaths from these ailments in the state of North Carolina. The study demonstrates that federally mandated pollution controls do work to improve health outcomes in step with improving the environment. The Department of Defense (DoD) has also been taking steps to address climate change since at least 2007 (surprised? Don’t be – the U.S. military is a pragmatic institution, and realized the acute need for dealing with climate change long before other agencies of the US Government did). The Department of Defense has long been aware and active in assessing the risk posed by climate change and even released a detailed report in 2019 explain the risks the climate change poses to military infrastructure.

Internationally, some of the biggest polluters have taken steps that, if pursued earnestly and over the long haul, will have a major impact on reversing the damage caused by global warming. While the United States has shirked its agreement to meet emissions targets set by the 2015 Paris Agreement, China has become a global leader in the fight against climate change. The Chinese have vastly expanded their renewable energy markets, demonstrating necessary changes that need to be made to reduce emissions in the long term.

In India, the government has stopped rejecting calls to quantify its targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Now it is willing to do not only that, but has begun ramping up domestic efforts to undertake 20 initiatives to address climate change. These include reforestation, installing 20 gigawatts of solar capacity by 2020, and 50 gigawatts by 2050 (the most ambitious solar plan any country has put forward so far). India is one of few countries on track to meet the climate targets it agreed to via the 2015 Paris Agreement through its prioritization of the development of renewable energy and electric vehicles.

In the United Arab Emirates, Masdar City (located in Abu Dhabi) was billed as the world’s first zero-carbon city. It is almost car free (its citizens are transported in driverless electric pod-like vehicles), there are no light switches or water taps (lights and water come on and off with the aid of movement sensors), and the walls of the city have been designed so as to reduce the need for air conditioning by over 50%. Although its designers have had to scale back some of their ambitious plans since its initial design in 2006, Masdar City has managed to radically transform the discussion on climate change in a number of countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). This is a significant achievement coming from a country whose citizens have one of the world’s largest carbon footprints.

Still, we’re a long way from where we need to be on climate change. With sustained effort on the part of governments and individuals, though, we can reverse some of the damage. Here are six steps you can take to help combat climate change today.

1. Go to the Moms Clean Air Force website and educate yourself. They have a lot of tools, and a great new resource on the health effects of air pollution.

2. Visit the Moms Clean Air Force website to find out how you can take action. There resources include lists of petitions, information on how to contact lawmakers, and information on upcoming rallies. Alternatively, you can host a video call on Zoom with friends and neighbors and talk about what you’re seeing in your neighborhood. The point is to have an intentional conversation about these issues. As Gretchen noted in our interview last June,
“that’s where real change is going to come about… It’s something we can all do!”

3. Sign petitions that are focused on combating climate change, or some aspect of it. You can find a few of them on the Green and Prosperous website under the “Take Action” tab.

4. Consult the EPA website for ways to reduce your carbon footprint. (They have tips for your home, school, office, and mode of transportation). One useful tool they have is their household carbon footprint calculator which lets you measure your household consumption and compare it against the national average.

5. Check out the Sunrise Movement website for a list of trainings, rallies, and canvasses for candidates committed to fighting climate change. Or check out this Call to Care online event hosted by Our Climate Voices on August 2nd.

6. You can also watch a free webinar. There are many out there; checkout online events from Penn State University, Emory University, Duke University, and Dartmouth University.

Climate change isn’t going away, and now that the world is mobilizing, why not join in?