Yesterday, leaders in the United States Senate announced that they will be delaying action on a comprehensive bill that would help the U.S. deal with climate change and its broken energy policies.
As Manuel Oliva, director of climate policy for Conservation International, says, this isn’t a surprise. It’s always tough to pass legislation that changes the status quo … but the leaders’ actions still mark their failure to set the U.S. on course toward a healthier, cleaner world.
Let’s Get to Work
What’s the good news to come out of this development? We don’t need to wait for our leaders to fight climate change before we start taking action ourselves.
Here are some ways to rise to the challenge:
- Plant a tree. Trees store carbon, one of the main greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.
- Change your light bulbs. If you changed six bulbs to CFLs, you’d keep almost 5,000 pounds of greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere.
- Install a home energy meter. Energy used for electricity and heat accounts for almost 40% of the U.S.’s annual greenhouse gas emissions. Knowing more about your energy use can help you cut that number down substantially.
We know that those actions seem so small and that climate change seems so big.
But imagine if 10%, or 20%, or 30% of the 300 million people in the U.S. started taking these actions. Imagine if half of Americans started doing those little things. Imagine if everyone around the world took just a few of these steps.
It wouldn’t singlehandedly solve the world’s climate-change conundrum, but it would be a meaningful, real part of the solution. It would send a message to leaders around the globe.
Are you ready to send that kind of message? Join us.
