We know the answers. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Buy local. We are told we are personally responsible for stopping climate change. But lots of slogans and most of the emphasis on person responsibility as the way to address climate change come from a campaign by large corporations that are major polluters. Yes, we need to monitor and manage our personal carbon footprint but that is not nearly enough. We need to get governments and corporations to quickly stop supporting fossil fuels if we are to reduce enough in time.

We need to vote for climate activist candidates for public office. Government leaders set the policies that lead to a livable world. By ourselves we can’t end subsidies for the coal industry. We can’t improve the electric grid to effectively use renewable sources. We need public officials who will lead us to do these things together.

We need to sign up, speak up for climate action. Many groups work to stop climate change and mitigate the effects of the change. By joining one or more organizations, you get counted, and politicians and large corporations care about those counts.

We need to speak up at all levels; with our friends, with the readers of the local newspaper, with our state and federal leaders. (Politicians and corporations count letters, too.) We need to speak up when it is uncomfortable to do so. Understand the issues, but don’t wait for perfect knowledge.

We need to share with those who are suffering now from climate change. Share with people whose homes were destroyed by wildfires or hurricanes. Share with people whose wells have been contaminated by rising sea waters or whose crops were reduced or destroyed by drought.

If not now, when? We are told that turning from burning fossil fuels would hurt people and cost too much money. There are immediate wins for everyone from reducing air pollution from burning fossil fuels. It’s estimated that 350,000 Americans die every year from air pollution alone. The public health benefits of cleaner air would pay for the costs of getting off fossil fuels. There would be transition impacts for people whose livelihood is tied to fossil fuel industries; those need to be addressed by short-term government programs. But in the not so very long run, the environmental benefit yields economic benefits too. The damage from climate change and the costs of the transition away from carbon only get bigger the longer we wait.

Lindsay Winsor

Milton-Freewater