This newsletter also comes in video form:
In summary: call and email your senators and representative. Tell them to jam pack the current budget reconciliation package with climate initiatives. Then, if you’re still looking for something to do, join a climate org.
Right now, we have a unique opportunity to enact climate action, which is good considering we desperately need said action. In the US, only one of the two parties ostensibly cares about climate change to any significant degree (save for exceptions like Bob Inglis and the youth). That party has control of the House, the Senate, and the Presidency, which means that, even though some of the margins are razor-thin, we have a big opportunity to enact change through budget reconciliation, a process that only requires 50+1 votes in the Senate.
The budget reconciliation package is currently being worked through in Congress, and it has the potential to include a huge number of significant climate initiatives. So, we need to make sure every elected official knows how big of a deal climate change is and how much their voters demand it be addressed now.
You can do this by calling and/or mailing and/or emailing your officials and telling them to support climate legislation (like carbon pricing, clean electricity standards, renewable investments, public transportation developments, etc.) and to include those initiatives in the budget reconciliation package.
We need this package to go big on climate because we need to start making gargantuan strides in reducing our emissions and decarbonizing our society. It may seem like a small thing, but contacting our officials gets us tangibly closer to climate action. If we don’t let our officials know how big of a deal the climate is to us, it can be that much more easily swept under the rug and ignored.
So this is me pleading: contact your senators and your representative. Those links will take you to CCL’s site. Put in your info and it will auto find your officials and give you a pre-made message to send/say. Add some personal flair and you’re good to go. It literally takes probably two minutes to send an email and call their offices. It’s worth it, and it’s tangible action you can take right now.
After you do that, you can join a climate organization if you’re still fiending for action. It is a bigger commitment, but most org’s are still online for now, so you can definitely ease into it. I volunteer for CCL (Citizen’s Climate Lobby), and I really recommend them. But there are plenty of others and plenty of regional hubs to find one close to you:
https://citizensclimatelobby.org/
All about getting a price on carbon, level-headed, attempts at bipartisanship.
Concerned with divesting from fossil fuels/investing in renewables.
https://www.climaterealityproject.org/
General climate education and legislation pushers
Both more youth-y and direct action (protests and demonstrations)
We watch the world end
And we blink.
Mouth agape, eyes glassy,
Do we overcome,
Or do we sink?