The writer of “Act locally on climate change” (Our Readers’ Views, July 21) says they’re overwhelmed and want something to do locally to fight climate change. There is only one thing any individual can do about climate that will make a real difference: Vote. Vote for a new president and a new Congress, one that will make greenhouse gas emissions cuts that will get us at least close net-zero by 2030.
Local actions will have literally no effect, according to the world’s scientific authorities on climate change. These same climate scientists tell us we have only a decade left to phase out fossil fuels if we are to have any chance of avoiding “catastrophic” global warming (National Academy of Sciences).
Don’t believe it? Read the first chapter of “Uninhabitable Earth,” the New York Times best-seller by Googling “PBS.org uninhabitable.” It begins, “It is worse, much worse, than you think,” and proceeds to produce the peer-reviewed scientific evidence to back up that statement, including what’s already happening and what the science shows the future holds for us, according to whether we act nationally now or we don’t.
From Forbes: “The Green New Deal is affordable; the cost of inaction is incalculable.”
