Taking Climate into Our Own Hands

NASA and other scientific groups have just confirmed that 2010 was tied for the hottest year on record. That, coming after the hottest decade on record, is met with the reality of more frequent accounts of extreme weather.

As IPCC scientist Richard Somerville states:

This is no longer something that’s theory or conjecture or something that comes out of computer models. We’re observing the climate changing. It’s real. It’s happening. It’s scientific fact.

Of course, he doesn’t say that man-made global warming is scientific fact. Just that the planet is indeed warming and that the effects are severe. But for those who are waiting for some kind of conclusive evidence as to whether or not man is causing the warming, I have to ask… how long do you intend to wait? How much more are you willing to risk?

The truth is, there are a lot of factors that could be affecting our climate. While the overwhelming evidence suggests that CO2 and other greenhouse gases are the primary culprit, we may never know exactly how much. What we do know is that we have solutions today to drastically cut carbon emissions, and thus reduce the threat of climate change. (Not to mention cleaner air, energy independence, and creating the jobs of the future.)

At the FearLess Cottage, we talk a lot about consumer power and voting with our dollars for the kind of world we want to live in. Well, this is a great place to start exercising that power. We’re all consumers of energy. We get a monthly bill to prove it. It’s time we took responsibility for our energy use by switching to a renewable plan. (Check with your local power company. I’m on Xcel’s Windsource plan.) It may cost a fraction more per kWh, but that price can easily be offset by making sure we don’t waste a lot of energy in our homes and businesses. Personally, just by paying a little bit of attention, my bills actually went down after switching plans.

This alone will not solve the climate crisis. But it’s a step. A very big step. And it’s something that we all need to be a little smarter about. As we shift away from carbon intensive energy, there will be winners and there will be losers. What we need now is the audacity to stand with the winners of a cleaner and brighter future.