We Must Use Our Voices!

Homepage image from Copernicus, 2023 the hottest year on record.

If you have grown complacent and need to have a reason to feel some urgency:

In January 2024, the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Centers for Environmental Information made it official: 2023 was the warmest year on record.

And more recently, in March 2024 the World Meteorologic Organization (WMO) “State of the Global Climate” report just came out.

The key messages supplied by the WMO about the report (the link is to the full report, as well as the key messages, press releases and a less than 2 minute video):

“2023 [was] the hottest year on record by a clear margin

“Records broken for ocean heat, sea level rise, Antarctic sea ice loss and glacier retreat

“Extreme weather undermines socioeconomic development”

However, they also point out:

“Renewable energy transition provides hope

“Cost of climate inaction is higher than the cost of climate action”

For most of us our vote and our voice are our most powerful tools to fight climate change and environmental degradation. Please vote for those who will make even a little difference, or at least aren’t totally in the pockets of industry, and contact those who hold the purse strings and the power to act, and let them know you know (and for elected officials, that you vote). No one of us, or even one group of us, can change this, but we aren’t each alone. Talk to others as well. It isn’t on your shoulders, but still, we need a chorus of voices to be heard. Do what you can, when you can. Don’t be taken down by gloom and doom and believing because you aren’t all-powerful you are powerless, without agency.

Speaking of actions and the power of voting:

The Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to distribute $20 billion under the Biden Administration’s climate legislation for green projects, particularly earmarked for low-income communities.

Also, recent proposed legislation would ban single-use plastic foam (polystyrene) in the United States.

And the consequences of not holding those in power responsible means billions of dollars of our taxpayer money goes to plants that use fossil fuels, and produce plastics that are “routinely” egregious polluters. A brief report from NPR from March 18 reveals some of these crimes.

“State regulators have found the plant [a Shell plant that produces plastic] violated air pollution laws 19 times since opening two years ago. It's released compounds that contribute to asthma as well as carcinogens like benzene.

“Taxpayers are often footing part of the bill for these polluting plants. The report found state and local governments gave almost $9 billion in tax breaks since 2012 to encourage companies to build these plants within their borders. Most of these plants are in the Gulf Coast and disproportionally located in nonwhite communities that are largely low income.”

This is not acceptable. We can, and must, do better! There is, as the WMO points out, reasons for hope!