I’m writing this as a foot soldier in the battle against climate change, and I’m asking you to enlist.
I was in high school in 1970, when the first Earth Day took place. I remember Life magazine photos of Santa Barbara beaches smeared black with oil, smog blanketing cities from Los Angeles to Boston, and the Cuyahoga River on fire.
Americans had had enough and said so. When 20 million took part in that first Earth Day, Congress took note. It passed the Clean Air Act of 1970 and created the Environmental Protection Agency. No more no holds barred polluting of our air and water.
The activists of that era turned lots of us into environmentalists. They opened my eyes to things I could and should do. Now, here’s where I could list all my virtuous efforts to shrink my carbon footprint, things like recycling, changing light bulbs, turning down the thermostat, becoming a vegetarian, and more. While things like that are all well and good, at this point, such individual actions simply aren’t enough. Because now it’s the planet that’s on fire.
I’m not saying that individual actions don’t matter. They absolutely do. But climate change is a collective action problem and it’s policy that counts. So Americans once again need to band together and take aim at Congress.
The Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) has shown me how to do that. I joined in 2017, looking for solutions and a reason to hope. I found a nonprofit, nonpartisan group with a laser focus on national policies to fight climate change.
Thanks in large part to 100,000 CCL members — my band of brothers and sisters — there’s now a bill in the House of Representatives that gives me hope. It has bipartisan support and 28 co-sponsors so far, including our own Congressman Jim McGovern.
The bill is H.R. 763. You’ll probably forget its name — I often do — but for the record, it’s the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act. The “Energy Innovation” part refers to promoting clean energy technology by putting a price on carbon.
“Oh no!,” some will say, “a gas tax!” They’ll picture angry men in yellow vests taking over the streets, cursing in French. But if French President Emmanuel Macron had rolled out a bill like H.R. 763, the streets of Paris would’ve rung with cries of “Vive le dividend!”
H.R. 763 would put a fee on the carbon content of fossil fuels. The money collected would be passed straight through to every American household as dividends to address costs passed along to consumers. Yes, the price of gas would go up, by about 11 cents a gallon the first year. So would the prices of fossil fuel-dependent products. But for 60 percent of U.S. households — mostly low- and middle-income Americans — the dividend should cover those costs.
Find all the details you want about H.R. 763 at the Citizens’ Climate Lobby website. Find out why climate scientists and economists alike have backed this plan. They see it as an essential step in tackling the climate crisis.
World War II was the crisis of my father’s time. At 19, he volunteered to serve his country and became one of the many ordinary Americans who did extraordinary things, one of “the Greatest Generation.”
Now we need to become the next “Greatest.” In WWII, the burden of the fight fell most heavily on one young generation. Thankfully, the burden of this fight doesn’t have to — if we all pitch in and do enough, soon enough. If we wait much longer, devastating changes will become all but impossible to reverse.
The young people of the Sunrise Movement know this. They’re afraid — with good reason — that our years of inaction, denial, bickering and kicking the can down the road will rob them of their futures. They’re afraid that we lack the vision and the drive to live up to the principles of the Green New Deal.
We benefit every day from the sweeping changes that the original New Deal brought about in this country. Don’t we owe it to young Americans to pass on a livable world with a stable climate?
Please don’t let this fight turn into a war that our children and grandchildren cannot win.
Earth Day has passed for 2019, but from now on, please think of every day as Earth Day. Please connect with local members of CCL, Climate Action Now, Mothers Out Front, the Sunrise Movement, and other groups. Find out what we’re doing, and figure out what you can do.
Linda Butler lives in Northampton and has children and grandchildren in Belchertown. She is a member of the Pioneer Valley chapter of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby.