Here’s a proposition: Climate is a nonpartisan issue. It was, after all, not on the November 2024 ballot. Instead, climate change was a backdrop to the cultural and political fights playing out on central stage.

But as we have seen, climate is steadily moving to the foreground as lives, communities, businesses, schools, hospitals and farms are harmed by the impacts of extreme weather. And we know that heat, humidity, winds, storms and droughts do not respect borders or political leanings.

Common sense suggests that we come together as Americans across our profound divides; that we figure out how to change the way our economy operates, which is at the root of our climate problems (and other problems as well). We are all dependent on the burning of fossil fuels to live our lives as we currently do, but that does not have to be the case.

Scientists started studying and publishing on the link between increased carbon dioxide (the major gas emitted when fossil fuels are burned) and higher temperature in our atmosphere over 150 years ago, just as oil was breaking onto the scene. Since that time, and particularly in the lifetimes of those reading this column, innovators, visionaries and students of the past have developed alternatives to oil and other fossil fuels, as well as ways to use them more safely. There are solutions out there, affordable and ready to be implemented at scale. Take a look at Project Drawdown.

Imagine a roundtable at which a representative sample of the U.S. population is seated. The charge of this group is to identify the points of agreement on which a national platform to address climate change could be based. Points might be, for example, that we love our children and accept that parents and extended families everywhere love their children and want the best for them. We understand that we are part of the natural world, and that the human footprint is so big and heavy that it is now our responsibility to protect nature.

We admire the human ability to adapt, problem solve, and innovate. We care about our health and by extension, the health of others. We understand that our security is in community and that 21st-century communities are full of diversity.

Is that a true enough and strong enough platform to insist that elected government representatives at all levels deliver what we need to address the future that is coming our way?

Those who would like to see it so are called to get involved. We need to prepare now for the accelerating stresses that global warming will impose on us. At a policy level that is the role of government. And, critically, we need to decelerate now and eventually turn around the emissions of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere. That also is policy-level work of government.

Elected representatives from the School Committee and City Council of Northampton up to the president of the United States can be held accountable to their constituents if those constituents speak up. It is important to remember that democratic governance is ultimately capable of action only to the extent that the public demands and supports that action. Everyone has a part to play.

Helen Seidler of Northampton is a member of Pioneer Valley Citizens’ Climate Lobby.