Of course there are the actions we should all be taking at home to use water and energy more efficiently, pay closer attention to separating trash and recycling, buy recyclable/ compostable, non-toxic products, and reduce car and air travel. In terms of making even more significant changes there are three main steps that we as a society need to take. We need to decrease our overall energy use and get the majority of our energy from renewable sources. We need to increase vehicle fuel efficiency (miles per gallon) and shift to vehicles that reduce or eliminate the need for fossil fuels altogether. And we need to renovate and construct more efficient buildings that reduce water and energy use and can cut CO2 emissions in half. This means we all need to reach out to politicians and corporations and use our political and purchasing power to set our communities, our state, and our country on a new path.

As individuals we may feel like we have little influence, but as a society we are able to make huge shifts in very short periods of time. The first personal computers went on sale less than 30 years ago. Same with cell phones. The Internet has only been in mainstream use for 15 years! Now we can’t imagine how we lived before Google. Plastic has only been a mainstream product for six decades. NASA was created 50 years ago and it took them just eleven years to put a man on the moon. There are so many examples of making the seemingly impossible or incredible mainstream and acceptable. This is exactly what we need to do when it comes to climate change.