Got Change Yet? by Deborah Steele
Yet for the biggest corporate polluters – spitting tons of global warming pollution What would compel someone to rappel into the air – it’s business as usual. We’re down the side of a national monument doing our part. Now we need to make sure knowing they will be arrested when they that our elected officials do theirs. We reach the bottom? In a recent event, it was need leadership from the top to shut down the knowledge of participating in somedirty energy for good. thing bigger, and infinitely more significant than the individual act. On July 8th, a Greenpeace is working right here in central team of Greenpeace activists hung a ban- Ohio to push our elected officials to take ner on the face of Mt. Rushmore, remind- strong, immediate action to address cliing President Obama that “America honors mate change. We can solve this problem, leaders, not politicians.” Around the same but it is going to take all of us. This past time, hundreds of climate activists occu- presidential election provided a reminder pied and shut down five coal-fired power of the power of a grassroots movement. To plants in Italy, where world leaders were address climate change we need a movemeeting to discuss climate change. While ment just as large, and just as strong. the political response to crisis of climate Americans have always found the courage change has been lukewarm, at best, the to face down huge obstacles. We turned urgency of global warming is creating a back the fascists in World War II, we new breed of activist – individuals who marched in the streets for civil rights, and are willing to take direct action for the we continue to fight for marriage equality. greater good. There are more and more Working together we can create a new enpeople around the world ready to take bold ergy economy and prevent the climate action. We can no longer afford complafrom spinning out of control. cency from our elected officials when it comes to addressing climate change. They In December the United Nations will meet work for us, and it’s long past time that we in Copenhagen to create a new global hold them accountable. agreement on the climate. To make those negotiations successful, the US will need People understand that the world is to have policies at home that invest heavchanging. There have been too many ily in renewable energy and put strict sci“hundred year floods” lately, too many ence-based limits on pollution with no dangerous windstorms and extreme tem- loopholes or giveaways for big polluters perature shifts. If you feel overwhelmed by like the coal industry. Rebuilding our enstories of disappearing ice caps and rising ergy economy with clean, renewable energy sea levels you are not alone. Unfortunately, will provide two to three times as many Congress and the President have failed to jobs, at half the cost of trying to meet our deliver the kind of visionary leadership it energy demands with dirty, dangerous enwill take to stop global warming. That’s ergy sources like coal and nuclear. The enwhere we come in. In politics, leaders are ergy industry does not want you to know made, not born. They are made through these facts. They don’t want you to work the hard work and sacrifice of individuals side by side with your friends and commuwho demand a better world. This is not a nity to help change how we create energy time to be silently frustrated, it is time to or to hold our elected officials accountbe active and join with your friends and able. But we CAN make a difference. Volneighbors to take action, and demand unteer with Greenpeace and become part leadership from our elected officials. of the green energy revolution that must take place. We have the solutions that can One of the many things that holds us create green jobs, and allow us to avoid apart from the generations that came be- the worst impacts of global warming. Now, fore us is that we live in a truly global so- all we need is the political will to make it ciety. Our actions impact billions of people happen. This grassroots movement needs the world over. Therefore, we are collecthe momentum of the community of tively responsible for our future. Climate Columbus, and we need you to be the change is global problem, which requires change we have all heard so much about. a global solution. Many of us have already started making changes in our own lives. Deborah Steele is Field Organizer for Columbus’s We have been using more efficient light Greenpeace office. For more info: bulbs and appliances, driving less, biking www.greenpeace.org or 614.323.1703. more, or maybe even buying a hybrid car.
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august2009
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