Climate change for busy people: Ten key words
The climate crisis can seem complicated. Yet as warming accelerates, impacts grow more powerful and solutions become more feasible, I keep coming back to a ten-word summary of climate change that includes all the essentials you really need to know to get involved: It’s real It’s us Experts...
The single most powerful way to fight climate change, and what you can do to support it
Probably the number one question people ask when they learn I’m a climate solutions advocate is, What is the most important thing I can do? It’s a difficult question, because there is no single solution to the climate crisis. We know that individuals alone cannot...
The kids are not all right: The student climate strikes, Greta Thunberg’s message and where to go from here
[caption id="attachment_2089" align="alignright" width="333"] Student strikers at Corvallis High School, September 20, 2019[/caption] What a week it’s been! On September 20th, I went to the Corvallis school climate strike to support high school students as they marched to City Hall to demand action on climate change....
Guest Blog: Redefining hope in a world threatened by climate change
Guest Blog Post by SueEllen Campbell from Yale Climate Connections: Perhaps you have read that The Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom has decided to use the terms climate emergency, crisis or breakdown instead of climate change in its news stories; and global heating instead of global...
The four things we need to do now for climate action (Thank you, David Roberts!)
Last fall, I did something I thought I would never, ever do: I leased a brand-new car. I had been driving a used all-electric Nissan Leaf, and its 40-mile range just didn’t work for me anymore. So I leased an all-electric Chevy Bolt. Although I’m...
One clean energy solution you may be underestimating
When I was a kid, my favorite grandfather--a retired businessman and a dreamer--bought us a windmill. We were excited by the idea of wind generating some of our electricity, but that's not what happened. After a series of delays and mishaps, the assembled structure was...
Improbable is not impossible: Choosing optimism about solving climate change
Even at times when I can't see a clear path to solving climate change, I find reasons for optimism. No one knows what will happen in the next few years, but a full scale transformation to contain climate change is not impossible. I take heart...
The single most important action you can take to fight climate change: Just say yes!
What I've learned in my years as a climate solutions advocate is that it's very easy to find flaws with someone else's plan to bring down carbon emissions. What is much harder is to be for it. I used to bristle when anyone would argue that...
Seven things we can do now to fight climate change
One thing that gets me out of bed in the morning is my belief that we know what to do to begin tackling the climate crisis, we just need to get to it! Last month, Brad Plumer and Blacki Migliozzi wrote in the New York...
Why we won’t be focusing on changing your lifestyle
Power Up for Climate Solutions is here to help people take action to tackle climate change. So I’ve spent a lot of time considering this question: What are most of us not yet doing that will make a big difference? It may surprise you to hear...