By Amanda Sherlock, Citizens’ Climate Lobby Miami
You do not need to be an expert to act on climate change. You simply need to believe the experts.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) keeps warning us that to prevent climate catastrophe we need to make massive changes to how we eat, make our stuff and move around.
The panel’s latest report issued in February is familiar. If anything, the warnings are more dire than ever. Experts advise that we must start this transition now so that the changes are made before 2030.
We don’t need any more analysis; we need action. And we need it now. Especially in Miami where city planners are preparing for catastrophic sea-level rise, plans they concede will not save all areas.
Do we all understand what this means for us? That in 40 years or so, some of us will have to abandon our homes? The houses we think are worth silly money now, will be worth nothing.
For the last few decades, I have been tentative about climate advocacy. It has always concerned me, but I was consumed with the business of feeding my family. I also felt I did not have anything important to add to the climate conversation because I was not “qualified.”
Climate science is not my day job or my area of expertise. I’ve since realized that I am qualified because I am a human living on Earth. I am especially qualified because I own a home in Miami, a city at sea level, and I am a parent.
We all have huge stakes in this. The most useful actions we can take are in our own sphere of influence. In our communities, cities, places of work and in our state. What can we each do to accelerate the transition to a clean energy future? Well, the experts have told us what we need to do.
It is not about individual recycling or composting of personal scraps or even switching out your personal fossil fueled car for an electric one. While those are laudable goals, they are going to be largely ineffective at creating the massive structural change that we need. I’ve learned that if a proposed solution to the climate crisis seems easy or convenient, odds are high that it is going to be ineffective, inequitable, or both. It’s terribly, terrifyingly inconvenient to hear, but it is the truth.
Experts have said we must change everything about our economy and our own daily habits. People with the experience and knowledge have started to create the plans for this massive economic mobilization to create a habitable planet for our children and grandchildren. It will create millions of jobs to build new infrastructure, and retrofit old buildings. We will all be very busy, but we must start now, today, if we want to have any chance of being successful.
As individuals, we can no longer afford to be mindlessly “busy” every day, because all our daily “business” is destroying our home. We can get to where we need to be, but it is going to take all of us, acting intentionally in our sphere of influence every day.
What have you done today to act on climate change?
Amanda Sherlock is a member of Citizens’ Climate Lobby in Miami.
“The Invading Sea” is the opinion arm of the Florida Climate Reporting Network, a collaborative of news organizations across the state focusing on the threats posed by the warming climate.
