Dear America

 by Amber Reimondo, Energy Director

Dear America, 

I have a favor to ask. It’s a big one, and it requires every one of us, on all sides of today’s gaping political divide, to put down our pitchforks, open our minds, and set aside labels — all but the one that says we are Americans. 

Finding our common ground

We are Americans. We are a nation built on shared foundational values, and despite our differences, we all want the same basic things — to protect those we love, to have our freedoms, to have drinkable water and breathable air, to be healthy, and to have good jobs so we can put food on the table and roofs over our families’ heads. 

Each of us is doing our best with the knowledge and resources we have to pursue these desires in the parts of the world that we know and value. We may be a nation of polarized politics, but we also have plentiful common ground.

In America, fossil fuel industries serve us all in nearly every aspect of our lives. They have meant good jobs for generations of American families, including my own family. Yet those who have never been fed with a paycheck from an oil company, coalmine, or power plant still know the benefits of fossil fuel extraction. Thanks to petroleum and coal, seasons and geography don’t determine what we find at the grocery store. We warm and cool our homes at the push of a button, and we can drive or fly across state lines in a matter of hours. 

Our shared use of fossil fuels brings us to another commonality — the threat of climate change. 

Climate change — it’s happening

Thousands of climate experts worldwide have compiled enough data that the science of climate change is clear: Humanity faces an urgent reality of the climate changing at an accelerated rate. 

Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that man-made emissions of greenhouse gases contribute to climate change. Scientists are also confident that the consequences of climate change will severely disrupt the critical resources we rely on — our water, land, and food supplies.

That’s why many people feel that action to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (like carbon dioxide and methane) is merited despite the remaining 3 percent or less of climate scientists that either disagree or haven’t formed an opinion. 

Same problem. Different perspectives.

While many Americans recognize that scientific consensus means an urgent need for action, too many of us dismiss or forget that some Americans feel forgotten in transition. Today, thousands of Americans are experiencing consequences of climate change — not in the environmental sense, but through changes to their very livelihoods. Yes, I’m talking about jobs.

Global and national markets are shifting toward more climate-friendly energy sources, and energy industries are shifting to meet them. But the reality of that transition is not simple. A community built on coal mining may not equally be suited for wind, and if it is, the job market will likely be quite different. Like dominos, entire communities can collapse as plants and mines go quiet, leaving restaurants, grocery stores, and gas stations with fewer or no customers to serve. If Americans cannot unite to recognize that this is an equal part of addressing the climate change threat, our hope of success may go down with the livelihoods of good, hard-working people who have depended on fossil fuel industries for decades. 

Americans have gotten so tangled in disagreements over fairness and whose problem should take priority that we’ve overlooked the bigger picture: We are all passengers on the same ship trying to stay afloat in the rough sea of a changing world.

This is where you and I can make a difference. Despite our diverse backgrounds, humanity needs an informed, compassionate, empathetic advocate in each of us. It needs us not to pit the people facing climate change crises today against those who will face them in the future. Humanity needs Americans to work together — whether we’re coal miners, environmentalists, or schoolteachers. 

We’ll find answers only when we demand that our representatives and our president face reality and act on behalf of all Americans. Perhaps regulations that address climate but not people are just as unhelpful as those that ignore science and attempt to prop up dying industries. Neither extreme will keep us afloat. We will find real solutions when we reach out to every American facing climate change, whether from a shifting economic base today or from inevitably endangered water supplies in the next decade.

Promises for the future

Friends and fellow Americans, here’s where I ask for that favor. Science and facts are important. We must use them, defend them, respect them, and hold each other accountable to them. And in doing so, we cannot forget to call upon our sense of humanity as the facts, sometimes insensitively, push us along. 

Facts lead us to good decisions and toward solutions. But facts alone will never be enough. Only compassion and empathy can cross the remaining critical divides. 

Let us commit to leave the pitchforks on the ground, to look to each other as well as to the facts, and to remember who we really are and what we’re ultimately fighting for. No one says this will be easy. But while we do not yet have all the solutions, we know that together is the only way we’ll find them.