If I can sum up what it’s been like to lean into the climate policy discussions happening at both a national and global level, it’s this: Lots of activity, not much action.
Yes, an infrastructure bill passed, but it’s climate provisions won’t do much without their counterparts in a reconciliation bill.
Yes, COP26 is happening, but the most ambitious commitments are structured in a way that largely echoes past goals that weren’t met at all.
But it’s not over.
Policy and governance alone don’t hold all of the keys to climate action, but they hold the keys that make it a whole lot more effective when each of us use ours. It’s easy to think that calls for climate action go unheard, and I get why it feels that way, but applying pressure works. Not perfectly, but I doubt some of the most effective pieces of climate policy would exist without the people-pressure built up over the past decade.
Applying pressure will look different for different people, but everybody’s got some lever they can pull. Do it for what you love about living.
Hunger Strike for Climate