“A membership to the NC League of Conservation Voters may save your life.”
You make think this is a little tongue in cheek or an outlandish hyperbole. Joining a nonprofit advocacy organization could save my life? Please. I don’t buy it.
Hold on – before you go, hear me out. We won’t be saving your life. You will be saving your own. And mine. And our children and grandchildren.
Have I lost you? Hang on, I’ll explain myself.
Without sounding too alarmist, the future of our world is in peril. You know this. You heard the reports: 2014 was the hottest year on record. Multiple research studies project rising sea levels, threatening coastal economies and communities. Increases in severe weather disturbances – from hurricanes to flooding – will cost our country billions of dollars, undercutting infrastructure and livelihoods. The numbers are bleak. The fear is real. So, if want to make change, we have to act today. Now.
Yes, there are still multiple obstacles in this path. We have many in power who deny that human-induced climate change exists. Industry groups for Big Oil and Dirty Energy continue to subvert the truth that their products are not only harming our natural resources but the people and wildlife that depend on them to live. Isn’t it mind boggling to think that people are actively pursuing policies that put their own children, their own families at risk?
We have to double down and push back. Many of you have been doing that for years – in your neighborhoods and on the national playing field. 400,000 people took the streets last fall in the People’s Climate March, showing up in force to say as one: we must address the greatest threat facing our nation.
This type of communal act of solidarity is incredibly powerful. And this is where I’m going to bring you back in to the first sentence: joining with the NC League of Conservation Voters is a similar type of action. You live in all corners, nooks, and crannies of the Tar Heel state. Heck, you may even live outside of North Carolina but grew up here or spent summers on the Outer Banks or high up in the Blue Ridge mountains. You’ve adopted one of our college basketball teams as your own. You like pork BBQ. You sometimes say y’all. You care what happens to the people and places within its borders.
As we grow in numbers, we grow in voices and power. You know we must be loud, persistent, and determined. You know we have to hold our leaders accountable. If they support good environmental policies, we thank them. If they choose not to, we vote them out of office. Even though it may not reel like it every day, we live in a world built on the democratic principles that people have the power to choose who leads them. We believe who we elect matters.
As legendary football coach Vince Lombardi stated: “Individual commitment to a group effort – that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.” It may even save the world. You can make that individual commitment today.
