Ask me why I’m fighting against climate change, and I might give you some science speak answer, all about changing temperatures and ocean currents and parts per million. But really, for me, it doesn’t matter whether climate change is a fact or a myth. I’d still be fighting for the same bills and the same targets, because the things that contribute to climate change are messing with the planet whether or not they’re also heating it up.
I’m not fighting against climate change because of the graphs and charts and numbers showing an increase in the proportion of carbon in the atmosphere. Though I agree with the scientists and the facts, I rely more on what is in front of my face. The effects of climate change are difficult to sense from day to day. We might recognize that storms are becoming more frequent and more powerful and that the sea level is rising, but these changes are occurring so slowly within the realm of human perception that it is sometimes difficult to tell they are happening at all. The other effects of dirty energy, however, are problematic and immediately visible.
Every day, coal-fired power plants spew vast amounts of pollutants into the sky. Even so-called “clean coal” has detrimental effects. The pollutants might not be going into the air, but they’re still going somewhere, and that somewhere is onto the land and into the water. Mountaintop removal is exactly what it sounds like. The tops of mountains in Appalachia are blown off to reach the coal seams underneath. And, as one might expect, the toxins in coal (mercury and cadmium among others) are released as beautiful landscapes are destroyed.
It’s not just the coal. It’s all the dirty sources of energy — nuclear, natural gas, oil… There’s a long list. And it’s not just the dirty sources of energy, either. Part of the problem is our mentality of want, our constant drive to buy more and more and more and more. It’s our desire to build bigger houses closer and closer to the water, our desire to find ways to power our computers and iPods and cellphones every hour of every day. (I’m not saying that I’m not guilty. I use my computer and my cellphone regularly. I’m part of the problem that’s contributing to our current need for these dirty sources of energy. But I’m working towards becoming part of the solution, too.) There are easy ways to reduce our energy consumption. We can unplug appliances at night, turn off the lights when we leave rooms, and increase the energy efficiency of our houses. We can wear an extra sweater in the winter and turn down the heat. We don’t need to lead lives of asceticism; we need to be more aware of our patterns of consumption and the effects of it.
I’m fighting against dirty energy because when I walk out of my building in the morning, I see trees. I see green in the summer and reds and browns and golds in the fall. In the winter I see the plain branches patterned against the sky. Looking up, I see a vast expanse of blue and sometimes gray, sometimes partly covered by clouds and sometimes splashed with the colors of a sunrise or sunset. I see the sun or the moon and the stars. It’s what has inspired people for generations past and will inspire people for generations to come. It’s why we’re here — we need the land to live off of, physically and emotionally. If we destroy it, we won’t be around for very long.
I don’t want those scenes to disappear. I want to be able, on every day of my life, to walk outside and see the trees, to see the sky, to hear birds chirping. I want to be a part of this natural world and to have the natural world be a part of me. I’m fighting this fight because I care about everything that’s affected by human selfishness, and that includes all the cliches like the bunnies and the trees and those pesky future generations. I’m doing this because I care about all the irreplaceable things on this planet, and that includes you.

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