This is not a week for regularly scheduled programming. The presidential race has ended in a decisive victory for Donald Trump—and the potential beginning of a raft of worst-case scenarios for U.S. climate, energy, and environmental policy. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been in a kind of daze: distressed, angry, even lost.
My waking thought over the last 24 hours has been, What do we do now? The “we” there refers to both one5c as a publication and as a community. The answer is twofold: First, it’s to give ourselves grace, take time to absorb what’s just happened, and support one another. Second, is to do exactly what we’ve been doing.
Ready to make a difference? Subscribe to
the one5c newsletter to learn how you can help save the world.
When Joe started one5c, it was full-blown doom-time. The first Trump administration had pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement (it will again), systematically rolled back dozens of environmental protections, and aggressively expanded fossil-fuel production. The U.N.’s sixth climate assessment had just published and found that the world was pacing to breach 1.5 degrees C of warming within two decades. The storm clouds of plunderous energy policy and unchecked pollution are gathering once again.
The difference now is that we’re all already here, working together, and there’s stuff we can do.
The founding principle of one5c is that individual action matters. That’s true even if we wish it weren’t. I don’t love asking you to worry about your hamburger consumption or whether the emissions from hopping on a flight to Jamaica (or wherever) to decompress are worth it. In a country whose systems and policies—particularly those pertaining to energy, agriculture, and transportation—are aligned toward conservation and stewardship, we shouldn’t have to sweat the small stuff.
But we do. And the uncertainty of the current national landscape actually means your actions can be even more powerful than if we lived in some mythical country with perfect environmental policies. That’s not just a rhetorical trick; it’s math.
It also means we need to train our attention more toward one of the key pillars of one5c’s world-saving to-do list: action. You register your values with your pocketbook every time you invest in solar energy, opt for reusable products over disposable ones, or spurn spending your hard-earned cash on lies like carbon offsets or greenwashed goods. But few acts outshine the power of voting and advocacy, especially at the local level. Change takes root in PTA meetings, town halls, and statehouses. State and local governments across the U.S. are already training their policies toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and doing so across party lines in many cases.
The uncertainty of the current national landscape actually means your actions can be even more powerful than if we lived in some mythical country with perfect environmental policies.
Being the loud constituents—the ones who make calls, rally, march—can push officials to earn your vote on each of the 727 days until the midterms. Consider, for example, that representatives from purple and red districts have asked House Speaker Mike Johnson to keep his mitts off the Inflation Reduction Act cash because the Biden administration’s signature climate law has already benefited their local economies. Even this week’s results include a couple of local climate bright spots. Voters in Washington state defeated a repeal of the state’s landmark cap-and-trade program, and states like Rhode Island and California approved big-ticket funding packages for resilience and adaptation projects.
If you have time and space, now is also a great moment to channel your feelings into finding a venue for action. Consider joining the local chapter of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby or signing up with Climate Changemakers, which distributes action plans even people new to this flavor of organized rabble-rousing can do from their desks in an hour or less. Or, as Joe would say, forward this email to everyone you know. Because it’s not Pollyannaish to understand your own power.
Don’t read this “let’s go!” attitude as me saying that a major loss doesn’t feel like a left hook to the ribs—or that we shouldn’t give ourselves a beat to catch our breath. It’s me saying that every little action each of us takes just got embiggened, and the more of us who join this team the better off we’ll be when it’s time to take the best big swing.
Keep up the good work. I’ll try, too.
—Corinne