We can all fight climate change

A recent news item in the Olympian was entitled “New federal report cites extreme impact on climate change in U.S.”. The first paragraph reads in part “The average temperature in the United States has risen rapidly and drastically since 1980, and recent decades have been the warmest in the past 1500 years.”

Instead of waiting for our state and federal legislators to take action, there are many things we can do as individuals to slow down the impact of climate change. For example, we can make it a habit to ride the city bus when possible to reduce the use of gasoline. We have an excellent city bus system with clean buses and very helpful drivers.

We can also install solar panels on our roofs. The average payback time when incentives are included is only 6 to 8 years. That would be the same as getting 10 percent annual interest on your investment.

We can also make a huge impact by using less plastic. For example, the plastic used in bottled drinking water uses 17 million barrels of oil annually. That is enough oil to fuel 1.3 million cars. Only about 10 percent of all plastic is recycled. The rest goes to landfills.

And finally, we can support groups like Citizens Climate Lobby which is promoting a plan to add a fee to the price of carbon in order to discourage the use of fossil fuels. This fee would be collected and then returned to U.S. citizens in equal payments.

This story was originally published September 20, 2017 at 3:01 PM with the headline "We can all fight climate change."