There is no Planet-B

The Natural Resources Defense Council has created a petition for President Biden. I signed and made the following edits to their copy. I invite you to sign the petition as well. Feel free to use my edits (if you like the changes I made) or start here and make your own, or just sign with the copy that is already on the NRDC petition. Either way, please sign and/or share with others who can sign. The time is NOW to take action, no matter how large or small, to preserve a climate that is habitable for sustaining life on Earth.

There is no Planet-B. The Inflation Reduction Act is a monumental milestone for ensuring we have a climate-safe future. It’s a potential game-changer that can help cut climate pollution in half by 2030. It's a great start, but we can - and MUST - do more.

There is no Planet-B. I urge you to take immediate measures to prevent your Interior Department from auctioning off more of our shared public lands and oceans to the fossil fuel industry. These auctions are continuing in part by tremendous pressure from the fossil fuel industry, but it is URGENT that you step in to protect our PUBLIC lands. Public = for the PEOPLE, *not* for corporate profit. The only way to prevent irreversible ecosystem destruction that will reverse our climate progress and further shackle us to fossil fuel dependency is for you to STAND UP to Oil and Gas and JUST SAY NO. Our dependency on oil and gas is like a drug and there's only one way to get clean - to quit.

There is no Planet-B. To preserve our clean energy future, millions of NRDC activists, including me, are calling on you to stand strong and to keep making bold steps for positive climate action. When you do, you will have the unwavering support of millions of Americans like me.

Thank you.

Here's the petition link:

https://action.nrdc.org/letter/1415-jan-fossil-fuel-012323

Please take action and share this with your friends, family, and other networks. We only have one shared world to live on. There is no Planet-B.

Why am I a climate activist?

I first heard about recycling as an elementary school student. I remember being introduced to Earth Day and the Reduce-Reuse-Recycle concept in the 2nd or 3rd grade. Celebrating Earth Day, keeping nature the way we found it, and the ways we learned about the 3 Rs has stayed with me for almost 50 years. Recycling has changed a lot, though, through the years to the point that now we need to focus more on the reduce and reuse sides of that model. In fact, I would now challenge the idea of recycling as being a good thing.

I now consider the statement "recycling is an important measure against climate change" to be an unexamined assumption. The idea of recycling may have been good in the past, great even, but it's now a struggle to implement fully. Corporations take advantage of our willingness to recycle by intentionally designing their products to break, using the idea of planned obsolescence, relying on the idea that people believe recycling is a 'good' thing. This has become part of the reason people are so willing to just go out and buy another gadget rather than demanding higher quality to begin with. We need to return to the good ol’ days of doing it right the first time, building products to last.

We also need to take a look at expanding the REDUCE and REUSE sides of the RRR model as the practicality of the RECYCLE side dwindles down. We have just one planet for ALL of life and that needs to become THE message. One paradigm to shift is that it is time to dial back our desire for more more more.

In order for there to be less perceived NEED for oil and gas drilling, we must reduce our DESIRE for more O/G-based products. Only by shifting western cultural norms toward being satisfied with what we already have can the demand for new shiny objects start to wane. That will make it more appealing to reuse things until they truly have no life left in them. It’s time to move toward thrifting as the go-to model, reusing items over and over and over again, and then finding more sustainable ways to throw them away, returning them to their state of dust.

There is no Planet-B.

Check out Pachamama Alliance for more on how to contribute to an environmentally sustainable, socially just, and spiritually fulfilling human presence on our one shared Planet-A.