An estimated tens of thousands of people showed up in Washington, DC this past weekend—in solidarity with an additional nearly 400 sister marches spreading across the globe—to have their voices heard in support of taking bigger steps toward protecting our planet – and our future - from the now inevitable onset of climate change. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, spanning back over the past 150 years, the United States is the number one cumulative producer of carbon dioxide worldwide and still produces 16% of the current CO2 emissions despite making up just 4% of global population. China currently produces the most CO2 of any country (with the US in second) but the US more than doubles those emissions per capita.
Despite our dominating role in CO2 emissions, the U.S. as a nation has been slow to adopt firm and lasting measures to address the realities of climate change. The large and diverse participation in the Climate March suggests that people are ready for that change.
This readiness perhaps comes in part because people in the US and worldwide are already starting to notice first hand the changes brought on by a warming climate. According to the National Climate Assessment, a 2014 report produced by more than 300 experts together with a 60-member Federal Advisory Committee and reviewed by the public, experts, federal agencies, and a panel of National Academy of Sciences, US residents are already regularly observing longer, hotter summers, more intense rain storms, more acidic oceans (sea water which is more corrosive), longer, more severe seasonal allergies, and differences in plants species that thrive in their yard or neighborhood.
Given how steeply global average temperatures are already rising, large-scale policy changes and solutions are necessary to move toward a cooler climate. But does that mean that there’s nothing we can do as...
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