Letters to the Editor: Climate anxiety is real, but taking individual actions helps

To the editor: All I kept thinking as I read Sarah Jaquette Ray’s piece about turning our climate anxiety — a term I never use — into action was, “I can, I can, I can.”

Today I was sworn in with dozens of other well-informed optimists as a California Climate Action Corps Fellow. This is a state fellowship initiated by Gov. Gavin Newsom, paid for by the U.S. government and administered by AmeriCorps and others. I’ll be working with a wonderful local nonprofit to create a climate curriculum that will be used to engage community members to, as our motto goes, get things done! My fellow fellows will be creating and executing similar programs in the neighborhoods that need them the most from Sacramento to San Diego.

As Ray says, there are umpteen ways to take action and there is no better medicine — for any kind of doom.

Zan Dubin-Scott, Santa Monica

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To the editor: Climate change is the gravest threat humans have ever faced, yet as a global society, we have not acted to protect ourselves. It is too abstract, and so big, that individual efforts seem pointless. It is too far away to believe it is real, although that is changing with record heat, fires, droughts, floods and melting ice.

As a nation, we must stop burning fossil fuels. House Resolution 2307, the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act, puts a fee on fossil fuels representing their true costs to our world. The money collected is refunded back to American citizens. It rewards clean energy technologies that will make our world safer and more prosperous.

Become a climate change activist. Contact your congressional representatives and request their support for HR 2307. Together we can make a difference.

Phil Beauchamp, Chino Hills

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To the editor: Kudos to The Times for extensive reporting about climate change. Of the multiple stories I read in recent days on climate issues from drought to heat to wildfires, only one, Sarah Ray’s op-ed about eco-anxiety, had options for action. How about regularly offering suggestions for solutions individuals can take? I’m part of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby, which advocates for carbon pricing, just one of many possible actions.

The canary in the coal mine of climate change died long ago, yet we are making little progress in fixing this existential crisis. If the roof of my house started to crumble, I’d fix it before it collapsed, instead of sitting inside worrying about it. We must take collective action immediately to curtail ongoing and increasing environmental catastrophes.

Margaret Baker Davis, La Verne