Reader Report: Earth Day begins with picking up trash but there’s so much more to do
This Earth Day, my daughter and her husband are bringing their children down to the Newport Beach peninsula to pick up trash on the beach with me.
It’s something I do regularly because it is deeply upsetting to see a beautiful, natural environment spoiled by plastic, and because there is so much of it. Some days I can fill up two bags for every block.
I came to love the natural environment in my own childhood, which I spent climbing around the San Gabriel mountains in our backyard. My parents took us camping, on long drives through the Sonoran desert and summer vacations to Laguna Beach. Likewise, I took my own daughter on vacations to the outdoors — Mammoth, Oregon and Mexico.
In those days, no one suspected, or talked about, the bleak future that lay ahead for these places. Now, most of us accept that our progress — our factories, our cars, our plastic trash — is in large part responsible for the climate change that threatens our environments and our species.
But what can we do now?
Besides recycling, driving electric cars and picking up trash, many of us want to teach children about that responsibility we share. They get it. One activist I know, Carol, learned in first grade that paper was precious. So, for many years she wrote as small as possible as a way to conserve trees.
Fortunately, the message stuck and she grew into an adult environmentalist still seeking ways to make a difference. And this is the problem many of us still run into. We don’t see what individuals can do in the face of what we now know is a massive problem. Not only massive, but also politicized into stagnation on the national level.
As I wrestled with this conundrum, I came across a small, non-profit volunteer group in Orange County called Citizens’ Climate Lobby.
Besides picking up trash, or teaching children, CCL members have organized a national campaign to lobby Congress members — through letters, op-eds and visits to Washington, D.C. — to pass a tax on carbon for companies like Shell or Exxon. The government would then return the income back to individual citizens. The companies could switch to green energy.
Other members pursue regulations on fracking.
Joining in this effort has been enlightening as to what smart citizenship is all about. The group is strictly non-partisan, but mainly targets Republicans since they are the ones who have been slowing progress. We learn to listen, to build relationships, to approach both Democrats and Republicans with respect, appreciation and gratitude, and to keep coming back.
And several Republicans have responded positively.
The just-formed, bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus in the House includes six members we’ve worked with. Thirteen Republicans have signed the Gibson Resolution, HR.424, which states that climate change, caused in part by us, needs to be studied and addressed.
The CCL membership is growing quickly now. Carol is now one of our local members. Like the teachers who told her to value paper, I wish many of us will take advantage of Earth Day to instill respect for our environment with children. Hopefully, they will grow up to learn there is something they can do as adults and that good citizenship can be the pathway to keeping the earth as lovely as it can be.
Newport Beach resident LYNN SMITH is a former Los Angeles Times staff writer.