A Local Watchdog’s Checklist for Tackling Environmental Issues In Your Own Backyard
The environment is large, complex and cross-jurisdictional. As activists, it’s easy to jump on board with the large national and international issues—like protecting the Clean Air Act or fighting climate change—that are pursued by myriad organizations. Those causes are worthy of support, but it’s easy to overlook or count out the smaller issues in your own backyard.
What happens in our own communities is equally important, not just to improve our quality of life and that of our neighbors, but because many of the solutions to the national and international problems start locally. Plus, local is where lots of the real action is happening anyway.
In 2005, then London Mayor Ken Livingstone convened 18 mayors from “megacities,” which spawned the formation of C40 Cities, an international coalition of city officials committed to reducing carbon pollution and building resilience. Even President Obama, in his Climate Action Plan, acknowledged that, given the state of Congress today, cities and states are leading the way.
We’re not all Erin Brockovich, so tackling local environmental issues can be challenging, beginning with even identifying what’s worth fighting for.
Here are a few steps you can take to bring your passion for the environment home.
Understand Your Ecology
Each community is unique. Where I live on the Gulf Coast, the oil industry has driven the devastation of the nation’s largest expanse of coastal wetlands, disappearing at the rate of a football field an hour and jeopardizing the sustainability of coastal communities. But in Los Angeles, the most pressing issues are related to the effects of the ongoing historic drought and the water use policies and practices that make it worse. In West Virginia, there’s plenty of water and high ground, but the dominant coal and chemical industries wreak havoc on the landscape by blowing up mountains for coal and underinvesting in safety equipment such that their products and waste poisons the ecosystem.
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