Blog Action Day: Motivation for the fight

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Every action we take requires some kind of motive. While I learned this from Law and Order, we see it all around us. We go to school as kids because our parents make us we want to learn. We eat our peas and carrots to be healthy. We drink water because we're thirsty. Less virtuous actions have motivation, too. Littering is typically motivated by laziness, shoplifting by greed, and dark chocolate by pure delicious desire, no matter what we try to argue about its antioxidants.

More important things, such as the fight for climate action, have similarly more important motives.

For me that motivation is my niece. The thought of going through my life as if nothing is happening to then leave her with a planet with increasingly worse air and water quality, frequent major natural disasters, and entire countries dying out is unacceptable. She lives in New England, a region known traditionally connected with fishing, where the fishing community is dying along with the ocean populations.

The question is often posed, "When your grandchildren ask what you did to stop global warming, what will you say?" I don't want to wait for my niece to ask. I want the next generation to grow up seeing for themselves what we're doing to protect the earth for them. Climate action is about working for our children, our family traditions, our local and national treasures, and so much more.

Because of my niece, I will be using the 1Sky call tool [2] to call my senators this afternoon and tell them that they don't just need to vote for a strong climate bill -- they need to lead on a strong climate bill. I will tell my them that they can't let looming elections next year scare them into backing off on important legislation. I will tell my senators that they can't let another year go by before the United States steps up and joins the world in committing to fight back against climate change. I encourage you to do the same.

- 1Sky Internet Fellow Alex Bea