by Melanie Nesheim, Third Act NH Coordinating Committee
For many years I chose homelessness as the cause to volunteer for. I personally knew a couple of single moms with young children who faced homelessness. That brought the issue front and center. We lived in southern NH in those years.
In 2019 we moved north to the lakes region of NH. That year, our first grandchild was born. I thought I’d probably get involved in Pemi Valley Habitat for Humanity, but then the Covid-19 pandemic hit, pausing local involvement.
During this pause, living on Little Squam Lake heightened my awareness of the weather. We enjoy our winters up here, skiing, skating, and winter hiking, but we were hearing more and more about climate change. More intense storms were happening more often around the country. It became undeniable that global warming was happening.
“We could lose our winters,” I thought. It was heartbreaking to think my grandson might not grow up skiing in NH as we did and his parents did. Now, climate change became front and center. I found and joined Third Act NH in 2023.
The effects of climate change are so obvious to me, I was confused by the response from some friends and family. I would tell them about Third Act, and they would be nice about it, but then there’d be an odd sliding sideways into another topic, even among people I thought would be more into it. It’s just not on the top of people’s radar.
I think I understand why.
Something else is always front and center! Climate change feels far away and something we cannot impact, while front and center… “My parents need to move into assisted living and I’m looking into it.” “My adult son had an accident at work and is staying with us while he recovers.” “We’re going on a trip to New Zealand next year now that we’re retired!”
The same thing happened for me in the 1990s. It’s not that I didn’t take climate change seriously back then. Bill McKibbon’s new organization, 350.org, made an impression, named after the maximum ppm of carbon dioxide the atmosphere can hold before global warming changes the weather. (There’s over 420 ppm now.) But front and center was raising my young kids and volunteering in church. I wanted my kids to be part of a community of faith, so I helped put on retreats and keep a youth program going. My parents plus two elderly aunts were still living and deserved attention.
Now the weather has changed and become front and center… and I still get glazed looks.
I think I understand why.
The first thing I learned in 2023 about climate change as a cause is that the work feels a bit like pushing on fog. Climate change has one clear cause: excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere acts like a blanket around the earth, trapping heat, and it comes from burning stuff, primarily fossil fuels. Many and varied reasons for burning stuff contribute to this situation, so there are many and varied ways to stop burning stuff. It can feel like pushing on fog to choose just one of these ways, do it, and… try to see what’s the impact.
It’s like the Grand Canyon. It’s too big to comprehend, and yet, what created it was just many small drops of water passing through. Many small drops had quite an impact—look at what was carved out!
That is the nature of this cause! Many actions, some by individuals, some at the local or town or state level, all having an impact together.
Yes, we can solve climate change; it’s just that there’s no single big fix. No one policy will do it. Instead, there are many things we each can do to stop burning stuff. In our minds, we must connect what we’re doing to what others are doing. Perhaps we are…
- Putting solar panels on our houses.
- Putting solar panels on our adult children’s houses if we can afford it.
- Adding batteries to our solar installation.
- Installing heat pumps.
- Working with local governments to smooth out the solar permitting process.
- Driving an electric car. Charging it when the sun’s out as much as possible after you install solar.
- Switching from gas stoves/dryers to electric.
- Following the bills in the NH legislature and submitting comment on climate-friendly bills. (There are organizations who do this for you and let you know when to submit comment.)
- Following the bills in the NH legislature and writing to state senators and reps. (There are organizations who do this for you and let you know when and to whom to write.)
- Seeing if your bank (or insurance company, or credit card company) invests heavily in the fossil fuel industry and if it does, switching to one that doesn’t.
- Writing to the bank/insurance-company/credit card you switched away from to tell them why, that you don’t like their investment in fossil fuels.
- Letting others know you’re doing these things and that they could do them, too.
This list of ideas isn’t all-inclusive, but it includes items Third Act NH can help you with! Reach out to us at newhampshire@thirdact.org. Because you and I and others did these things, we’ll be so much further ahead mitigating climate change when the political climate allows the larger policy changes to return.
Let’s go push on the fog together. It will coalesce into impacts we can see.