Letters

Over at the Whaling Museum last week, Alec Baldwin and Kevin McAllister spoke to “Living On The Edge in the Time of Climate Change.” Their talk was as if our climate situation is a fait accompli.

Many of us have rightly thought that climate change cannot be reversed, because most of our education has been on the devastating effects of the burning of fossil fuels and unaware of the game-changing power of plant life and agriculture to sequester carbon.

Another scenario was unfolding here in Southampton. Councilman John Bouvier gave a press conference on the town’s climate-focused past and present plans. Town Trustee Ann Welker shared efforts on the Trustees front, including their efforts to use Project Drawdown’s priorities for reversing climate change. We are so fortunate to have elected officials, town planners and savvy citizens on our town Sustainability Committee wanting to work in parallel with the scientifically prioritized Drawdown solutions to actually reverse global warming.

Tuesday, the Sustainability Committee had Long-Range Town Planners Janice Shearer and Michelangelo Lieberman present more work on Southampton’s Climate Action Plan for our Climate Smart Community. This is awesome. Southampton is a leader of the pack.

Meanwhile, back at the dinner party, Penny Wright, everyone’s favorite adult library program coordinator, and my sister, suggested that what we need is communities of people to come together regularly in a friendly way to see what we can do individually and how we can collectively make a difference.

Michael Mann, IPCC climate science and self-proclaimed climate communication specialist, told the audience at Guild Hall’s “Hampton Institute: The Youth Climate Movement Could Save The Planet” that the most important thing we can do to make a difference is to talk about our climate crisis in every conversation possible — in meetings, churches, businesses — and begin taking group action.

David Beier says that nudging is the way to go. He references the book “Nudge.”

We are taking Penny’s, Michael’s and David’s advice. Several of us have a group in formation, Drawdown East End. We are bringing communities together, and we will teach ourselves and others both nudging and much more about what we can do.

And we are kicking this off at the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton on Monday, September 9, at 10:30 a.m. Reversing global warming is our goal, and we are starting where we are, here on the East End of Long Island. We can do this. Please join us. Game on!

Dorothy ReillySouthampton