As the end of the year approaches, many of us are thinking about what gifts we want to give our loved ones over the holidays. If we have financial means, we may also be looking at charities to which we want to give year-end contributions. Why not combine the two and give a donation in someone’s name to a non-profit working on climate solutions?

For the past five years or more, my husband and I have been doing just that. …

“It is I who must begin,” Vaclav Havel states in the first line of his poem of the same name. “It is I who must begin. Once I begin, once I try — here and now, right where I am, not excusing myself by saying things would be easier elsewhere, without grand speeches and ostentatious gestures, but all the more persistently — to live in harmony.”

In this statement, he issues a clarion call to himself, and each of us, to start right where we are. …

In the past week, Thanksgiving week in the United States, everyone was paying more attention to the practice of giving thanks for all we have. And now that the holiday is over, I’m realizing that I can experience gratitude any time. This morning when I sat down to meditate, gratitude for the earth arose spontaneously in me. With it came a sense of peace, renewed energy for climate action, and an insight that I am often moved more by my fear for the future of the planet than by appreciation.

While fear can be a great motivator, it can also stress and drain us. So, today I made a commitment to cultivate more appreciation for the earth regularly. For several years now, I have been receiving daily quotes from the Network for Grateful Living. While I love reading them, I rarely pause after and allow their wisdom to inspire me in my climate action. …

With Black Friday here in the United States and Christmas a few weeks away, everywhere we turn, we hear messages telling us to buy more. It’s very easy to get caught up in the consumer mindset that pervades the western world. Like a fish not knowing it is swimming in the water, we often aren’t aware of how everything around us encourages us to want and consume more.

The cultural milieu we live in, and the systems all around us, depend on perpetual consumerism and growth. We’ve built our whole economy on expansion. To keep the engine of commerce going, companies need to keep producing more and more stuff, which we consumers are then convinced we desperately need. …

I didn’t realize how much I was holding my breath until the U.S. election was over. When I heard that the country elected a new president, one who took the climate crisis seriously, I exhaled so deeply it caught me by surprise. What happened next also caught me by surprise.

After the initial flood of relief rushed through me, a profound sadness rose up from deep in my belly that I hadn’t known was there. As I sat with my feelings, I realized I’d been masking and holding in my grief about the many lost opportunities to reduce greenhouse gases under the current U.S. administration. I knew the president-elect, even with all his climate action plans, wouldn’t be able roll back the carbon dioxide added to and accumulated in the atmosphere over the past four years. …

We live in troubling and uncertain times. There are many reasons to be anxious about the state of the world and the future of our planet, particularly given what is happening in the United States in 2020.

I wake up worrying about whether we will do enough to get to global net-zero by 2050. Will the U.S. continue its backtracking on environmental protection after the election, or will we be able to reengage in taking significant climate action with a split government? …

Do you care about climate change and want to take action but aren’t sure which solutions will make the most impact?

Many people I talk with make similar statements. They want to make a real difference with the limited time and money they have. But they don’t have enough information to identify which actions will maximize their effect. Or they think the only way to have an impact is to do everything, which feels like too much.

Please take heart. You personally don’t have to do every known activity out there to help stop climate change. …

Have you been worrying about the outcome of the election in the U.S.?

I sure have.

While we have plenty of reasons to worry, the past few weeks I’ve been increasingly anxious about who U.S. citizens will elect as president because of the huge impact this decision will have on the future of our planet. If we re-elect the current administration, our country and the world will be screwed (at least, environmentally). We cannot afford four more years of environmental policy rollbacks and federal inaction on the climate crisis and environmental justice. If we are to stop the worst effects of climate change, we must take significant action in the U.S. …