In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, students around the country are mobilizing to fight for a solution to the other major crisis facing our nation and world: climate change.
Just as with the coronavirus, action is needed now to prevent overwhelming suffering and costs due to climate change.
If you want to pitch in, there’s an incredibly powerful tool at your fingertips: your cellphone. We don’t often use it to make phone calls. But the truth is that when people make phone calls to their congressional representative urging them to pass climate change legislation, the effect can be huge.
You may think that your two-minute call is not going to make a difference, that it’s just a tiny drop in an ocean, but the fact is that these offices don’t often get that many calls about climate, so hearing directly from just a small number of voters makes them take notice.
Citizens Climate Lobby has made this process quick and easy. When you go to CCLcalls.org, the site prompts you to enter your voting address so that it can match you up with the right representative. You then sign up for monthly reminders. Once a month, you’ll get a text message with the phone number right there.
Wondering what to say when you reach your representative’s office? Share your concern about climate change and ask them to support the carbon fee and dividend proposal in H.R. 763. This shovel-ready proposal would rapidly and immediately start lowering worldwide carbon emissions. You can use the scripts suggested on the site.
When a caller indicates that they have called their representative, they also have the option of calling their senators, with phone numbers provided.
The most effective way to communicate with your representative is by respectfully requesting the action you’d like them to take. The bottom line is that, collectively, college students can be an incredibly powerful lobby for change. All it takes is for each of us to make a two-minute phone call once a month.
Amanda Mejia
Assistant Professor, Department of Statistics
Volunteer, Citizen's Climate Lobby, Bloomington Chapter
