In his 2023 book, “Am I Too Old to Save the Planet? A Boomers Guide to Climate Action,” Lawrence MacDonald proposes six ways that older adults in the U.S. can take climate actions right now.  These are:*

1. “Stop wasting food and eat less meat, because that can both save us money and meat is a major source of emissions.
2. Drive less; walk, bike, take public transport more.
3. Move your money out of fossil fuel investments:
   • There are 70 million of us, 70 million boomers, and we do control 70 percent of the country’s wealth. There’s a section in the book that describes one of the easiest things we can do is to move our money, to take it out of the big banks that are insisting on investing in new fossil fuel projects. Put it in a local Wisconsin credit union* instead, or find an investment vehicle that does not invest in fossil fuels. If enough boomers moved our money, we could make a big difference.
4. Upgrade your car to an EV.
5. Install rooftop solar or participate in a community solar program.
6. Fly less or not at all:
   • Aviation is only about 2 or 3 percent of global emissions, but for most of us, getting on an airplane is the highest emitting activity that we will ever do. And only about 10 or 15 percent of the world ever gets on a flight at all. So it’s really a luxury activity. I personally have cut back on my flying.”

[* this text is from a Wisconsin Public Radio interview on 12/22/2023; https://www.wpr.org/books/baby-boomers-climate-change-lawrence-macdonald-activism]

Here are some questions prompted by MacDonald’s “Six Ways:”

1. Is it feasible is it for you to take one or more of his six actions?
2. How do we reconcile the climate actions we want the fossil fuel industry and corporations to take – with actions that we are prepared to take as individuals or families?
3. How are the climate actions or inactions of corporations and individuals interdependent?

John A. Dougherty, Jr.

“To have a chance to save ourselves, we must abandon energy-using machines and instead employ the power inherent in our bodies and minds to live within the bounds of the local natural communities that sustain us.”