Dear AltaSea Family,
We’ve known for decades that climate change will impact every one of us at some point in our lives. Not just more extreme weather, but higher insurance rates and food prices; impacts to our health; and of course, more frequent, severe fires. For so many in Los Angeles, that consequence of the world’s failure to address climate change has come now, quite literally, to our doorstep.
As we mourn personal losses, or those of our neighbors, and face the formidable task of rebuilding lives, livelihoods, and property, it would be easy to give up, to say it’s too late to avoid similar catastrophes, in even more communities, in the future. But if that’s the result, the losses and suffering of Paradise, Lahaina, and now Los Angeles (not to mention the burned or flooded communities that have been lost all over the world) will be exponentially magnified.
The American poet Charles Bukowski wrote “What matters now is how well you walk through the fire.” Here are three ways we might consider such a journey now.
First, please donate to the charities supporting recovery. Charity Navigator lists many and includes their ratings, so you can direct your support to the parts of the effort that you care about most, while ensuring the non-profits you help are highly respected and effective. This is also a great way to identify ways to volunteer your time or other resources to those who need it most.
Next, let’s redouble our efforts to address the root cause of this devastation. Many of us have dedicated our lives to environmental protection, but the growing drumbeat of these disasters all over the world means we need to get others to join us.
Let’s make 2025 the year that each of us secures at least three new recruits to our crusade to educate, inspire, and take action. Imagine how many more resources of all kinds we could have a year from now, if a thousand of us, a million of us, found those three new sherpas willing to share the load. Here at AltaSea, we recently completed renovating our historic warehouses for our blue economy collaborators and all need more volunteers, donors, and engaged partners to help restore and sustainably utilize our oceans.
Finally, take a moment for yourself. Each of us has been traumatized by recent events and overcome at times with a sense of the impossible mountain to climb. Acknowledge that weariness, but after doing whatever brings you joy and restores your strength, pick up the phone, the shovel, the laptop and find new ways to take action and inspire others to do likewise. I’m sure there were times when Ghandi thought Indian independence was impossible; when President Kennedy doubted his commitment to land Americans on the moon in less than a decade; when Jane Goodall wondered if she could survive in the jungle and learn the secrets of chimpanzees.
We now know that each of them succeeded, so can we look to our own future and imagine it to be much brighter than it is today? If each of us takes action now and finds others to join us, I think we can.
Best regards,
Terry Tamminen
President/CEO