This year Americans have felt the consequences of climate change like never before.

Massive wildfires have already burned more than 1 million acres of land just in California. Blistering October heat waves have shattered records throughout the West. Hurricane Milton, one of the fastest-intensifying hurricanes on record, wreaked havoc across Florida just weeks after a devastating Hurricane Helene swept through the Southeast, killing more than 225 people.

It feels as if earth’s changing climate is really starting to flex its muscles, with those muscles only growing bigger as we continue to burn polluting fossil fuels to power our cars, power plants, and buildings. If we don’t get our act together and drastically cut the climate pollution we spew into our environment, we’ll have to contend with even more climate disasters destroying the places we love and the communities we call home.

Government leaders at all levels must do all they can to respond to these disasters, help those in imminent danger, and lead recovery efforts to get impacted communities back on their feet.

But the most important thing we can do going forward to stop these kinds of disasters from getting even worse is rapidly transition away from fossil fuels and power our society with clean, renewable energy. 

The best part is, we have the technologies and tools needed to make this clean energy transition happen. We have solar panels to catch the sun’s rays and turn them into energy we can use every day. We have batteries that store extra clean energy to use when the sun goes down, and to keep the lights on when the power goes out in a natural disaster. We have turbines that harness winds off our coastlines and on land around-the-clock. We also have clean technologies like electric vehicles and electric appliances to usher us away from inefficient, gas-powered technologies.

What we need is the political will to address climate change head on. We must remove barriers to deploying renewable energy infrastructure and clean technologies, and spur faster adoption of these crucial solutions. We must hold polluters accountable for the damage they cause at a local to global scale. We must stop wasteful spending on subsidies and tax benefits for the very industries that continue to fuel the climate crisis. The complex challenges posed by climate change are formidable and often overwhelming, but every action we take now will help us avert additional suffering and environmental destruction for ourselves and for future generations.

The solutions to stemming climate change are apparent and readily available. It’s time to supercharge clean energy deployment so we can create a cleaner, safer world.