We know that global warming threatens our way of life.

The impacts of global warming are now being observed nearly everywhere and experts predict changes in weather patterns, agriculture and sea levels will only get worse.  

Solving the problem won't be easy; we need to transform how we use and produce energy, changes that will affect our lives every day. We are going to need new technology and politicians willing to move us to a new clean energy future.  But while the scientists and politicians argue about the long-term solutions and haggle over politics, the one thing we do know is that we’re ready to start taking action now.

We have a lot of the tools to take the first big steps today.  Improvements to solar and wind make those technologies cheaper and better than ever before. We can transform a regular hybrid vehicle into a plug in electric hybrid that gets more than 100 mpg. We can build buildings that are so energy efficient they net energy rather than use any energy.

And we’re not just ready, we’ve already started.  On campus, students have been leading the way. Students at UCSC buy 100% of their energy from clean energy sources, ASU has solar panels dotting its roofs and chancellors at more than 600 campuses have committed to major reductions in global warming pollution.  

Students have worked to pass transformative legislation, like the Million Solar Roofs initiative in California, quadrupling the number of solar homes in the last 3 years, and in Massachusetts students helped pass a bill that will reduce carbon emissions from power plants and other polluters 80% by 2050.

To stop the worst effects of global warming, we need to reduce global warming pollution at least  25 % below 1990 levels by 2020.  We'll educate people across the state about technology that we do have to solve the problem, we'll continue to lead the way by getting these technologies put into place on campus and in our communities and we will call on our elected officials to do what they can to cut global warming emissions.