Dear CAAV’ers:
Climate Change is a global problem, and Virginia is not exempted. Virginia’s coastline is second only to the New Orleans area in sea level rise, or, as our Virginia General Assembly prefers to call it “recurrent flooding.” Lyme disease in Virginia has risen by 9% from 2011 to 2012, with Rockingham County in the top 10 counties in per capita occurrence. Ninety-five percent of Virginia’s population is in counties that have been hit by weather related disasters in the past five years. And we’ve just experienced the devastation of 1,000 year floods in Maryland and West Virginia to the east and west of us. To quote Michael Mann, “The impacts of climate change are no longer subtle. They are playing out before us, in real time.”
For over eight years the Climate Action Alliance of the Valley (CAAV) has lobbied in D.C. and Richmond, written letters and editorials in the Daily News-Record and other newspapers, tabled at local and regional events, sponsored movies, taught courses at James Madison University’s Lifelong Learning Institute, participated in peaceful civil disobedience and put on forums with expert speakers to educate ourselves and others on the causes and solutions to climate change.
Bob Goodlatte, our U.S. Representative from the 6th District, has stated that he doesn’t hear much about climate change from his constituents. Please help change that by calling his office in the next few days and let him know that we want comprehensive legislation to address climate change, and, absent that, for support and proper funding of actions by the EPA and other agencies to deal with the issue.
Thanks and we would appreciate a quick note to CAAV’s email – contactcaav [at] gmail [dot] com – to let us know that you’ve reached his office, so that we can have a sense of the impact we are having. Goodlatte’s office number is 202 225-5431.
Thank you! (Don’t forget to email after you call Goodlatte’s office.)
Sincerely,
Climate Action Alliance of the Valley
Steering Committee
Climate Action Alliance of the Valley 