"Save the Tomatoes" by Bill Blancato
Celebrating Earth Day 2021
– a heated debate
A warming interest in the topic is sparked into full blown support and activism by an unexpected invitation to help save the planet from climate change.
Bill Blancato is a native of Queens, New York, which is home to the Louis Armstrong house (a great place to visit) and the New York Mets. He is a practicing attorney in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, specializing in mediation services after an earlier career in litigation and corporate law. After many years of writing briefs and other legal papers, he has turned to crafting opinion pieces for newspapers and journals, all auguring for support of legislation promoting economic solutions for reducing the effects of climate change.
Author’s Talk
Sometimes passions converge. I’m not an outdoorsman, but love the outdoors -- hiking, cycling, kayaking, just observing flowers, insects, birds and those pesky deer, which is all threatened by our insatiable appetite for fossil fuel. I also love economics and understand how economics can reduce our appetite for fossil fuel. I also love the Constitution, particularly the First Amendment’s right to petition the government, which with voting, is the bedrock of our freedom.
A few years ago, I had a career change that left me with time on my hands, so I started reading the NY Times every morning, which ended up presenting an opportunity for something new and completely different that enabled some passions and skill sets to combine to battle climate change.
A terrific article about Citizens’ Climate Lobby inspired me to send a donation. I had no idea that sending a check would lead to a request to form a CCL chapter or that it would lead to opportunities to meet a Senator and several Congresspersons to urge adoption of a carbon pricing plan that will put us on a path to a clean energy economy. It also led to new friends.
Reading that article enabled me to use my knowledge of economics and my lawyering skills to lobby Congress to take meaningful action so that future generations can enjoy nature’s bounty as I have.
