Frances Beinecke

From reinforcing beaches in the Rockaways to installing generators at the Coney Island Houses and sealing holes in the subway system, New York is fortifying our ability to withstand future storm surges.

Water efficiency, recycling, and other local supplies will help California flourish in a drier future.

Young people are already leading on climate action. I see it at rallies to reject the Keystone XL dirty tar sands pipeline. I see it in the push to demand justice for communities being run over by fracking operations.

Countries have made impressive pledges to cut carbon pollution, but we have to ensure these promises become actions.

When I left school, I never wondered whether my apartment in New York was vulnerable to storm surges, but my three daughters have to consider the realities of extreme weather and how it may destabilize communities around the globe.

I attended the climate talks in Copenhagen in 2009, and back then, national governments waited until days before to submit climate plans, and the U.S. based its pledge on a proposed bill that would fail in the Senate.

When we go to the store, we bring home more than food - we bring home traces of broader environmental problems. But we can use our shopping carts and dinner plates to help solve some of those problems.

Americans are already paying the price for record heat waves, dirty air, and an unstable climate. We need to fight these threats with every weapon we have, and the electricity industry has to do its fair share.

I have talked to people across the country struggling in the face of an altered climate. New Jersey homeowners are trying to rebuild after Superstorm Sandy. Miami government officials are trying to plan for rising seas and flooded streets. California farmers are trying to make it through the state's worst drought on record.

Safer chemicals and more energy-efficient technologies can provide cooling without severe climate implications. Shifting to these alternatives could avoid the equivalent of 12 times the current annual carbon pollution of the United States by 2050.

The oceans produce up to 70 percent of our oxygen, they shape our climate, and they support an American oceans economy larger than our nation's entire agriculture sector.

Protecting eagles from the threat of extinction is a conservation success story that we must prudently safeguard for future generations to come.