This August, when US Senators return to their home states,  we'll be ready and waiting for them. It's time for them to explain why, during the hottest year on record, in the midst of a raging fossil fuel disaster, they decided this was not the right time to institute a price on Carbon.

It reminds me of a few years ago, when I spent a summer working in Philadelphia. Here's an example of one of the events we went to in order to speak to elected officials.

A group of us, including a crew from Greenpeace, made special tshirts that said "Stop Global Warming Now" and went to a candidate forum at a local school. There, we stood in the back and got ready to ask the Congressman his plan to address global warming.

Because of our question, we caught the attention of a TV reporter there, who asked us to say more about what the congressman was doing about climate change.

Then, later that day, a letter the editor I'd written earlier that week got published in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

It was a great day, and went just like we'd hoped. That didn't always happen, but it's much easier when you have a team in place.