Media are a constant presence in our lives. In the United States, the average time spent on traditional media is 5½ hours, internet use 147 minutes per day, plus reading newspapers the old-fashioned way.

After the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27), it’s become clear that individuals, local environmental groups and municipalities — if they engage in using media globally — are our last, best hope to arrest climate change.

Going over the predicted 1.5 C (2.7 F) tipping point will bring unprecedented natural disasters to the Earth.

As I predicted in my Nov. 15 commentary, “COP27 Will Not Solve Climate Change, But We Must,” the meeting was long on financial talk and very short on fossil fuel reductions.

There were more than 600 fossil fuel lobbyists at the conference. Predictably, the accord didn’t commit to lowering fossil fuel emissions to avoid the now inevitable 1.5C tipping point, despite India proposing that all fossil fuels be phased out.

Instead, it committed to creating a loss-and-damage fund that, if details can be worked out, would send financial aid to developing countries ravaged by climate disasters.

All of this global talk was done in the context of science having clearly established that greenhouse gas emissions, or GHGs, continue to rise exponentially (418 ppm from 289 ppm in 1960), accelerating climate change.

It’s equally clear that world governments are not going to address, much less solve, this existential threat. It’s up to us. We individuals, local environmental groups and local governments can do this by using media to globally amplify what we are doing locally to address global warming.

For example, local actions in Santa Barbara alone present solutions capable of reducing GHG emissions worldwide if globalized.

Santa Barbara County and the City of Santa Barbara have both developed exemplary, on-target approaches to dealing with fossil fuel emissions from our transportation and building sectors.

Local environmental groups are working on a carbon tax, preserving forest and ocean ecosystems that absorb carbon emissions, and promoting sustainable transportation and food growing practices to reduce GHG emissions.

Santa Barbarans are driving hydrogen and electric vehicles; putting rooftop solar on homes; retrofitting homes with sustainability elements such as glazing; ditching plastics; and voting the environment.

All of these are important. By themselves, however, they will not stop the coming catastrophe. Climate change is a global phenomenon requiring global solutions. Unless these local actions are globalized, they cannot have the kind of impact needed to slow the warming.

There is an army of climate activists out there who understand the climate threat. Four in 10 Americans say they are environmentalists concerned about climate change.

Majorities in most countries say climate change is a major threat to their countries, including Greece 90%, South Korea 86%, France 83%, Spain 81% and Mexico 80%. Youth around the planet routinely engage in climate strikes.

Globally, if organized, this army is capable of making the difference in the fight against our overheating world — if we are willing to take the extra step and use mass media.

We have become a media savvy culture. Post what you are doing on Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon and Twitter, if it still exists, aimed at online colleagues and ask that they to do the same, along with contacting their local governmental representatives. This would be revolutionary.

The media can be tricky, but don’t be put off. Mainstream media are attached to presenting both sides of an issue, to be balanced. Right-wing media deny climate change. And, social media allows climate deniers.

Nevertheless, there are so may of us that social media — and things like letters to the editor, op/eds and news conferences — make this kind of revolution possible, if we are willing to take the next step beyond just our local actions, and reinforce the global nature of climate change.

If things weren’t so dire, local actions by themselves would be viable. Unfortunately we’re long past that reality.

As always, it’s up to us!