With a massive heat wave sweeping the country, people's electric usage is shooting up to keep up with the weather. Unfortunately, most Americans get our electricity from dirty sources like coal, fracking and oil - and with this heat wave, we're burning even more fossil fuels to stay cool.

I work for Ethical Electric because I have to fight catastrophic climate change.

Ethical Electric is America's only progressive energy supply company. We power as many American homes and businesses as possible with 100% clean energy from renewable sources like wind and solar. And we take 1% of every bill and use it to fund progressive organizations like UltraViolet, Demand Progress, the League of Conservation Voters, Daily Kos, USAction and many others.

I’m a recent arrival to the clean energy movement, so I can clearly remember the exact moment where I decided I needed to devote my time and energy to fighting climate change and speeding the switch to renewable energy sources here in America.

I’m a career activist - from human rights to workers’ rights to fighting to stop banks from stealing people's’ homes through foreclosure, I’ve spent my life working on progressive causes. I’d always supported environmental issues, but I never prioritized climate and the environment as my top issue.

That is, until I read an article last summer in Rolling Stone by climate activist Bill McKibben. The piece, titled “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math,” laid out with scientific clarity how perilously close we are to passing the tipping point with global warming. Not only are we already close to the edge, McKibben wrote, but we are on pace to exceed the amount of fossil fuels we can “safely” burn more than fivefold! Quite simply, we’ll destroy our planet if we don’t make big changes now.

McKibben’s article terrified me into action. I could no longer sit on the sidelines while the fate of the world is on the line.

I’m fortunate that I have as a good friend Tom Matzzie, the founder of Ethical Electric. Tom's spent his life fighting for progressive change - in his years at MoveOn.org and leading efforts to end the war in Iraq, among many other things. The thing that excites me about Tom’s vision for Ethical Electric is that we are helping to confront the climate crisis by making it easy for people to switch to 100% renewable energy to power their homes.

There is no single more powerful action that you can take to fight climate change than switching to 100% clean, renewable energy to power your home. In this one step, you’ll remove an average of 14,000 pounds of CO2 pollution each year.

That’s why I’m writing to you today - to share my story and to ask that you join me in the fight against climate change by switching to 100% clean energy to power your home.

Sign up here & get a $50 enrollment bonus.

I firmly believe that we need a global response from the world’s governments and major corporations to the threat of climate change. The problems we face are too large for individual action alone to solve.

But the problems are also too urgent for us to wait for politicians, regulators, and CEOs to do the right thing on their own. If Bill McKibben’s math is right, we don’t have a lot of time where we can accept inaction. We need to start changing, quickly.

Individuals like you and me can have a positive impact in this fight, even as the dirty energy industry is fighting hard against change. Every step away from dirty energy counts.

This post isn’t meant to scare you into action. But it is my story as to why I’m working to fight climate change by making it easy to power your home with clean wind energy. And if this is the moment where you decide, “I have to do something big in the fight against climate change,” I’ll be happy to have played a part.

If you live in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, DC, Maryland or Delaware, you can become an Ethical Electric member today and power your home with 100% renewable energy.

If you live in New York, Ohio, Illinois, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Texas, or Maine, we're on our way and hope to be enrolling customers in these states by the end of the year.

If you don't live in one of these fourteen states, your energy supply markets are still closed to competition and we're not able to provide you with power yet. But if other states allow consumers to choose where their electricity comes from, we'll be there to make sure they can choose 100% renewable power from local sources and a progressive company that shares their values.

Thanks to Susie & Crooks & Liars for letting me share my story. I hope to see you as an Ethical Electric member soon. If any readers have questions, don't hesitate to contact me at matt.brownerhamlin AT ethicalelectric.com.