Climate Change Should Be on Your Ballot

Let’s have a conversation about a global issue. 

I know no one wants to talk about serious issues anymore this year. Our ears are so fatigued over discussions about police brutality, America’s botched response to the COVID-19 outbreak and the election that any mention of tough issues sends us racing to talk about lighter things.

But my subject today is something that isn’t as political. It is something that concerns our entire planet — climate change.

Let’s talk about why it should be on your mind when you cast your ballot this year. 

This shouldn’t be a political issue. According to NASA, 97% of actively publishing climate scientists agree that humans are causing climate change. The conversation should end there. When 97% of the people who professionally study something agree we are causing a huge problem, it’s probably time to fix it. 

We can not afford to ignore climate change any longer. We have been engaged in heavy industry since the early 1900s, and the United States has since done disproportionate damage to the global climate. 

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Let’s break this down. 

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the United States in 2018 emitted the second-highest amount of carbon dioxide in the world, clocking in at 5.41 gigatons. The only country that did more damage than us was China, at over 10 gigatons. In terms of per capita emissions, we rank fourth, at 16.56 tons. 

The Environmental Protection Agency states most of the United States’ carbon dioxide  emissions come from transportation, electricity and industrial sources. The same EPA report states that burning fossil fuels for our cars, trucks, ships, planes and trains is significantly contributing to the problem, as is the fact that 63% of our electricity comes from burning fossil fuels. 

Human activities caused almost all of the increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases over the last 150 years, and the largest factor in this increase is — wait for it — burning fossil fuels. 

The facts and science are clear. Climate change is real, and we are causing it. If global temperatures rise by 1.5 degrees Celsius, the Earth will fall increasingly victim to more severe fires, droughts and rising sea levels. And if we don’t take steps to curb this issue immediately, we will never be able to reverse the damage

Unfortunately, sometimes for inexplicable reasons, some of the people we have chosen to represent us in government refuse to believe in and follow the overwhelming consensus of climate science. 

As young people, we should vote to ensure our leaders care about the future of the blue and green ball on which we live.

This past September, artists Gan Golan and Andrew Boyd unveiled the Climate Clock in Times Square. This clock gives an estimate of the time we have left before the Earth’s carbon budget, the cumulative amount of carbon dioxide we can emit before global temperatures break the 1.5 degree-threshold, runs out. 

We have a little more than seven years — roughly one and a half presidential terms — left before the consequences of the 1.5 degrees of warming become a reality.

This planet is a beautiful place. As citizens of one of the wealthiest and most powerful nations in the world, we have an obligation to protect it and all the things that live on it. That means we first recognize that we are heavily contributing to the problem and commit to addressing it. 

Wouldn’t you love to be a part of the generation that actually did something about climate change? Shouldn’t we feel obligated to make sure our kids have the same beautiful national parks, clean air and livable temperatures we enjoy? 

Our vote has the power to change our grim-looking future. Research candidates’ positions on climate science before you head to the polls this November. I’m not going to tell you who to vote for, but I will ask you to make an informed decision about the future of our planet.

Art by Claire Warner

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