By Ashley V. & Hillary V.
Years from now, our kids and grandkids will ask us about this election. They will ask, “Why didn’t you do more to help save our planet? Why didn’t you take action to prevent this climate crisis from happening?” And what will we have to say for ourselves…
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) encompasses 195 scientists worldwide who study the climate crisis, future climate projections, mitigation strategies, and potential solutions.1 These scientists believe that we need to keep our planet’s warming to a minimum of 1.5°C.1 While that may not sound like much, keep in mind that as the Earth moved out of the last ice age, Earth’s temperature rose a total of 4-7° Celsius over a 5,000 year period.2 NASA’s models show that in the next century, the planet will warm by 2 to 6°C, which is 20x faster than the Earth’s normal rate of climate change.2 The impacts felt all around the world from this rapid warming will be devastating. We cannot wait to take action on this issue.
“Adults keep saying we owe it to the young people, to give them hope, but I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is.”
-Greta Thunberg (17 year old Climate Activist)
This election is one of the few defining moments of our planet’s long history. Mother Earth is screaming at us that she is too hot, and we need to take direct action to cool her down. We simply cannot wait another four years before we take serious climate action. Will we look back on this moment and say, “We should have done more to save our planet?” We cannot afford to waste this opportunity to elect officials who understand the climate crisis and have direct courses of action to fight it.
The climate crisis is not a political issue; it is a human issue. This will affect every last person, creature, and plant on this planet and is a serious threat to our kids, grandchildren, and ourselves. Climate change is the defining issue of our lifetime, and leaders on both sides of the political spectrum acknowledge climate change and are demanding action.
Representative Francis Rooney from Florida said, “I’m a conservative Republican and I believe climate change is real. It’s time for my fellow Republicans in Congress to stop treating this environmental threat as something abstract and political and recognize that it’s already affecting their constituents in their daily lives.3 Bob Inglis, a former South Carolina Congressman, and Republican traveled to Antarctica to learn for himself about the climate crisis. After seeing the insurmountable evidence and understanding that climate change is real and action needs to be taken, Bob Inglis created RepublicEN, an organization for a growing group of conservatives who care about climate change.4
The evidence is clear. Don’t let political parties tear us apart on a defining moment in our history. We need to join together because it will take each and every one of us to help in the fight against climate change.
The fate of our planet is on the ballot. So, who will you vote for to save it?
Sources:
1-ipcc.ch 2-nasa.gov 3- politico.com/agenda/story/2019/09/11/climate-change-conservative-republicans-000955/ 4- https://republicen.org/bob
Sustainable Saplings 
Great article! Being climate change indifferent is just as bad if not worse than being a climate change denier because it’s having knowledge and choosing not to use it.
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