While I sit here, the sea levels are rising. More than 200,000 acres of rainforest are burning. Yet, the most powerful person in the United States brushes it off like it’s nothing. As the election nears, some people are voting for a person who doesn’t care for the future. A future that can change the way we see things. Global warming and climate change are things that we can change. If we don’t, the whole world as we know, will be different.
I grew up in love with nature. I spent every weekend that I didn’t have sports or family lunches at the Academy of Sciences or the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I read books about the environment, and I begged my mom to send me to marine biology camps each year, even though I had gone through the program twice. Every year until I was 11, my mom would spend two weeks out of the country, in India or Africa. She kept talking about COP 12, COP 15, the different United Nations Climate Change Conferences. One year I was looking through the flies she was sent, I saw just so much information about the sea levels rising and deforestation. My mom then had to explain deforestation and sea level to me. At just 6 years old, my whole world was turned upside down. I wondered why people of power weren’t talking about it.
As Global Warming becomes more of a threat, Trump has repeatedly dismissed it. He doesn’t believe in science. According to the UN, we have only 11 years to prevent irreversible damage from Climate change. By 2050 New York, Honolulu, San Diego, and many other cities will be underwater as the ice caps melt. Half of the Earth’s species (including us humans) could also go extinct by 2050 unless humanity addresses climate change. In 2017, President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement. An agreement heavily focused on the climate. He has repeatedly questioned the science behind it and dismisses it. He has rolled back around 80 regulations and pressed for new oil, which will severely create more fossil fuels by emitting more carbon dioxide.
There are so many ways we can reduce and stop the impact of climate change. But, we also need leaders who will do something about it. I ask that on behalf of the future of not just the United States, but also for the rest of the world, for voters to vote for someone who cares about climate change.
