Melanie Shao and Willa Wang
To further advocate for political action on climate change, Sunrise works with politicians such as Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Ed Markey and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to pass a Green New Deal.
According to the New York Times, The Green New Deal’s primary goal is to limit carbon emissions, thereby terminating warming temperatures and consequently combatting the catastrophic inflicted to our Earth. Climate change is a topic that is often shrouded in misinformation; people think they understand the scope of the problem when really, they do not. The climate crisis will not just melt ice caps. NASA reports claim that climate change will intensify health concerns, poverty, food insecurity, species extinction, and severe weather, as well as rising sea levels and temperatures. According to NRDC, Locations such as Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, and the Maldives might not exist in thirty years. Some islands are predicted to sink by 2050 as a result of the rising sea levels. In the last century, global sea levels have risen by eight inches. The speed at which the sea levels rise is also accelerating; the rate in the last twenty years is much faster than the rate a century ago.
Despite the clear catastrophic consequences of climate change, we remain divided. The polarization that exists around the topic of climate change can be evaluated based on three distinct attitudes. There are people who believe in it, the people who think it is a hoax, and the people who do not know what to think. This is why America cannot make any decisions without some backlash from either party.
If we do not agree on anything as a country, then we will get nowhere. There are people on both sides of politics who refuse to hear the other side’s beliefs. If we were to listen to each other’s beliefs, we would be in a much better place as a society.
Harvard Professor of Geology and Environmental Science and Engineering Dan Schrag stated in an interview with Ecosystemic that “75% of Americans are actually concerned about climate change.” He added that “the bad news is that only around 25% are very concerned.”
Climate change is a very expensive problem, Time Magazine reiterates that it will take $300 billion and up to twenty years to fix global warming. This fiscal outlook requires steadfast collective will, and the illogical “hoax” rhetoric spread by right-wing media outlets certainly does little to help.
Ultimately, we need to enact change before the consequences of climate change overtake our planet. We are capable of fixing this problem, but we must try as a unit and as a world. The decision is ours to make, and it must be free of political entanglements. It must be a collective agreement made by all countries. The United States once again must take the lead as the vanguard of change.
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