What About Earth?

Hurricane Helene killed more than 230 people in the southern United States. It is just one of many examples of the existential threat that climate change poses to everyone around the globe. Global temperatures are expected to rise 1.5 degrees celsius by 2050, and weather patterns undergo massive changes. Around the world, heatwaves, wildfires, hurricanes, and floods increase  in both frequency and intensity. The implications for our planet and our health are devastating. Biodiversity has already begun its decline due to habitat destruction, increases in temperature, and human disruption of natural ecosystems. According to the UN, one million species face extinction at our current rate of destruction—many of these species will go extinct within decades. Many modern scientists call our current era the “sixth mass extinction”—a man-made destruction of life around the world. The World Health Organization estimates that between 2030 and 2050, 250,000 more people are expected to die per year, solely because of undernutrition, increases in malaria, and heat stress caused by global warming. These deaths will mostly be in less developed and less prepared equatorial countries that are susceptible to mass famine and drought. However, these countries contribute far less to global warming since less industrialized countries emit fewer greenhouse gasses.

It is clear that many Americans were waking up to this problem. A 2016 poll of voters by the Pew Research Center revealed that, going into the election, 52 percent of American voters saw the environment as a “very important” issue in regards to their vote. Senator Bernie Sanders ran on a Green New Deal and former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley said climate change was his top issue, aiming to make US energy entirely sustainable by 2050. This sentiment and momentum were steps in the right direction. And then they stopped.

Entering the 2024 election, the same Pew Research Center poll found that only 37 percent of voters considered climate change as “very important” to their vote. That 15 percent drop is even more shocking when you further investigate the numbers. The amount of climate-focused voters in each party have dropped, but only seven percent fewer Democratic voters ranked climate change as an important issue as compared to a 21 percent drop seen from Republican voters. This drop from an initial 32 percent of Republican voters who felt this issue was vital represents a huge dip in the Republican Party’s support. Climate change—which should be a relatively uncontroversial issue, as almost all of the global scientific community has recognized the impact that climate change has had and will continue to have on people around the world—has fallen victim to the extreme polarization that plagues American politics. 

Our political landscape isn’t what it was in 2016. Voters vote along party lines at higher rates than ever before, so there is less room for compromise. Countless issues such as immigration have become polarized and seen as all or nothing. But climate change, although important, isn’t an inherently polarizing issue. It is an issue of right and wrong, and true or false—the science is clear. We need to lower our emissions, and we need to do this quickly. President-Elect Donald Trump does not see it this way.

According to a study performed by climate analysis site Carbon Brief, Trump’s climate plans will add four billion tons of greenhouse gasses to our atmosphere by 2030. Trump plans on reversing many of current President Joseph Biden’s climate policies, which were on track to cut around 40 percent of US carbon emissions by 2030. Biden started initiatives to help Americans transition away from gas cars and towards electric ones, to help reduce emissions from power plants, and to prevent air and water pollution. Trump’s climate vision is clear and emphasized in his plans to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, which was something he did during his first term. The Paris Agreement is a supranational agreement; member countries promise investments in solar, wind, nuclear, and other non-carbon emitting forms of energy. It also aims to keep the global temperature at maximum 1.5 degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels. Although the agreement is largely symbolic rather than practical, Trump’s promise to pull out of it demonstrates his apathy regarding climate change reduction. Additionally, Trump plans on getting rid of the subsidies in Biden’s landmark 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Some of the subsidies in this act—such as the ones given to American manufacturers in the renewable energy industry—are likely to survive because they are seen as promoters of American businesses. However, other provisions will not be as lucky. The most important part of the bill that Trump will most likely repeal—now that the Republican Party has majorities in both the Senate and the House—is the provision that requires coal-burning power plants to either capture 90 percent of their emissions or shut down over the next eight years. Trump instead has promised to ramp up the drilling of natural gas—a direct contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. However, Trump isn’t going to be able to kill climate efforts, entirely.

Climate change is real, and the more greenhouse gasses we emit—as well as the more 80 degree days in November pass by—the more tangible the problem gets. Eventually, our leaders will recognize the severity of the situation. However, we don’t have to get to that point. The faster we work together as a country, see past our differences about policy, and prepare to face what is undoubtedly the most crucial issue to the survival of the human race, the faster we can mitigate the impacts of climate change. And, working together takes every single one of us. Joining clubs at Stuy such as Stuy Environment, EcoBiz, or The Earth Project are great ways to show your support, but they’re not the only ways. As citizens of a city as large and as powerful as New York, we need to advocate for candidates that will take climate change seriously. Our federal government may be a polarized mess, but enacting climate change reduction policies can happen on the local level too. Vote if you can, and vote for candidates who will take climate change seriously, but if you can’t, volunteer, fundraise, or donate to their campaigns.