Your vote will help determine the future of the planet
Six years ago, right before the 2018 mid-terms, I tweeted this out:
This plot is somewhat out of date, but the essential message remains: your vote will help decide the planet’s temperature in 2100.
We have the technology to significantly reduce fossil fuel use and follow the path shown in the top row. However, if we elect leaders aligned with fossil-fuel interests and are unlucky with climate factors like high sensitivity and strong carbon feedbacks, we could end up with temperatures closer to those in the bottom row.
Our climate trajectory is, in the end, largely a political choice — one shaped directly by voting.
And, of course, the impacts of climate change scale with temperature, so warmer temperatures will lead to stronger and more destructive impacts. For example, we know that climate change is making hurricanes more destructive.
People often ask me, “What can I do about climate change?” My answer is always the same: The most important thing you can do is vote. Your vote shapes the climate path we’ll follow, deciding whether we work toward a safer, cooler future or continue toward more severe warming. So, if you want to make an impact on climate change, start by voting for leaders who prioritize it.
Please share this post as widely as you can.
Other news
From Brian Brettschneider on Twitter: October 2024 was one of the driest months in U.S. history.
Note that climate science predicts that warmer temperatures should increase variability in rainfall. This means that, when it rains, it rains harder, and then there are longer periods of no rain. Thus, months like this are consistent with what we would expect in a warming world.
Even FORBES agrees with the science: "There are many clear choices at stake in tomorrow’s Presidential election. One of the starkest is climate and it comes at a time when the planet is careening toward catastrophic levels of warming.
Vice President Kamala Harris has called climate change an “existential threat.” While she hasn’t detailed a climate plan, she’s widely expected to continue federal support for clean energy and electric vehicles in an ongoing effort to move the American economy away from fossil fuels. In 2022, she cast the tie-breaking vote for the Inflation Reduction Act and has pledged to fully implement it.
Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump has called climate change “one of the greatest scams of all time,” and vowed to end federal support for the clean energy transition, while ramping up drilling for oil and gas, including in the Arctic."
For folks trying to bring climate-motivated voting through down-ballot candidates, I'll mention Climate Cabinet (https://climatecabinet.org/). Their whole thing is weighing the effective climate change stances of down-ballot candidates in state and local elections -- roles that hold a lot of aggregate influence.