Political debates, conventions and rallies have consumed much of our attention this November. While America gets swept up in chaos surrounding this year’s election, the less we focus on another pressing issue that warrants our attention now more than ever.
Climate change is a globalized term used to describe human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon dioxide, that change weather patterns, weaken the quality of natural resources and increase human risk for diseases and chronic illnesses.
(Photo provided by WSU Vancouver)
Associate Professor Stephen Solovitz teaches mechanical engineering at WSU Vancouver and conducts research in fluid mechanics, a topic involving renewable energy. He speculated climate change has not received a whole lot of attention in this election due to newer issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I would say this particular election has not seen as much discussion of climate issues because there’s really one overarching issue that is affecting everybody right now, the COVID-19 pandemic has totally dominated everything. And there have been a lot of things going on in the world. … But climate change is sort of this overarching issue that’s been there. We’ve known about it for decades,” Solovitz said.
While Professor Solovitz highlighted the pandemic has rightfully taken up our attention, climate change will not come to a screeching halt to make room for COVID-19. As climate topics were forced to take a step down, we must not forget it will ultimately pose the same threats to humanity as COVID-19, the only difference being these impacts will come later and last much longer.
But, why does any of this matter? As we all know, this election is critical and climate change needs to be a large factor when casting our ballots for a multitude of reasons.
First off, our response to climate change is going to largely depend on the next U.S. president. The president has the influence to reinstate jobs that assist in promoting clean energy that curbs carbon dioxide and creates an eco-friendly economy. While both major parties are focused on a strong economy in our pandemic recovery, cutting emissions will only support the goal. We need to ensure our climate priorities are not forgotten even after the outcome of the 2020 election.
Another reason to be mindful of this crisis is America’s involvement in the Paris Climate Agreement established by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2015. In this contract, the UNFCCC parties have agreed to take aggressive actions to maintain global temperatures below 1.5 degrees Celsius to protect our planet from the drastic impacts of global warming. However, the U.S. emits 15% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions according to the CO2 Country Profile. Whether we stay in the Paris agreement depends on the next president, but rejecting this globally accepted deal signals to our national partners that climate change is not on America’s list of priorities.
WSU Vancouver School of the Environment Assistant Professor Deepti Singh, who specializes in climate change, acknowledged that while the largest effects on climate change are observed at the national level, personal actions are important.
“General action that people take traveling, using electricity and using various environmental resources [have an impact]. I think just continuing to be mindful of that can contribute [to emission reductions] as individuals,” Singh said.
With Singh’s statement in mind, when we focus our attention on the direct environmental consequences of our actions, populations have a stronger urge to act climate-friendly (remember when plastic straws were phased out by unpopular demand?). Helping the public see the priority of climate change encourages us to behave with greener actions. When these individual shifts and behaviors are adopted by an entire population, suddenly those personal actions don’t seem so small.
While we all have topics that hold near and dear to our hearts during this election, I encourage you to have climate change be one of them. Regardless of who you voted for in the 2020 election, the planet is still waiting for you to take action
For more information on this topic, check out NPR’s “2020 Election Presents A Climate Change Crossroad For U.S.”