The Climate Crisis isn’t a Political Issue

Last updated October 11, 2024.

I’m over the climate crisis being a political issue.

Because it isn’t a political issue.

Regardless of its cause or origin, the climate crisis is unfolding right before our eyes, every single day.

I’m tired of holding back when it comes to discussing climate change. From now on, I won’t worry about offending anyone or sparking political debate. Enough is enough.

Climate change and the climate crisis are not hoaxes. They are not, and should never have been, political issues. It’s absurd that they’ve become so polarized, and it infuriates me.

It’s certainly not a partisan issue — it should be a bipartisan one.

An everyone issue.

Because the climate crisis affects everyone, everywhere.

“Were summers this hot when you were a kid? Wasn’t there less torrential rain? Don’t you remember more snow on the ground in winter? However we measure the facts, people are waking up and seeing that the climate is fundamentally different now.” -Erin Brockovich¹

The Storms are Getting Stronger

You don’t have to look very long or very hard to find real-life evidence of the climate crisis. Hurricane Helene, which has taken the lives of over 230 people as of today, is a recent result of the changing climate. This hurricane destroyed areas in the mountains of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee – where people never expected a storm like this to affect them with such severity. These areas are hundreds of miles inland.

That hurricane also hit Florida and caused massive flooding. Now, another major hurricane—Hurricane Milton—will make landfall in Florida sometime tomorrow. That’s two major storms in just a couple of weeks!

Hurricane Milton “explosively” intensified from a Category 1 storm to a Category 5 in just about 12 hours. This is the strongest storm in the Gulf of Mexico since 2005. Florida hasn’t even had a chance to finish cleaning up from the last storm, and the ground is already saturated. Some areas are still partially buried in feet of sand. This is a terrible situation. UPDATE 10/11/2024: Hurricane Milton made landfall as a Category 3 at Siesta Key, Florida, spawned an unexpected number of tornados, and left a lot of destruction behind. So far, 16 people are dead.

What’s worse, Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, doesn’t believe in climate change. In fact, in May 2024, he signed legislation that removed the words “climate change” from many Florida state laws.² I’m not sure how he ignores the obvious climate issues in his own state.

We’re seeing record-breaking weather extremes in storms and weather patterns. We’re also seeing drastic changes in climate, such as air temperature and ocean temperatures.

Climate change creates a downward spiral because everything in nature connects. The more carbon dioxide, the warmer the planet gets, including the ocean. The warmer the ocean, the more strength hurricanes gain as they develop. The bigger the storm, the more moisture it accumulates. The warm water is their fuel.

“The impact of global warming is obvious with the hurricanes because the frequency is increasing so dramatically, especially over the last 10 or 20 years. The hurricanes are thriving off of the warmer ocean temperatures and intensifying as they’re making landfall, especially in the Gulf of Mexico.” -Dr. Reed Timmer, Extreme Meteorologist³

It’s Hotter

We’ve set heat records every year in recent decades. July 2024 was the warmest July on record for the planet in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 175-year record.⁴ Last year, 2023 became the warmest year on record for land and ocean areas individually in both hemispheres.⁵

Remember when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned of global warming levels reaching 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels? Well, we are already at 1.2°C!⁶

Here’s what the 1.5°C means: “Climate scientists have long warned that, to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we need to drastically cut climate pollution and limit global warming as close as possible to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Every fraction of global warming beyond this level exponentially increases climate harm, as well as the risk of crossing tipping points in the climate system – which would trigger abrupt and irreversible changes and accelerate warming. In other words, tipping points are points of no return.”⁷ This is the downward spiral I referred to above.

The Ice Really is Melting

Glaciers, of which there are approximately two hundred thousand on the planet, are melting. In daily life, this may not be so evident. However, to those monitoring the glaciers, it is very evident. We have accelerated glacial loss from 6.7 inches per year in the 1980s, to 11 inches per year in the 1990s, to 1.6 feet per year in the 2000s, and to 2.9 feet per year for the 2010s.⁸ This is directly causing sea level to rise, among many other problems. For example, warmer water expands, furthering the rise.

“The bleak face of rapid climate change is everywhere, from the shattered surfaces of Greenland’s glaciers to the marble-white branches of bleached coral forests; from the increased number of more ferocious storms to the migrations of some marine species to new, cooler locations; accompanied, throughout, by the rapid die-off of other species already stressed by human predation, pollution, and habitat destruction.” -Sylvia A. Earle¹⁰

Sea Level is Rising…And Entire Islands are Disappearing

Seas rose in the 1800s by half an inch. The 1900s saw almost 7 inches in sea level rise. In just the first two decades of the 2000s, we’ve reached a rate of 12 inches, and it continues to accelerate. Scientists expect another rise of 10 to 12 inches in just 30 years, by 2050.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the projections for U.S. sea level rise depend on the path we follow. “If we are able to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, U.S. sea level in 2100 is projected to be around 0.6 meters (2 feet) higher on average than it was in 2000. But on a pathway with high greenhouse gas emissions and rapid ice sheet collapse, models project that average sea level rise for the contiguous United States could be 2.2 meters (7.2 feet) by 2100 and 3.9 meters (13 feet) by 2150.”¹¹

Loss of Land

More severe storms, combined with sea level rise, are causing the loss of lands, especially islands. Vanuatu has already relocated one village and the country is one of the most vulnerable to sea level rise. But the Maldives, Kiribati, Tuvalu, and the Marshall Islands are at a high risk of island loss as well. In 2018, Hurricane Walaka wiped out a whole island near Hawaii; an island that was a critical habitat for several endangered species.¹²

“When sea levels rise, people will be displaced – likely those least responsible for the climate crisis…If these peoples are forced to leave a no longer habitable island nation, who is responsible for providing refuge?” -Leah Thomas¹³

We Must Do Better

What can we do? Yes, we can all make small changes in our daily lives, but the most critical step is voting. Once we’ve voted, we must hold our elected leaders accountable and push them to take meaningful, large-scale actions to slow the climate crisis. While it can no longer be entirely stopped, we can still slow its progress. It’s time to get everyone involved, set aside the “hoax” claims, and focus on moving forward together.

We must do better.

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Footnotes:

1. Book, Superman’s Not Coming: Our National Water Crisis and What We the People Can Do About It, by Erin Brockovich, Pantheon Books, New York, 2020. ↩︎
2. Transcript, “Florida Gov. DeSantis signs bill that deletes climate change from state law,” Morning Edition, NPR, May 17, 2024. ↩︎
3. Page, “The hurricane hunter: Meet extreme meteorologist Reed Timmer and his tornado-chasing terrier Gizmo,” News24.com, September 30, 2021. ↩︎
4. Article, “Global climate summary for July 2024,” by NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information AND Global Precipitation Climatology Project (University of Maryland), August 13, 2024. ↩︎
5. Article, “Climate Change: Global Temperature,” by Rebecca Lindsey AND LuAnn Dahlman, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, January 18, 2024. ↩︎
6. Article, “Have we already gone past 1.5 degrees of warming?” by the Climate Council, June 24, 2024. ↩︎
7. Article, “Have we already gone past 1.5 degrees of warming?” by the Climate Council, June 24, 2024. ↩︎
8. Article, “Climate Change: Mountain glaciers,” by Rebecca Lindsey, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, May 10, 2024. ↩︎
9. Image from article, “Simulated retreat of Jakobshavn Isbræ since the Little Ice Age controlled by geometry,” The Cryosphere, July 12, 2018. ↩︎
10. Book, “Ocean: A Global Odyssey,” by Sylvia A. Earle, National Geographic, Washington, D.C., 2021. ↩︎
11. Article, “Climate Change: Global Sea Level,” by Rebecca Lindsey, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, August 22, 2023. ↩︎
12. Article, “Hurricane Walaka practically wiped an island off the map,” Hawaii News Now, updated October 24, 2018. ↩︎
13. Book, The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet, by Leah Thomas, Hachette Book Group, New York, 2022. ↩︎