By Samantha Wilson
Our government leaders must listen to science when it comes to climate change before its too late.
Over the course of the past few months. we saw wild fires across California, Washington and Oregon, burning through five million acres of land and hurricanes developing one after another in the Gulf of Mexico. Why is this different than other years?
Because according to many experts typically hurricanes take time to form and travel across the Atlantic ocean for days before reaching the United States and surrounding islands. This year, we are close to reaching a record breaking hurricane season with “twenty-five named storms forming across the basin faster than any year going back to at least 1851” (Bloomberg). At the same time, according to a new study performed by researchers at Ohio State University, Greenland’s ice sheet has “melted to a point of no return.” The head author of the study, Michalea King explained to CNN that, “Greenland’s ice sheet dumps more than 280 billion metric tons of melting ice into the ocean each year, making it the greatest single contributor to global sea level rise.”
But President Donald Trump has repeatedly ignored the science, even stating shortly after he came into office that the U.S. would be dropping out of the Paris Climate Agreement. The only reason the U.S. hasn’t completely withdrawn because of guidelines stating that “no nation would be able to exit the deal for three years,” according to Inside Climate News. It seems that the worse things get, the more President Trump socially distances himself from anything having to do with climate change.
Even some of the nations top experts agree, saying that we may not escape the crisis we are currently facing due to Trump’s lack of ability to fix what has slowly been destroyed by human beings throughout the course of many decades. Climate scientist and professor at Penn State University Michael Mann recently tweeted, “A second Trump term is game over for climate.”
Still, our climate has a chance. The date for the U.S. to drop out of the Paris Climate Agreements is November 4th — the day after the election. So while we may still seem hopeless, we can use our voice and vote to send a message that we want a leader that will begin to utilize the word of scientists and studies. It’s time that we allow science to lead the way.
