It’s been a crazy time for America.
In the past few years, we’ve struggled with a contested presidential election, political polarization on scales never before seen, and the rapid radicalization of the Republican party.
In the past few days since I last posted there have been huge developments: the Democratic candidate for Arizona governor won an upset victory, and the Democrat incumbent Nevada senator held on to her seat. The latter means that the Democrats have enough seats to maintain the senate, (50) and didn’t lose a single position.
However, it appears that, while Americans have been - quite rightfully - focusing on their internal struggles, global issues have been neglected. And one issue in particular has been left to the gutter: climate change.
Climate change, despite it taking a backstage to US political brawls in the media landscape, is a concern that is becoming more pressing by the minute. It is contributing to highly irregular patterns, and rising sea levels that are causing island nations to slowly disappear. These factors will only get worse as time goes on, and eventually, it may be too late.
While the public and the media have largely forgotten about climate change, policymakers certainly haven’t - for mixed reasons. Republican candidates, while it isn’t widely publicized, have been either ignorant or oppositional to climate issues. The GOP candidate for Wisconsin, Tim Michels, claimed he had no idea about the wild rice problem - an issue that is eliminating a keystone species from the Wisconsin ecosystem. Immediately thereafter, he tried to downplay the very existence of climate change by arguing that temperature has “always fluctuated” and that “we can’t just say that it all happened because of man’s actions in the last 100 years.” This is flat wrong. An IPCC report proved once and for all that mankind is the primary cause of modern climate fluctuation, and false claims like these are exactly the problem.
Anti-climate blustering has actually taken a head recently. This can be seen in representative Clay Higgins’s utterly disrespectful treatment of congressional witness Raya Salter, who was testifying to the impacts of pollution on minority communities. The oil-backed representative (who, ironically, leads a district prone to flooding) disliked what Salter was saying, and belittled her in her speech, calling her inappropriate pet names and constantly interrupting her.
In fact, his actions were so disrespectful that another representative, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, apologized on Higgins’ behalf.
A true example of fossil extremism. In fact, it was big enough for the media to pick it up. However, it was not the levels of attention it merited. And still, the issue with climate representation remains. Now more than ever, climate change seems like an insignificant blip compared to the daily antics of Donald Trump. This isn’t any surprise; people generally stay more concerned with issues that hit closer to home. But if we don’t do anything about environmental damage and pollution, that’s exactly what’s going to happen.
Not to say nothing’s being done due to a lack of media attention, far from it. Just recently President Biden attended a UN summit in Egypt, where he sought to reclaim America’s role as a leader in the fight against climate change. He stated:
we can reach our goal, we can keep it within reach as well. But to permanently bend the emissions curve, every nation has — needs to step up. At this gathering, we must renew and raise our climate ambitions.
The United States is acting. Everyone has to act. That’s the duty and responsibility of global leadership.
Did this garner considerable media attention? No, since it occurred at the same time as the US midterm elections. Did it bring about change? Hopefully. It must.
Climate change is banging at the door, and eventually, it’s going to force its way in.
Shoutout to the Substack HEATED, which reminds us of climate change when no one else is.