I agree with Barbara Bowling’s May 9 letter (“Let’s demonstrate for the planet”). However, voting is a more effective form of protest over the lack of progress our federal government is making toward reducing the cause of global warming: burning coal, oil and gas.
Current climate policies around the world put us on track to increase average global temperature by 2.7° C in 2100. That is significantly higher than the 1.5° C and 2.0°C targets set by 195 countries at the 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference. Targets were set to avoid the most disastrous impacts of climate warming. At 2.7°C , impacts threaten the social fabric. A peer-reviewed study by the Global Systems Institute found that at 2.7°C, 2 billion people would be pushed outside humanity’s “climate niche,” i.e. the benign conditions in which the whole of human civilization arose over the last 10,000 years.
If we elect candidates who are beholden to the fossil fuel industry and their allies, U.S. progress will be reversed and we will lose four crucial years in a process that has been stalled by disinformation and fossil fuel lobbies for over 35 years. If the U.S. does not lead in climate, not only will we lose precious time, but the U.S. will fall behind in developing all the components of the burgeoning green industry. Already we are seeing Chinese EVs being produced at much lower costs and with more bells and whistles than cars in the U.S. market.
We must prioritize a livable world when we vote.
Dorothy Jones
Brunswick
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