The Fate of the Planet Falls on Us: A Call for Direct Climate Action

Even as 195 countries, both developed and developing, join the Paris Climate Agreement, we already know that this historic effort won’t be enough to stop the catastrophic effects of climate change.

While the Agreement recommends concrete steps for leveling off the use of greenhouse gas emissions, with a goal of keeping the global average temperature below 2 degrees Celsius, it is non-binding, won’t go into affect until 2020 and avoids more serious measures such as the carbon tax.

Meanwhile, miles of Antarctic ice sheets are melting, with a 5000 square kilometer iceberg on the verge of breaking off into the sea. One Louisiana town is already being relocated due to the rising waters from the Gulf of Mexico. The Canadian permafrost is thawing, which will release even more carbon into the atmosphere. 2016 featured the highest average temperature on record, while the ten hottest years in history have occurred since 1998.

We are running out of time. If we don’t take action immediately, we face a future of worsening droughts and floods, destruction of key food crops, stronger storms, and rising waters. While all of humanity will be affected, millennials and future generations will bear the brunt. Not only will we witness the continued destabilization of our ecosystems, but unchecked climate change will also cost our generation trillions in lost wealth.

Trump’s decision to pull the largest carbon emitter in history out of the Paris Accord sends the message that we can’t just hold out hope that world leaders alone will save us from climate catastrophe.

In just the past few days, hundreds of local mayors committed to adopt and uphold the Paris Agreement. On the state-level, the governors of New York, California, and Washington formed the United States Climate Alliance, aimed at meeting the goals of the accord. There is also a widening recognition in both the business and political world that we need to take more serious climate action. However, we are still not doing enough because this is a crisis that in its very definition rejects the incrementalism of U.S. politics.

It would be dishonest to say that working locally won’t bring progress to prevent climate catastrophe. In fact, we must fight for carbon taxes and 100% renewables in our local communities in the same way that we fight for universal healthcare and a $15/hour minimum wage. To face this upward climb head on, we must be as powerful as a category 5 hurricane, ravaging statehouses and city halls until those in power understand the seriousness of this threat. But we must do even more than that.

In taking action, we must consider the global scope and accelerating timeline of climate change. It is our duty to understand that the fight to save our ecosystems is actually a war in which we cannot control the outcome. This challenge demands a World War-level mobilization for transitioning to renewable and sustainable energy systems while ending fossil fuel use. If we are to survive as a human race, this monumental task is only step one.

We must attack the root of the problem. Our politicians aren’t as ignorant as we think. Their climate denial is based on the funding of their re-election campaigns from those who will sacrifice the whole human race for increased shareholder profits. Don’t applaud Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for coming out in support of the Paris Accord, because ExxonMobil knew about their contributions to this climate disaster in the 1970s, and hid the evidence while continuing to fund the junk science of the climate denier movement.

If Trump and the Republican Congress won’t take even the basic actions needed to stop climate change, then the fate of the planet falls on us.

Millennials must take the lead.

All those who work against our efforts to save both our ecosystems and humanity must feel the wrath of our generation, ready to lock arms, march in the streets, and occupy their spaces. From the multinational corporations to climate denial organizations to the politicians who sell our futures for campaign contributions.

The term ‘business as usual’ must become a fading memory of the time before humanity woke up to the severity of this planetary crisis.

The time for demands is over. We must force those in power to change the course of history or face a generation in revolt.