The Big Issue

With less than 60 days left until the election, we are about to witness an intense barrage of political talk from both parties. At the conventions in Denver and Minneapolis, we heard hours and hours of talk about each candidate's vision for the future of this country. I am not here to take sides in the election (you can check out my facebook page to see that!), but I am taking the side of fighting climate change now, not in ten or twenty years. Now.

One could be excused for thinking that we have reached the tipping point in the United States regarding the need to fight climate change with clean energy. After all, the past four years has seen every major magazine (Time, Newsweek, etc), newspaper and broadcast news program prominently feature global climate change. Al Gore's movie won the Academy Award, was a huge hit with millions of viewers. The former VP and the international scientific group that coordinates studies on global climate change won the Nobel Peace Prize. Hurricane Katrina showed people the very real danger of climate change. The Polar Bear is being listed as a threatened species from Arctic ice loss. Executives from some of the largest corporations in the country have written and spoken repeatedly about the need to address carbon emissions.

In short, it seemed the time for action had finally arrived.

Thus, my total disappointment and frankly, shock, that global climate change apparently disappeared completely from one party's convention. There was not a single mention of the need or a plan to fight global climate change by the GOP's nominees during their acceptance speech at their convention. It's as if the last four years didn't happen and we are back to the bad old days of 2000, when global climate change was an issue way down the priority list at best. The Sunday morning talk shows and the political pundits on television seemingly don't bring up the issue of global climate change when talking to the candidates or their surrogates.

This issue is too important to have one party own it. We need all major American parties to work together now on solutions. There are Republicans like Arnold Schwarzenegger and others who are showing amazing leadership. We as a country need to ensure that these kinds of leaders have a seat at their own party's table, and that we all work together to solve this challenge.

Take action - write a letter to the Editor of your paper, contact both Presidential campaigns, let people know that global climate change is the biggest challenge of our generation. Let them know that you demand action, and that you want to hear their plans for how to create a cleaner, greener future. Don't let the media or the politicians off the hook. This is the big issue of our time. Silence is not an acceptable answer.