With the midterms rapidly approaching, it's important to make your vote count in the most pressing issue of our time: climate change.
After a year of destructive hurricanes, killer flooding and devastating wildfires, 2018 is already on pace to be among the hottest years in recorded history. Earlier this month, top scientists urged drastic emissions cuts in order to avoid climate catastrophe. Meanwhile, we have lawmakers in office who are not taking these threats very seriously, deny the science, and encourage the use of planet-warming fossil fuels.
For all these reasons and more, Nov. 6, 2018 will be one of the most important elections yet. That's why Generation Progress and The Years Project have launched the Be a Climate Voter campaign to motivate Americans—especially the country's youngest voters—to head to the polls.
The election is just around the corner and this year, the world's biggest polluters are counting on you.… https://t.co/QQyMV74l5Q— The YEARS Project (@The YEARS Project)1540319643.0
A recent ABC News poll found that most Americans believe the government should take action on global warming. Unsurprisingly, the generation growing up with the climate crisis and the ones who will have to deal with its worst effects after all the older voters are gone think the country should be doing more to fight global warming.
"Support for substantial government action ranges from 70 percent of those 18-39 to 54 percent of those 50-plus," the poll says. "Young people also are much more confident in such action, 71 vs. 48 percent; and more apt to see serious risks to the United States if it's not taken, 61 vs. 44 percent."
Kilan Bishop, a 26-year-old PhD student, has seen first-hand how flooding has adversely affected her community in Miami, Florida and will be voting with environmental justice in mind when she casts her ballot.
"Climate change used to feel like this big overwhelming threat, but this year I found something I can do about it—I'm a climate voter," she says in a Be a Climate Voter campaign video.
Thursday, Oct. 24, EcoWatch will host a Facebook Live at 12 p.m. EST featuring Bishop, who will share her experiences on the front-lines of climate change and highlight the importance of the youth vote. Join us on our Facebook home page.
If you care about clean air, water and preserving our precious natural resources we urge you to join the movement. Use the hashtag #ClimateVoter on Oct. 24 to share why you'll be voting with the planet in mind.