Earth Day began as an act of collective belief — a conviction that ordinary people, organized and determined, could force a reckoning with the most powerful industrial interests in the world. That belief was shared, from the very beginning, by the labor movement. The first Earth Day was supported by the United Auto Workers, an expression of the belief that the fate of working people and the fate of the planet are intertwined.

As Executive Director of the BlueGreen Alliance, Jason Walsh leads the only national organization dedicated to uniting the labor and environmental movements — a coalition that collectively represents roughly 50 million members. Under his leadership, BGA played a central role in getting the Inflation Reduction Act passed, the largest investment in clean energy and domestic manufacturing in American history. Additionally, he served as the Director of the Office of Strategic Programs in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and as a Senior Policy Advisor in the White House Domestic Policy Council during the Obama administration. Named one of Washington D.C.’s 500 Most Influential People by the Washingtonian, Walsh brings more than 25 years of experience in climate, clean energy, and workforce policy. 

EARTHDAY.ORG President Kathleen Rogers sat down with Walsh to talk about the origins of the BlueGreen Alliance, what a just transition actually looks like for workers on the ground, and what’s at stake as rollbacks to the Inflation Reduction Act threaten the clean energy economy of the future.

Jason Walsh is the Executive Director of the BlueGreen Alliance, a national coalition uniting labor and environmental organizations representing roughly 50 million members. He has spent more than 25 years working at the intersection of climate, clean energy, and workers’ rights, previously serving in the Obama administration and playing a central role in getting the Inflation Reduction Act passed.

Earth Day 2026 and its theme, Our Power, Our Planet, highlights how people everywhere — from classrooms and local neighborhoods to national institutions — can drive environmental progress through education, advocacy, and community engagement.

Q: Jason, welcome. To start, can you tell us a bit about your background — what brought you into this work, and what keeps you committed to it today?

I’ll go back to the summer of 1990, when I was living in Seattle, Washington, and just starting to cut my teeth as an activist. In the Pacific Northwest at the time — this was the time of the Timber Wars, which are still ongoing but were really hot in 1990 — environmental activists were trying to protect the remaining old growth forests, using laws like the Endangered Species Act and other tactics, from being cut down.

One of those forests was on the coast of northern California in Humboldt County, where a Houston-based corporation had gained ownership through a hostile takeover of a family-run lumber company. They were planning to clearcut these redwoods to make some quick cash — one of the last, biggest remaining stands of old growth redwoods on private lands. A group of activists organized something they called Redwood Summer — named deliberately to evoke Freedom Summer from the civil rights movement — to defend the forest using direct action tactics. They put out a call for people outside of California to come join them, and I was one of the people who responded.

I hitchhiked down to Fort Bragg, California, where a big demonstration and rally was literally just starting as I was dropped off by my final ride, which, of course, was an old Volkswagen bus. What I walked into was a rally in the middle of a small logging town: the townspeople, most of whom were loggers and logging families, on one side of the street, and activists on the other side, separated by a line of riot cops yelling at each other. On the one hand, this was exciting to me because I wanted to be in the middle of the action and I just got dropped right into it. But even at the time, I was thinking that there was something was just wrong about the fact that these two groups of people were yelling at each other when the decision makers behind the whole situation were sitting in Houston, Texas.

After that demonstration, I hooked up with a small affinity group that was planning an action. To make a longer story shorter, I ended up a few days later chained to a logging road gate. By happenstance, I was the only person the cops couldn’t quickly cut off, and I was directly in the way of a line of trucks carrying workers to the logging site. All the loggers driving to work basically had to drive around me. I shouted to one of them something like, “We’re not protesting you brother,” because I was already trying to fix the dynamic I had noticed just a couple of days earlier. And this logger leaned out of his truck cab and said, and I still remember this word for word: “I’m not your brother, mothereffer.”

That interaction stayed with me — kind of haunted me, actually — because it crystallized all of the reservations I had about the strategy and tactics of Redwood Summer, in which working people and environmentalists were squaring off against each other in defense of something they each valued for legitimate reasons, while a small group of people far away were getting very rich.

I went back to Seattle after that summer and got into the University of Washington. I got involved in some antiwar activism — this was the time of the Persian Gulf War — and once that awful dress rehearsal for the Iraq and now Iran wars was done, I got involved in local organizing in opposition to a free trade agreement being negotiated between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, which became the North American Free Trade Agreement. I went to meetings at a labor temple in downtown Seattle where labor activists and environmentalists sat at the same table, talking with and learning from each other why, from their very different backgrounds, they opposed a trade regime that exploited both workers and the environment.

Fast-forwarding roughly two decades: I’ve had the opportunity to work on public policy at the intersection of environmental, climate, jobs, and justice issues. I’ve spent most of that time on the non-governmental advocacy side, but I had the privilege of working for five years in the Obama administration at the Department of Energy and in the White House. What brought me to this work, and what keeps me in it, is a belief that in some ways was first formed in that experience from my young adulthood: that working people and environmentalists should work together to create an economy and society in which good jobs and a clean environment go hand in hand. I’ve had the good fortune of leading the BlueGreen Alliance since 2019, an organization that places that vision at the center of everything we do.

Q: Labor and environmental movements have had moments of alignment going back to the first Earth Day. What brought them together in a lasting way with the BlueGreen Alliance launch in 2006? And what did the response to that first Good Jobs, Green Jobs Conference in 2008 tell you about the appetite for that kind of coalition?

The early history matters here. The United Auto Workers (UAW) were the biggest financial backer of the first Earth Day, which started life as a mass student walkout. UAW president Walter Reuther — one of the great unsung heroes of American history and a critical early backer of the civil rights movement — was famously quoted as saying that the fight against pollution is a fight for the survival of the human race. That represented the lived experience of industrial unions like the UAW and the United Steelworkers, whose own members and communities bore the brunt of industrial pollution because that’s where they worked and lived. These unions were some of the earliest and most important backers of environmental laws. In fact, both were instrumental in passing the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970.

That history certainly mattered in the formation of the BlueGreen Alliance, particularly the throughline to the steel workers. But the later spark for our creation in 2006 was lit in the 1990s, when unions and environmental groups found common cause in opposition to NAFTA and the World Trade Organization. Workers and their unions were watching manufacturing jobs go overseas to countries with little to no environmental protections. Environmental organizations and their activists were learning that the environmental protections in those same countries were minimal or unenforced. Both movements shared a growing sense of injustice over the course of that decade, rooted in a shared analysis that the new global trade regime enriched multinational corporations at the expense of people and the planet. In many ways, the culmination was the Battle of Seattle in 1999.

Fast forward to 2006, when two of the folks who were in the streets of Seattle in 1999 — Leo Gerard, a hard rock miner from Canada and president of the Steelworkers, the nation’s largest industrial union, and Carl Pope, an environmental lawyer from San Francisco who was executive director of the Sierra Club — decided that if they could find common ground around trade, there were other issues they could unify around. In particular, the climate crisis — which at that time was Al Gore, an inconvenient truth — was starting to hit as a real and urgent concern, clean technologies were emerging, and attacks on workers’ rights were ongoing. They signed a joint resolution establishing the BlueGreen Alliance, premised on the shared belief that we don’t have to choose between good jobs and a clean environment — that we can and must have both.

BGA held its first Good Jobs, Green Jobs conference in 2008. A lot of energy, a lot of turnout, which was certainly an affirmation of that founding vision. Over the last 20 years, through thick and thin, through good times and bad, we have grown into a coalition of labor and environmental organizations that collectively represent roughly 50 million members.

Q: The BlueGreen Alliance began with a simple but powerful goal: bridging the perceived divide between good jobs and environmental protection. How has that mission evolved since 2006 as the climate and economic landscapes have changed? 

The climate crisis has worsened since 2006, as has the crisis of economic inequality. BGA’s mission has evolved with those deepening crises, reflecting our belief that we need to advance policy solutions to both that are as intersecting and mutually reinforcing as their causes.

The other change to acknowledge is that we have gone from what was a very aspirational energy transition 20 years ago to a very real one in 2026, which has caused both enormous economic opportunity and enormous economic disruption. Our mission and our work has changed in response to how that has played out, particularly for working people and the communities they live in.

Q: The phrase “just transition” is used a lot by both labor and environmental groups. From your perspective, what does a just transition actually look like in practice for workers on the ground?

The term “just transition” was first coined by Tony Misaki, president of the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers Union, back in the 1980s before his union merged with the Steelworkers. At the time, because some manufacturing was leaving or manufacturing jobs were being lost — this was also a decade of a lot of environmental litigation — he and his union were calling for something they called a superfund for workers. It was premised on the idea that: there’s going to be a lot of economic change as we move from really polluting technologies to more sustainable ones, and the workers need to be kept whole.

That was before the time of the 1980s and BGA, but the policy issues — again, there’s this throughline through the steelworkers and other industrial unions — involved in just transition have been among BGA’s highest priorities. We have a whole policy platform. We actually don’t call it just transition. We call it simply a policy. Fairness for workers and communities, straight up. I want to emphasize three kinds of threads or points that come out of that platform and that really animate our work.

Number one, a transition that is truly fair or just for workers is not going to happen organically. It will only result from deliberate policy choices that directly support workers who are impacted. Every major economic shift in the last 50-plus years in the U.S. has been manifestly unjust for American workers, because policymakers have not crafted a response that is fair and effective.

The second point is very much related to the first. In the U.S., we don’t have policies and programs in place that adequately support workers who lose their jobs, in any sector. In the energy sector, this has created a lot of economic hardship among workers who have experienced layoffs from the energy transition, which has been ongoing now, pretty intensively, for the last, say, 15 years. These are coal miners, workers in coal-fired power plants, oil refinery workers. What these workers have in common is that their jobs were often the best-paying blue collar and union jobs in the communities where they lived and worked.

The third and final point for the energy transition to be just for workers is that we need to create and support those dislocated workers, as well as enact policies that ensure that the new jobs that are created in clean energy sectors are high quality, family-sustaining, and ones where workers have the ability for form unions without being harassed, intimidated, or fired. And we need policies that target public investment, in particular to the communities that have been most reliant on fossil fuel economies — the places that have largely suffered and experienced more economic pain than economic gain from this transition.

We were starting to make progress on all of those fronts during the Biden administration, and in particular with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. But then 2024 happened.

Q: Manufacturing has long been the backbone of the American middle class, and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) aimed to strengthen that through clean energy investment. With recent rollbacks and funding cuts, where do things stand now?

Manufacturing is still the backbone of the blue collar middle class in this country, and it is central to U.S. competitiveness, economic security, and our innovation ecosystem. BGA and our labor and environmental partners did a ton of work with the Biden administration, particularly with the 117th Congress, to include substantial investments in clean manufacturing in the Inflation Reduction Act. We wanted to ensure, from an equity standpoint, that manufacturing workers and the communities they live in would share in the economic benefits of the clean energy transition. Federal policymaking was mostly focused on deployment of those technologies and not on producing them, building domestic supply chains, and decarbonizing our existing manufacturing base. We got a lot of those investments into the IRA. 

I think it’s important, for the historical record and as we think to the future, that these policies, these investments, were working right after the enactment of the IRA. U.S. investments in the manufacturing of batteries, fueling equipment, and critical minerals processing each grew about 45% relative to the pre-IRA period. 2022/2023 saw the greatest acceleration of manufacturing facility construction in a generation in this country, with hundreds of thousands of jobs already being created or committed to. The IRA was not only the biggest investment in clean energy in history anywhere in the world, but it was also an industrial policy that targeted sectors critical to the economic future of this country and the fate of the planet. Those investments were bearing fruit and then Donald Trump got elected.

One of the most painful ironies of the Trump presidency, among many, is that this guy who claims to be a champion of American manufacturing, to love American manufacturing, has led a whole-of-government assault on clean energy and clean manufacturing — through legislation, permitting illegal systems, executive action, and canceled grants and loans, including a loan program office that Jigar used to run. Through those actions, they have killed thousands of jobs and put thousands more at risk, many of them union jobs. They have literally tried to stop construction of offshore wind turbines that were 80 to 90% complete, barely even pretending to justify it. They’ve thrown all of these industries into a state of uncertainty, or they have literally arm-twisted individual companies, like the French-based company Total Energy who had to abandon offshore wind that they had already sunk so much money into. They are making a series of investments in fossil fuels in an attempt to embed the U.S. as this petrostate. And then they started a war with the only country that actually has the ability to close the Strait of Hormuz, sending oil and gas prices skyrocketing.

All of that is effectively surrendering the production of technologies that are the future of the global economy — probably the most important economic race of this century to China and other countries.

Q: We’ve seen some tension lately — around tariffs, EV adoption, and broader shifts in the green economy. What are the main friction points today between unions and environmental advocates? And are we still seeing some of those political divides that surfaced during the last election?

Dealing with friction and tensions between unions and environmental groups is part of BGA’s reason for being. We have always dealt with it, we always will. We have hard conversations. But we and our partners always come back to a recognition that there is far more that unites us than divides us. One of the things that united us was the IRA — defending it and holding this administration accountable. We didn’t lose everything, so that’s home for some optimism that is a part of what we’re doing right now.

But also what unites us is a president who is trying to gut every federal program protecting workers and the environment. He is already the biggest union buster in American history, stripping roughly a million federal workers of their collective bargaining rights. At the same time, he’s a climate denier trying to kill virtually every form of climate action. That’s very unifying for our coalition, but it won’t be sufficient for our partners and our movements to be united only in defense. We also need to be united on offense. We work not only at the federal level but in nine states across the country where the political landscape is different and where we’re moving the ball forward. And ahead of the 2028 elections, BGA is committed to developing and releasing a new consensus platform of policy recommendations, supported by all of our partners, to build the worker- and community-centered clean economy that is our mission. We will present it to every policymaker and candidate who is interested in learning what our priorities are. That has yet to be written, but I already have a sense of what some of the things that’ll be in it are, and it will be very forward looking — because this is still the direction we’re headed in, and this country and our workers and our communities will either take center stage or they’ll be off stage.

Q: Finally, what’s the BlueGreen Alliance’s top priority for the next five years to ensure that the clean economy we build also strengthens union jobs and protects workers’ health and safety? 

One of our very top priorities as an organization over the next few years is to really deepen our coalition work and lean into our unique role as a unifier of the labor and environmental movements. We’re the only national organization that does that anywhere in the world. That unifier role has always been central to our theory of change, but we think it’s more important than ever now in response to an authoritarian president who is always looking for ways to divide people and social movements.

We know from research, scholarship, and examples from around the world that the most effective resistance to authoritarians is broad-based, big-tent coalitions of people and stakeholders coming together — linking arms to defend democracy and work toward a better world for everyone, in defiance of men who only care about their power, privilege, and the enrichment of themselves and their cronies. BGA has always been that kind of organization, and we are doubling down on that role now and in the years ahead.

In this Earth Week, it’s worth reminding ourselves that Earth Day was created by leaders who believed in the power of people and social movements to make a better world. That vision is more important this week, this year, than it probably ever has been since the inception of Earth Day.

The post Good Jobs, Clean Future, and Earth Day’s Union Roots: 22 Minutes with Jason Walsh appeared first on Earth Day.

Earth Day has long been a moment of bipartisan agreement in America — a reminder that clean air, clean water, and the protection of the natural world are not partisan concerns. But in today’s political climate, that shared purpose can feel distant.

Few people have thought harder about how to rebuild it than Bob Inglis. A Republican who represented South Carolina’s Fourth Congressional District for twelve years, Inglis became one of the most visible conservative voices calling for serious climate action — a stance that ultimately cost him his seat in Congress. In 2015, he received the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. He now leads RepublicEn.org, a nonprofit dedicated to engaging conservatives in the climate conversation through the language of free enterprise and accountability.

EARTHDAY.ORG Global Director of Advocacy and Partnerships James Banks sat down with Inglis to talk about bipartisanship, the economics of clean energy, and why he believes the country is closer to a turning point than most people think.

Bob Inglis is the founder and executive director of RepublicEn.org, a nonprofit that builds the conservative clean energy base. He represented South Carolina’s Fourth Congressional District from 1993 to 1999 and from 2005 to 2011, and received the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in 2015.

Earth Day 2026 and its theme, Our Power, Our Planet, highlights how people everywhere — from classrooms and local neighborhoods to national institutions — can drive environmental progress through education, advocacy, and community engagement.

Q: The first Earth Day sparked an extraordinary moment of bipartisan agreement. Are Americans capable of rediscovering that kind of shared purpose?

I think we’re on the cusp of rediscovering it. Maybe I’m the eternal optimist — and that’s maybe true — but I think we’re getting to the point where we’ve just had enough of the basic trash talk. There’s going to come a time when we realize: all these folks are doing is telling us we’re going to “own the libs” or “defeat the conservatives” — bury the other side. And that just isn’t getting us anywhere.

This current moment really is pretty low rhetoric, pretty low expectations — about even the ability to formulate a sentence, let’s say. But I really think the next moment will be different. The whole style of politics could change, and it’s up to us as consumers of that style to demand it.

Bellbottoms, I think, are back in — aren’t they? When consumers demand more bellbottoms, Levi’s and everybody else makes more bellbottoms. When consumers of politics say, “we’re tired of the trash talk, and we really want somebody who can talk to us about solutions” — that’s what we’ll get. We’ve got to get ready for that and drive toward that end.

Q: Does the climate conversation need to start with everyday concerns — clean air, clean water — if it’s going to resonate with people?

People really do want to live in fresh air and clean water and would like to have a healthier environment. When it comes to climate, that’s a little harder, because the main culprit is CO2 — and you can’t smell it, you can’t taste it. You sort of wish there were a foul odor as a proxy. But you can taste and smell the things that come along with it; they burn your eyes and your throat.

In places like China, there’s a greater demand for action because people can feel it. It’s like when the Cuyahoga River caught fire — repeatedly caught fire — and we realized, “wait a minute, rivers aren’t supposed to catch on fire.” You might wish, in the case of climate, that there were more things we could feel about this odorless, tasteless gas. That’s a real challenge. But generally speaking, people want clean air and clean water, and that’s a place to start.

Q: Why is it so important that good-faith conservative voices are part of the climate conversation?

We learn from people who are like us, and especially from people who like us. We really need the affirmation of the tribe — to feel that it’s okay to engage on a topic. What we’ve got to do at RepublicEn.org is show conservatives that this is very much their topic. You’re really good at this thing of solving climate change. This is a problem of economics. It has an environmental consequence. Fix the economics. Bring accountability for the side effects of burning fossil fuels and dumping into the trash dump of the sky for free.

We know that if you let people dump for free, there’ll be a lot of dumping — at the city dump or in the atmosphere. Charge for the space you take, and you get less dumping. That’s rock-solid conservative economics, and it’s actually acceptable to a lot of people left of center too. We could bring America together and lead the world to solutions. It’s just a matter of making sure people hear it in their own language.

And when they hear it from someone within their own tribe, it makes them feel like, “okay, I’m not Benedict Arnold here. I’m not going to be cut off from my community.” As human beings, we really can’t live on our own — we need a whole community of support. People don’t want to be cut off. We want to show them: you’ve got a home here. This is what we talk about as conservatives.

Q: Do conservative leaders have a unique ability to reach people who might otherwise tune the issue out?

If you’re going to start a Latino outreach church, you probably want to speak Spanish from the pulpit. If you’re going to reach conservatives on climate, you probably want to use the language of conservatism.

My friend Dan Kahan at Yale — joint appointment in law and psychology — has research showing that left-of-center people tend to be communitarian and egalitarian. They focus on the whole community doing well and key in on fairness. Right-of-center people tend to be hierarchical and individualistic — they believe in working through a chain of command, in individual effort and reward. The language is completely different in those two communities. And most of the climate conversation has been conducted in communitarian, egalitarian language.

What we have to do at RepublicEn — what we call the “eco-right,” a balance to the environmental left — is make that same case in hierarchical, individualistic terms. A great deal of money is spent on the environmental left every year; a very small amount is spent right of center. We’re trying to change that. Left of center, you might get away with saying “let’s repent of the capitalistic system.” On the right, you don’t want to say that. You want to say: “accountable free enterprise.” That may sound like an oxymoron to some people, but what I mean is a free enterprise system with all the costs in, all the subsidies removed, and a level playing field.

The language that works right of center is: “what we’re after here is more energy, more mobility, more freedom — we just want it cleaner, better, faster, and cheaper.” And there’s a real way to do that — to create wealth in America, create jobs, create opportunities, by selling products around the world that meet people’s needs.

The problem with the “shine your halo” approach is what it actually does: it makes the other person a sinner and you the saint. That’s a bad setup if you’re trying to convince people. But if you say “we can all win at this, and by the way, we can make money at it” — that’s a different conversation. As Steve Forbes said when he ran for president: in a capitalistic system, you make money by serving customers, and if you serve them well, you make lots of money. We can serve the world very well by creating better batteries, better solar cells, hopefully small modular reactors that are more affordable than the gargantuan ones — and sell those around the world, cleaning up the air the whole time.

Q: When you look at today’s energy economy — solar, batteries, new grid technologies — do you feel the market is already moving forward, regardless of the politics?

Yes, definitely. There was a time when human beings used whale oil to light their homes. Then coal oil. Then petroleum. The next is pretty clearly electricity — for data centers, for cars, for drones, for just about everything. And we’ll either enter that competition — with Ford Motor Company trying to meet the mark of BYD, the Chinese company that can make a car go 300 miles on a five-minute charge for around $20,000 — or we’ll double down on burning rocks and fouling the air. The world is going to move on, whether we’re part of it or not.

I was walking down a particularly choked street in New York City during Climate Week — closed in, full of fumes from trucks and buses and cars — and it occurred to me that my seven grandchildren are going to someday say, “Can you believe Mimi and Papa used to breathe that stuff?” The same way I might say to my grandmother, who grew up in South Georgia: “What was it like at the south end of a northbound horse?” We are headed to that day.

And here’s the thing: economic realities eventually overtake shaky ideologies. You can talk about saving the horse-drawn cart and protecting the buggy whip manufacturers. You can point out that Henry Ford’s cars were catching fire, that the tires were blowing out, that horses were rearing up and people were getting hurt. All true. But people figured out it was a pretty great deal to ride at 25 or 30 miles an hour rather than deal with that horse. That’s what’s going to happen with the electrification of everything.

You can have a religion of climate change — that’s not me. You can have acceptance of the data — that’s me; I apply my faith to that data. Or you can reject both. It doesn’t matter. You’re going to end up in the same place, because BYD is threatening to take over the entire world car market, and Ford is betting the farm on an EV platform it can sell for $30,000. That’s the economic reality, and it’s driving us there regardless of anyone’s view on climate science.

When I get discouraged in this business, I go watch JFK at Rice University in September 1962 — the Moonshot Speech. He admits in that speech that some of the materials needed for the spacecraft hadn’t been invented yet. “No matter. We’re going to the moon before the decade is out.” That’s really where we are. We need to admit we’re behind — behind BYD, behind China. And then, as Kennedy said: “We intend to catch up.” If we can get that kind of focused policy commitment, it would accelerate everything dramatically.

Q: What role should policy play? Is a carbon tax really the answer?

I think we do need policy, and the policy that would help most — this isn’t just conservative intuition, this is based on serious modeling by En-ROADS, from MIT Sloan School of Business — is a carbon tax. A simple price on dumping into the trash dump of the sky.

When I explain this to fellow conservatives, I use an example from my hometown of Bluffton, South Carolina. In the 1960s, the dump was a little dirt road loop off Highway 46 where you drove in and threw your trash on the ground. We eventually figured out that stuff was leaching into the saltwater estuary where we planned on eating the crabs and the shrimp and the fish and the oysters. And nationwide, we started lining dumps so they wouldn’t leach into the waterways. Most everybody agrees with that now.

But go back to the 1960s. If I’d been Inglis Trash Hauling back then, I could have gone to the County Council and railed against it: “Communism! They want to make me pay a tipping fee? I’m a taxpayer!” Fast forward to today — I’m certain there is nobody on the Beaufort County Council who would hear that argument. They’d say: “Inglis, you’re taking up space in the dump. Pay for the space you take. Back that cost up to your customers, because it’s their trash filling up the dump.”

Same thing applies to the trash dump of the sky. Right now we have free dumping. Charge for it, and there’ll be less of it, because people will substitute away from the sources. That’s what Milton Friedman would tell us to do — Reagan’s own economics advisor.

And because we’re conservatives, that carbon tax needs to be paired with a reduction in other taxes — specifically the payroll tax, which by itself hurts poor people. A carbon tax by itself would also hurt poor people. But if you shift the tax from payroll to carbon, the Congressional Budget Office says the bottom 70% of Americans end up better off.

Then you apply it to imports. Goods coming from a country without the same carbon tax get charged at our border. That makes it in their interest to do the same — why would China want to fork over money to the United States that they could have collected themselves? So the world follows the American lead. No international agreement. No bowing and scraping at the UN. No protracted negotiations. Just a bold move by the United States.

And lest this sound like purely right-wing stuff — if someone out there is thinking, “why does this sound familiar? I’m left of center” — it might be because it’s essentially what Al Gore has been for for the last 30 years. I asked him several years ago if I could keep saying that. He said, “Hold up, Bob — if you’re talking about a low carbon tax…” I said, “No sir, I’m talking about a substantial carbon tax, steadily rising, paired with a reduction in payroll taxes, applied at our borders.” He said: “Yeah, fine. What you’re for at RepublicEn.org is the same thing I’ve been for for about 30 years.”

That’s what we hope for: after conservatives have heard it in their own language, they can see they’re actually pretty good at this — and we can come together and bring America together and lead the world to solutions.

Q: Several prominent figures in the MAGA movement have recently started talking about solar as a way to strengthen American energy independence. What do you make of that shift?

I think what it shows is they’ve looked at the numbers. The rap against solar and wind has always been that they’re “intermittent” and “unreliable.” But when you’re paired with battery backup, they’re very reliable. The price of batteries has come down dramatically. The price of solar cells has come down. People have started to get the memo, and they see the numbers pencil out.

That’s what I mean by economic realities driving us to a point of convergence. The rhetoric on various outlets says solar is intermittent and you can’t count on it — meanwhile, the people actually doing it are saying, “Hush the rhetoric. We know how to do this. We get the batteries, we back them up, and it works.” It’s just facts coming into play.

Q: The Trump administration has rolled back climate policies and slowed approvals for renewable projects, yet solar and battery storage keep growing. What does that tension tell us about where America’s energy system is actually headed?

Economic realities overcome shaky ideologies — that’s the point of convergence I keep coming back to. You can rail against climate religion, call it a “false religion.” You can try to introduce doubt about the data. But meanwhile, the economic realities are headed toward this energy revolution, this real transition in the way we power our lives. That’s what’s going to win. Policy could speed it up — get us to that point of convergence sooner — but the direction is set.

It’s like smoking. Every physician will tell you: stop smoking. Doesn’t matter how long you’ve been at it — you could be 80 years old and have smoked all your life. Stop. There may be some damage already baked in, but you can avoid the worst of it if you stop now. We’ve been smoking a lot. We can either keep going, or we can accelerate the point at which we say: there’s a new way to power our lives.

And from a guy who was five times in Iraq and four times in Afghanistan — I’m reminded right now, in the midst of this Iranian conflict, that it would sure be nice to say to the Middle East: “See if you can drink that stuff. We just don’t need you like we used to. Here’s a copy of our Constitution in your language — you might want to study it. But you will not see us panicking over the Straits of Hormuz.” Even though we’re the world’s biggest oil producer, it’s a worldwide market. If you constrain 20% of the supply through the Straits of Hormuz, you’re going to affect prices and risk a worldwide recession. Would I like to defund petro-dictators like Vladimir Putin? You bet. I’d like to say to him: “Your economy looks like it’s pretty much crumbling. You can’t prop it up anymore with oil, because we just don’t need it like we used to.” That’s when we get to real freedom — not just cleaner air, but national security.

Q: When people talk about energy, they rarely talk about policy. They talk about their power bill and whether the lights stay on. Does the climate conversation need to start with those everyday concerns?

It definitely helps to make it applicable to daily life. Affordability is a key concept right now. Data centers are sucking up a lot of power, and the question of whether the grid is going to supply that — or whether very wealthy companies are going to do it themselves — is a potent issue that brings all of this into the present.

But I also think that once people actually experience the technology, it changes things. I watched this unfold at a Chevrolet dealership once. A 70-something hunter walks in — orange vest, obviously just been out hunting — and goes over to look at the Chevy Bolt. You can tell he’s scoffing. He walks up to the 24-year-old salesman, who tells him: “This car can beat a Corvette off the light.” “No way,” says the hunter. “Yes way — I’ve got a Corvette, and this car beats me.”

Once people check these things out, they start deciding, “Hey, I think I’d like one of those.” Particularly once we can meet BYD’s range and charge time at a competitive price — at that point, people won’t even remember what gasoline costs. All of that makes it real. The affordability, the thrill of a car that gives you pickup when you need it. Pretty cool gadgets. And that’s how minds change.

Q: Your willingness to speak honestly about climate change cost you your seat in Congress but earned you the Profile in Courage Award. What does courage on this issue look like for leaders today?

What I’d say to my former colleagues — I guess I’m their former colleague now — is this: if you’re not willing to lose your seat in Congress, there’s really very little reason to be there. The whole point is to lead.

If all you’re doing is following people where they’re already going, amplifying their fears, mirroring their fears back to them except louder — what are you doing? If you hold on to that seat for dear life like it’s the best thing you could ever possibly have, you’ll end a long career and wonder: “What happened? I stood for nothing. I took no risk. All I did was tell people what they were already telling me. I didn’t lead.” I can’t imagine anything worse than that.

So yes, I lost an election. But I didn’t lose my soul. There’s a big difference. We ask service members to die on literal hills in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Couldn’t we ask for a politician or two to die a figurative death on Capitol Hill? It’s not the worst thing that can happen to you. You led. You got shot in the back — that’s typically where it comes from, when you step up and start leading. But you were leading. You did what you were supposed to do. Go ahead and risk your seat. Lead. Just don’t end up with that terrible thing: a long career, and nothing to show for it.

Q: Standing here in 2026, do you feel the United States is beginning to choose the path of meeting this challenge?

I think we are going to choose the path of meeting this competition and leading this energy revolution. There are forces arrayed against that — vested interests that would like us to double down on burning rocks. But I think we’re going to figure out that it just isn’t working for us anymore.

The buggy whip manufacturers organized against Henry Ford and the Model T, and they had good points — his cars were catching fire, the tires were blowing out, the horses were rearing up. People were getting hurt. But the car got better. Now here we are: “Oh, EVs don’t go far enough.” Well, the battery’s better now. The range is better. The charge time is faster. The price is coming down. Go check it out. That’s what’s going to happen to the people with the burning rocks: there’s a new competitor on the scene with a much better product, and consumers are going to choose it.

Hopefully we can accelerate that point of convergence, because while I believe it’s inevitable, getting there sooner means cleaner air sooner and healthier lives sooner.

Q: If you could speak directly to conservative voters who care about economic strength, national security, and the future their children will inherit — what would you want them to understand?

If I could expand that question slightly — I’ve got something to say to both my right-of-center friends and to left-of-center people who might be listening.

To the right-of-center folks: this is an incredible opportunity, and we don’t want to miss out on it. If you had invested in Ford Motor Company when Henry Ford rolled out that first Model T, you would have done very well. If we can invest early in this new energy system and win this competition for the future, we’re going to do really well. That’s the case I’d make.

To the left-of-center folks, I’d say this: don’t treat this as too good a crisis to waste. The instinct to load the wagon — to attach every cause to climate legislation — is understandable, but that wagon is sinking in the muck. If you could just take some weight off, and pull it across the finish line with a simple price on carbon, paired with a reduction in other taxes, applied to imports at our borders — we might actually get there. But if you load it with everything else, it’s not happening.

Just implore left-of-center folks to reach out and find a way to make this work right of center. If we do, we can bring America together and lead the world. That’s the ultimate objective. That’s what’s possible.

The post The Conservative Case For Climate Action: 22 Minutes With Bob Inglis appeared first on Earth Day.

During the December 2024 Climate Hearings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, the Pacific Island states took center stage. Concerned about the existential threat of sea level rise that they are currently facing, the Pacific Island states urged the Court to incorporate climate justice into the international legal framework. The Court’s response was groundbreaking. 

For the first time, the Court ruled that not only are greenhouse gas (GHG) emitting states responsible for their emissions, but crucially for the Pacific Island states, it also advised that island states will continue to legally exist even if climate change results in their entire territory being swallowed by the ocean. How this will be implemented in practice, is a conundrum that was left to the Pacific Islands themselves to work out.

Regardless of whether or not GHG emissions are brought under control, NASA estimates that Pacific Island states will face at least 15 centimeters of sea level rise in the next three decades. Confronted with this unavoidable threat, these nations have begun proposing a range of solutions to safeguard their long-term survival. 

Tuvalu: The Last Generation of Islanders

Tuvalu, a low-lying island nation in the South Pacific Ocean, is among the most vulnerable countries in the world to sea-level rise. In a matter of decades, Tuvalu will be underwater. For up to three thousand years, the Tuvalu islands nourished and sustained its people, but today, the last generation of Tuvaluan islanders living on Tuvalu’s soil may have already been born.

In response to rising sea levels, Tuvalu has started the process of recreating itself as a digital nation. This digital nation would be a way for the country to continue existing politically and culturally even if its physical territory becomes uninhabitable. This concept may sound dystopian, but Tuvalu has already begun digitally recreating its islands to preserve its landscapes, heritage, and identity for future generations who may no longer be able to live on Tuvaluan soil. By establishing a digital nation, Tuvalu hopes to maintain government functions, protect its sovereignty, and stay connected with the Tuvaluan diaspora, no matter where its people ultimately resettle.

Regardless of whether Tuvalu is able to successfully recreate itself in the digital world, their loss will be immense. The digital world cannot recreate the feeling of the sun on your face, the comfort of walking down the streets you have known since childhood, or sense of continuity from wandering the same halls of the local school your parents attended.  A digital Tuvalu might be able to connect its people all around the world, but the climate change induced sea level that swallowed their country will still constitute an injustice of historic proportions.  

Kiribati: Fleeing Rising Oceans 

Kiribati is a collection of 32 atolls, and one raised coral island spread across the central Pacific Ocean, straddling the equator and stretching over an area roughly the size of the continental United States. Most of this island nation is less than three meters above sea level and all of its islands are below four meters. The low-lying nature of these islands means that there is no higher ground to flee to when sea water levels rise. 

In response to this, Kiribati is promoting a policy of “migration with dignity” as a part of a nation-wide relocation strategy. Migration with dignity is a policy that encourages I-Kiribati to move abroad for educational and job opportunities, in hopes that they will support other Kiribati migrants in the future as well as send remittances back home. The policy is an attempt to change the narrative of climate movement, and allow I-Kiribati to avoid the label of climate refugees, and instead retain autonomy and choose to leave for educational opportunities and a secure future away from their low-lying atoll homes. 

Climate change and sea level rise not only threatens Kiribati’s habitable land, but is devastating for local agriculture as well. Drought and saltwater intrusion have degraded freshwater supplies, making safe drinking water harder to access. Compromised water systems increase the risk of waterborne diseases. Plus, with limited arable land, most food must now be imported and is often highly processed, contributing to rising rates of noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes.

In an effort to preserve the presence of the population in the Pacific Islands, the Kiribati government has purchased a 5,460-acre parcel of land on Vanua Levu, Fiji’s second-largest island from the Fiji government. The land is intended both to help grow food for Kiribati and to serve as a potential refuge if rising seas make the atolls of Kiribati uninhabitable.

Fiji: 100 Days of Flooding

Around 1,000 B.C., the first Austronesians settled on Fiji. The archipelagic country, consisting of over 332 islands in the South Pacific, recognizes that it will be able to manage losses associated with sea level rise, but won’t be able to avoid them entirely. In this way, they are significantly better off than countries such as Tuvalu and Kiribati, but Fiji will still experience the devastating impacts of global warming. According to NASA, Fiji is likely to experience 100 days of flooding annually by the end of the century.

As Fiji faces different challenges than Tuvalu and Kiribati, they have also taken a different approach to adaptation. The least costly approach to climate change adaptation for Fiji is to move their populations from the coast and resettle them in parts of the island that are less likely to be flooded in the short-term. However, as of 2024, 90% of Fiji’s population live in coastal regions, and 50,696 people live less than 1 meter above sea level. This means that not only are relocation policies costly, but they will also affect the majority of Fiji’s population.  

Although Fiji is able to move its population to higher grounds, this is not the be-all and end-all solution for the climate-related challenges it currently faces. For example, because of the changing precipitation patterns and rising temperatures, Fijians face an increased risk of contracting dengue fever, heat illness and mortality, and flooding. 

Who is responsible?

The Pacific Island states, Tuvalu, Fiji, and Kiribati included, have contributed an estimated 0.03% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Despite this, they are disproportionately suffering the effects of climate change, to the extent that they may one day cease to exist. 

For the Pacific Islanders living in thesepre-apocalyptic times, the question of who isresponsible for climate change and who should take responsibility for paying for damages is central. For years, the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC) fought to seek this answer, and this year, they successfully urged the International Court of Justice to deliver an opinion. 

With the Court’s ruling that emittersare responsible for the damage caused by GHG emissions, there is hope for justice for these islands, and hope that high emitting states will finally be able to be held accountable to international law. While it may be too late to stop the 15 centimeters of sea level rise in the next 30 years as predicted by NASA, we must keep fighting for those living in the world’s most vulnerable countries.

As we come together all over the world to fight climate change, consider joining EARTHDAY.ORG’s Climate Education Coalition initiative focused on equipping future generations and youth leaders with the skills and knowledge they need to tackle the challenges of climate change. Why not become an EARTHDAY.ORG supporter, Sign Up and receive our free newsletters. Take Action – and sign our petitions to make your voice heard across a range of environmental issues. Help us plant more trees by backing the Canopy Tree Project. Don’t be shy about getting involved, every action, big or small is a step in the right direction.

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We all seem to have that one relative who (loudly) denies climate change at the dinner table — the one who points to snow on the ground in November to disprove global warming, calls climate change an international hoax, or insists climate change is part of “the natural planetary cycles.”

Sigh.

It may seem futile to argue with these family members — you could say anything to them, read them every landmark climate report backed by scientists, and they still won’t change their minds.

But engaging in this sort of respectful discourse with nay-saying climate deniers — even if your uncle blindly disputes every point you make — is a step in the right direction. Our job as environmental activists (or even just someone who cares about our collective future) is to squelch anti-science rhetoric as we encounter it. To not do so could mean backpedaling on so much of the progress that scientific research has advanced.

… Or maybe you’re just in the mood to argue. Whatever inspires you to myth-bust this holiday season, here are six ways to respond to your family’s climate-denying comments. In the most respectful, loving way, of course:

1. Uncle Frank says, “Climate change is natural and normal — we’ve seen fluctuations throughout history.”

The Earth has been through a lot in the last 4.5 billion years. And yes, high levels of carbon dioxide have been released naturally in the Earth’s history. Scientists believe that mass extinctions millions of years ago may be attributed to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide, long before humans were around to burn ridiculous amounts of fossil fuels.

What we’re experiencing with climate change today, however, is far different than any warming or cooling humanity has seen — in rate and in scale. Our present climate change is occurring at an unprecedented rate.

That some of the world’s mass extinctions may have been tied to CO2 shouldn’t be a relief, though; it should be a wakeup call. Unlike in the past, we are the ones doing the damage (through the out-of-control burning of fossil fuels), not the Earth.

The good news is it’s entirely within our control to phase out fossil fuels and avoid the most devastating impacts of unchecked climate change. We don’t have to be dinosaurs, and we definitely should stop burning them.

2. When your cousin Wilma says, “Scientists can’t even agree that climate change is happening.”

Well, actually… 97 percent of scientists agree that climate change is happening and that humans are the primary cause.

To put this into perspective, in 2020, NASA climate scientist Kate Marvel stated that we are more sure that humans are causing climate change than we are that smoking causes cancer.

Perhaps you’re thinking of indecisive politicians, many of whom are backed by the fossil fuel industry. Maybe that’s why leaders are still dragging their feet when it comes to climate action — or worse, vocally denying its existence in the face of rigorous scientific report, after report, after report.

The truth is politicians have known about human-made climate change since the 1960s and fossil fuel companies have known about it since the 1950s. But leaders in the highest-emitting countries are doing next to nothing to slow climate change, let alone stop it.

3. Grandpa says, “It’s so cold outside. Sure could use some of that global warming.”

Weather and climate are two different things. Weather fluctuates from day to day, while climate is defined by long-term trends and weather averages.

So, just because it’s cold right now doesn’t mean global warming isn’t happening. The last ten years have been the warmest ten years on record, and that’s counting the bitter polar vortexes that have driven Arctic air down across North America during that period. It’s only getting worse! NOAA announced this January that the summer of 2024 was the hottest summer on record and that this August was the third warmest summer in the US in the 131 year record. 

The Earth is on track to warm a predicted 1.5 degrees Celsius in the next five years, but winter’s not going to disappear altogether in many parts of the world. Record low temperatures will just become rarer.

And while you might not lose your winter altogether, unchecked climate change will bring other major weather shifts, in the form of extreme weather events like drought, wildfire, and hurricanes that will become more frequent and more intense in our warming world.

So, bundle up and brace yourself for the extreme weather climate change brings — including the intense cold.

4. Your mom says, “Plants and animals will adapt to the changes.” (Mom, stop embarrassing me!)

Scientists believe that current climate change is occurring too rapidly to allow for species to adapt. And this is about more than the pictures of starving polar bears you see on Facebook (sorry, Mom).

Climate change threatens 35% of animals and plants with extinction in the wild by 2050. At this point, with climate change not even at its fullest force, an estimated one million species are at risk of extinction. In 2023, estimates showed that two dozen species go extinct every day.

This is because climate change is compounding the effects of other already-existing detrimental human activities like overfishing and deforestation.

A U.N. report published in 2019 ranked the top five direct drivers of the disappearance of species. Climate change was third, behind changes in land and sea use and overexploitation of organisms (all human-caused).Currently, species are going extinct at 1,000-10,000 times the natural rate of extinction. That means we could lose 35 percent of the total species found on Earth by mid-century. Can you pass the cranberry sauce?

5. Uncle Frank is back at it: “Climate change is a good thing.“

Hold my eggnog.

For many reasons — economic, environmental, physiological — climate change will have a net negative impact on the world. Research even shows we’ve significantly underestimated the severity of climate change related destruction and the subsequent financial.

 In our warming world, global economic output is expected to decrease by up to 85 percent by 2100 under the 2 degree celsius climate change scenario. In estimates from 2021, the United States economy stands to lose seven percent of potential output, with poorer nations like the Philippines and Thailand predicted to see economic growth drop by 20 percent by 2050.

But enough with the economic hypotheticals. We’re already seeing how dangerous climate change is to plants and animals as well as humans.

Higher temperatures have increased heat-related deaths. Nearly 62,000 heat-related deaths were recorded in Europe during the summer of 2022. Higher temperatures also worsen air quality, and in 2021, higher temperatures were connected to increases in some violent crimes.

But what’s just as scary are the statistics on natural disasters: Hurricanes are reaching new extremes — with the proportion of categories 4 and 5 expected to increase because of climate change. Wildfires, too, are claiming larger burn areas and increasing in intensity.

What’s so great about that?

6. Your stepdad says, “It won’t affect me or anyone I know.”

Climate impacts are already here and now, and they will only get worse if we continue to do nothing. Climate change affects individuals disproportionately, hurting the poorest and most vulnerable communities worse than others, so you may just be feeling a buffer from your comparative privilege.

Environmental justice recognizes that climate change isn’t just a physical problem — it’s an ethical one, too. The individuals and communities who will be most affected by climate change are the ones contributing the least to it.

But this is also a generational issue — you may not have to bear the brunt of our collective inaction on climate change, but let’s try to have some empathy for future generations (even if you don’t understand TikTok or selfies).

Your great grandchildren — who are currently on track to inherit a world 2.7 degrees warmer than yours and feel its effects at every stage of their life — will have to clean up the mess your generation made in their fight for survival. They’ll grow up in a world with more air pollution, more vector-borne diseases, and more extreme weather events to deal with.

The future of humanity is on the line

In conclusion, you can’t choose your family, but you can try to change their mindsets on climate change. Some of these arguments may stick; some may go in one ear and out the other.

These conversations aren’t easy, but we should try to engage in them when we can. After all, the future of humanity is on the line.

Perhaps if you convince them, your newly informed, ex-climate-denying relatives will even take action for Earth Day in 2025. That action — whether it’s participating in a cleanup, having a plant-based meal, or attending a teach-in — can help put us on a course to a greener, more sustainable future.

And if that happens, you’ll definitely have something interesting to talk about next holiday.

This blog was originally published on November 25, 2019 and updated on December 25, 2025.

The post 6 Arguments to Refute Your Climate-Denying Relatives This Holiday appeared first on Earth Day.

1.5 degrees Celsius isn’t just a number. It has become a symbol of the climate fight. For years, world governments, environmental activist groups, and figures like Greta Thunberg and Leonardo DiCaprio have spotlighted 1.5 degrees as a critical threshold. Stay below it (compared to pre-industrial levels) and the planet fares far better; exceed it, and the consequences worsen. Over time, 1.5 °C has come to represent not just a target, but the urgency, struggle, and collective effort driving the movement to protect our collective future.

Its repeated use has given it an almost symbolic quality — rather than being a goal of the climate fight, it represents the fight itself, and the urgency behind it.

The United Nations’ Environment Programme announced last month that we will overshoot this number, The United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres, describes it as a “moral failure,” and urges world leaders to “lead,” or, “be led to ruin.”  So, what does all of this mean? It’s time to decode 1.5 degrees Celsius.

One Number, Different Meanings

Due to its ubiquitousness nowadays, you may not know that small island nations first advanced the “below 1.5 °C” goal. Most nations agreed that limiting world temperatures between 1-2 °C above pre-industrial levels was fitting. But small island nations adopted the phrase “1.5 to stay alive”, to highlight the disproportionate dangers their states would face if level reached 2 °C, compared to the rest of the world. 

In 2015, 195 nations signed the Paris Climate Agreement to keep global temperatures “well below” a 2 °C increase, and, hopefully, limit it to 1.5 °C.  Since then, it’s come to define the environmental movement. 

As research exposed the dangers of a 2 °C world, nations pledged action to stay below this threshold. Even now, activists cling to it, not just as a goal, but as a beacon of hope. To abandon it entirely would feel like admitting defeat, risk shaking public faith in the fight for our planet and studies suggest, demotivate people.

In May, Extinction Rebellion activists held a “funeral” for the Earth, which included blood-red outfits and a symbolic casket. They made speeches about how politicians had failed to keep Earth at “livable” temperatures. At first glance, it seems contradictory, if the Earth is already dying, why act? But the spectacle makes the point: recognizing the crisis doesn’t mean giving up; it’s exactly why we must fight harder.

Lots of Room to Improve…Don’t Give Up

That’s why it’s important to realize that 1.5 °C is not an absolute threshold. We have been experiencing climate-related natural disasters for years, even though we only met this 1.5 threshold this year. 

What is true though is that a permanent 1.5 °C increase would have alarming consequences for the planet.  In estimates from 2021, in terms of biodiversity, by 2100, 70-90% of coral reefs will likely perish, and 14% of the world’s species will be at risk of extinction. And in terms of environmental changes, sea levels will rise by roughly 0.26 to 0.77 meters (0.85 to 2.52 feet) by 2100, exposing 31 to 69 million people to dangerous floods, while 950 million people will also experience water and heat stress. It will also make intense natural disasters — including heatwaves, droughts, and wildfires — much more common.

But a temperature increase of 2 °C would be significantly worse. At 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, 14% of people would experience heat waves at least once every five years, but at 2 °C, it increases to 37% of people. By 2100, at  2 °C, the percentages of insects, plants, and vertebrates that would lose half of their habitats would double or triple, and sea levels would rise by up to 0.87 meters, or 2.85 feet.   

It may seem odd that just a half degree difference results in this much difference but every 0.1 °C change above present levels could leave 140 millions people vulnerable to dangerous heat and increase local area temperatures and precipitation levels.   This means we can’t stop fighting because 1.5 °C is over, or because 2 °C seems far away — because every change, positive or negative, matters. 

So, What Now?

The most important thing to remember is that passing 1.5 °C doesn’t mean we stop caring or acting. In fact, environmental activism matters more now, than it ever has. So get involved! 

Join EARTHDAY.ORG’s Climate Education Coalition initiative focused on equipping future generations and youth leaders with the skills and knowledge they need to tackle the challenges of climate change. Or become an EARTHDAY.ORG supporter and Sign Up to receive our free newsletters. Take Action – and sign our petitions to make your voice heard across a range of environmental issues.  Help us plant more trees by backing the Canopy Tree Project. Don’t be shy about getting involved, every action, big or small is a step in the right direction.

This article is available for republishing on your website, newsletter, magazine, newspaper, or blog. The accompanying imagery is cleared for use with attribution. Please ensure that the author’s name and their affiliation with EARTHDAY.ORG are credited. Kindly inform us if you republish so we can acknowledge, tag, or repost your content. You may notify us via email at davies@earthday.org or fielder@earthday.org. Want more articles? Follow us on substack.

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People who don’t understand science seem to have come up with a host of reasons not to save the planet we all depend on, many of which seem a little absurd. But maybe their purses and pocketbooks should do the talking because climate change is making life less affordable.  

1. Energy Bills Are On the Rise and We All Know It

Energy bills have risen sharply in the U.S in a short period, up an average of 5.5% compared to last year, and natural gas is up ~13.8%.  Several factors are contributing to this, including the war in Ukraine, rising energy demand from AI data centers, and newly introduced tariffs. 

But underlying these spikes is a deeper problem: the U.S. electric grid—and the way bills are calculated—was never designed to handle climate-related stresses. Extreme heat, storms, and aging infrastructure now strain the system, forcing higher costs onto consumers. Europe and Asia face similar pressures, as growing demand collides with limited supply, highlighting the urgent need to modernize grids and invest in resilient, sustainable energy sources.

Similar challenges are occurring in Europe and Asia, where rising demand and constrained supply are pushing prices higher. In Germany, for example, a recent study projected that as mobile A/C adoption increases under future heatwave scenarios, peak load could jump significantly—potentially creating new stress points in the power grid. It is a self-fulfilling circle. 

What is more, extreme heat makes the electric grid more vulnerable as natural gas turbines are 25% less efficient in hot weather. In the U.S., utility companies are trying to cope by upgrading the grid.

2. Home Insurance If You Can Get It

The U.S. home insurance market is being reshaped by climate change. Between 2020 and 2023, homeowners’ insurance premiums rose by more than 30%, driven in part by the increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters. As a result home insurance companies are charging nearly everyone higher premiums to cover more claims for damaged or destroyed homes.

States at higher risk, such as California, Florida, and Louisiana, are seeing particularly sharp increases, Florida has seen massive spikes in premiums after storms like Hurricane Ian (2022) or Hurricane Ida (2021). While some insurers have withdrawn entirely from the riskiest areas.  

Countries like Australia, Japan, and parts of Europe are also seeing climate-driven insurance hikes. For example, according to a report by the Australia Institute, the average home insurance premium rose 14% between 2022 and 2023 — the biggest jump in a decade.

Regulatory differences also matter: states with weaker oversight, like Oklahoma, may see higher premiums as companies adjust to risk. 

Beyond climate, other factors—elevated interest rates, rising construction costs, and skilled labor shortages—also push prices higher. However, climate change remains a central driver, as insurers are forced to cover increasingly frequent claims for hurricanes, wildfires, floods, and other extreme events. 

3. Climate Change Impacts Human Health Costs

Climate change threatens human health in countless ways – natural disasters cost lives, from wildfires to flooding to extreme heat. Researchers from Imperial College London found that 2 out of 3 heat deaths in Europe this summer were directly linked to global warming. 

In hard numbers that equates to 16,500 deaths. 

It is not just extreme weather hurting us, climate change causes atmospheric pollution, such as raised levels of ground ozone and particulate matter which impact lung health.

Studies show that climate change will have enormous health-related costs globally. One study of 69 low and middle income countries, estimates that by 2050, climate-related health problem (like heat stress, infectious diseases, malnutrition) and deaths could cost $8.6–$20.8 trillion, with sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia hit hardest. 

In the U.S., extreme temperatures drive up both health insurance premiums and healthcare use. Heat‑event days are linked to roughly 235,000 extra emergency department visits and more than 56,000 additional hospital admissions each summer — adding about $1 billion in healthcare costs. There is even evidence that climate change might increase the likelihood of pandemics.

4. Groceries

Food prices are rising worldwide due to climate change. Extreme weather events like flooring, storms and extreme heat, are making it harder to grow crops and fruits.

This in turn is causing sudden, unpredictable leaps in prices for many types of food. For example, vegetable prices rose by 80% in California in November 2022, cabbage prices rose by 70% in South Korea in the summer of 2024, and rice jumped by 48% in Japan in September 2024, all due to extreme heat events. Studies suggest that for every degree the Earth warms, the world loses the ability to produce 120 calories of food, per person, per day.

Climate change and extreme weather can reduce food supply and raise prices, forcing low-income families to buy cheaper, less nutritious food. This can worsen health outcomes, causing a myriad of health problems, including heart disease, diabetes, and mental health conditions. Food scarcity also increases social stress and can contribute to inflation and unrest, could potentially influence political behavior.

5. Gas Prices Are Vulnerable

Oil is both unsustainable and nonrenewable. It forms from the remains of ancient plants and animals over millions of years, meaning the world is depleting oil far faster than it can ever be replaced. Because our dependence on oil remains high, shrinking supplies eventually push  prices upward.

Climate change makes this volatility worse. In the U.S., for example, hurricanes—made more intense by warming oceans—can force refineries to shut down, sending gas prices soaring within hours. Extreme heat also disrupts refinery operations by reducing efficiency, limiting how much gasoline can be produced and raising  prices on the smaller output.

Extreme heat—another consequence of climate change—reduces refinery efficiency, limiting how much gasoline (petrol) they can produce. With less output, prices rise. And the longer we rely on oil without investing in alternative energy sources, the more frequent and severe these disruptions will become.

6. Water

Climate change increases the chances of drought in many parts of the world,  leading not only to water contamination but also contributing to higher prices. In America, water and sewer bills rose by 50% from 2013-2023, in part due to climate change harming water infrastructure, and partly as a result of city councils trying to “encourage water conservation” due to droughts.

Likewise, a recent study in England found that, while prices have been intentionally suppressed for several years, this will become increasingly impossible to maintain in the future. To modernize aging infrastructure and deal with population growth, UK households will have to start paying around 30% more between now and 2030 for their water supply. 

Changes in water availability are also projected to decrease hydroelectric power generation up to 23% by 2050. This too may increase electric bills.  Additionally, rising water costs may impact food production and again harm human health. The impacts of climate change are clearly having a compounding effect on our health and over all affordability.

If this incentivizes you to make pro-planet choices – check out our EARTHDAY.ORG 2025 theme, OUR POWER, OUR PLANET. We’re calling for the world to triple its renewable energy generation by 2030, and every person who petitions their government to transition to renewable energy is helping to secure a better and more affordable  future for us all. 

Sign the Renewable Energy Petition today.

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Have you ever asked Siri to tell you what the weather will be like later on in the day because you need to know if it is safe to plan a winter BBQ for your Mom’s surprise birthday party? Or to find the nearest grocery store selling that specific brand of vegan chicken nuggets that your kids love? Or to tell you in one sentence how Charles Darwin changed our understanding of the natural world?

Underneath your phone’s sleek, polished aluminum shell lies a world of information waiting to be explored, from the twisting jungles of Reddit and Tattle to the loneliest nooks of Google Scholar to the life and soul of the party that is Wikipedia. 

With the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), this world of information has just become even more complicated. AI has been heralded as a glorious future of amplified human innovation, a sort of digital demigod that one day soon, we will all come to rely on.

What Has This Got to Do With Environmentalism?

In the environmental sphere, one of the most urgent questions is how to weigh AI’s promise against its costs. Even as it devours water and electricity resources and often exploits workers in the Global South, some environmentalists believe the revolutionary technology can be used in the adaptation battle with climate change. 

November 6, 2025 marked the beginning of the 30th annual United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP30) summit in Belém, Pará, Brazil, bringing together world leaders, scientists, non-governmental organizations, and civil society from around the world to address climate priorities. 

Given COP30’s location in the Amazon, protecting the world’s forests will be central to discussions, highlighting their critical role in biodiversity conservation, carbon storage, and climate resilience. But this year’s other major agenda pillars include: transitioning energy and industry, stewarding biodiversity, transforming food systems, building climate resilience in urban areas, fostering human development, and leveraging cross-cutting accelerators like technology. One of these potential cross-cutting accelerators under examination is AI. 

The AI Climate Academy, is a pre-conference workshop that aims to “bring together decision-makers from multiple sectors for an intensive immersion into the responsible uses of artificial intelligence to address climate change”. The Academy will gather a diverse group of decision-makers, governments, philanthropic foundations, NGOs, the private sector, and academia, for an intensive immersion centered around the responsible usage of AI to address climate change

Their workshops are aimed at building technical capacity and supporting local innovation in developing countries, to equip individuals and institutions with the knowledge and ability to use AI for climate equity. The curriculum is focused on how AI can be applied ethically, effectively, and with the end goal of mitigating and adapting to the climate crisis. The group’s results will be presented during COP30.

Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of UN Climate Change, says that AI could boost efficiency and human capacity rather than replacing it.

Can AI Help Us Manage The Climate Crisis?

AI can help make talking about climate change easier. Each year, COP negotiators are expected to juggle 120+ agenda items, hundreds if not thousands of hours of talks, and over 100,000 pages of submissions. On top of that, they must handle disagreements and conflicting priorities within their own teams or countries.

To combat this, Brazil’s COP30 Digital Support Project features Macaozinho, an AI assistant trained on thousands of UNFCCC documents and designed to provide reliable, science-based information without bias or misinformation.

AI can also help tackle the climate crisis by making extreme weather and disaster warnings faster, more accurate, and easier to understand, potentially saving lives and livelihoods in the process. Examples show how AI improves predictions not only about upcoming weather, but also about who and what will be most at risk. AI technology is playing a critical role in gathering and analyzing data to predict vulnerability and exposure risks, which may be especially important for data-scarce regions. 

AI models aren’t perfect. Sometimes they can miss important details about specific communities or situations, even misinterpret or overlook case-specific nuances. For example, a flood prediction system might rely mostly on satellite data and assume that all neighborhoods have the same resources or vulnerabilities. 

In reality, low-income or marginalized communities may live in areas more prone to flooding or lack the means to evacuate quickly. If AI ignores these differences, emergency responses could fail, either by neglecting these vulnerable groups or by over-allocating resources to areas that aren’t actually at the highest risk. This shows that AI needs careful design, local knowledge, and human oversight to make sure warnings and aid reach the people who need them most.

Challenges & Debates

But AI comes with environmental costs. It is well known that AI sucks up water and electric resources. In 2023, U.S. data centers used 17 billion gallons of water for cooling. That number is projected to increase to 34-68 billion gallons annually by 2028. 

For local communities, heavy use of water by AI data centers can put pressure on local utilities. This can lead to higher utility bills for residents and less water available for everyday needs. Some companies, like Microsoft, are starting to use zero-water cooling systems that don’t drain local water supplies. But most companies still rely on traditional methods that use a lot of water, which can strain communities while supporting AI development.

Besides water, a University of Massachusetts Amherst study found that training a single AI model can emit 284,000+ kgs of CO2 — the equivalent lifetime CO2 emissions of five average American cars. 

Workers are also facing serious challenges. In many parts of the Global South, people employed by AI tech companies spend long hours cleaning up algorithms and filtering harmful or obscene content—for wages that are often extremely low. Investigative reporters who visited these so-called “digital sweatshops” found workers earning as little as $1.46 an hour, while dealing with disturbing material day after day. 

Content moderators are exposed to violent texts, images, and videos, which can take a heavy toll on their mental health, leading to depression, anxiety, or even strains on personal relationships.

Countries in the Global North, like Germany, the U.S., and the U.K. lead the AI readiness rankings and reap most of the benefits, the Global South often falls behind. The high costs of AI development—including labor exploitation and heavy use of environmental resources—are largely borne by the Global South, while the Global North enjoys the rewards. This unequal distribution of benefits and burdens is increasingly being described as AI colonialism.

What Can We Do?

We must think critically about the use of AI in our own lives. Though you may not sit among the COP30 delegates, you can still speak up. Most digital data centers continue to rely on fossil fuel instead of renewable energy. Make your voice heard and tell your lawmakers #RenewableEnergyNow. 

If you’d like to learn more about AI and climate change, check out “The Double-Edged Sword of AI and the Battle Against Climate Misinformation.

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When he first saw footage of Hurricane Melissa striking the island of Jamaica on October 28, 2025, Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher, remarked that it “looks like it doesn’t even know [the island] is there.” 

The storm simply swept through, oblivious to the land, forests, buildings, homes, and people in its path — even as it destroyed them. Before-and-after satellite imagery paints an alarming picture of how the storm decimated the land. Where there were once tall, lush trees and clearly defined city blocks, we now see far-flung debris, in muted colors, lacking the same spirit.

Melissa was the strongest hurricane in modern history to hit the Caribbean islands, and, as it struck Jamaica, it was a Category 5, the most dangerous ranking on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale which classifies hurricanes based on maximum sustained wind speed and potential property damage. It has since slowed down, and become a Category 2. 

To date, 49 people have been confirmed dead in Jamaica, Haiti, and Cuba, while 735,000 Cubans and 28,000 Jamaicans were ordered to leave their homes. 

Melissa’s destruction was witnessed globally, with many describing the damage as  “shocking” or “unimaginable”. However, climate experts highlight rising global temperatures are creating ideal conditions for more intense hurricanes to form. The true tragedy isn’t the storm’s surprise but our ongoing dangerous ignorance of the increasing likelihood of more shocking and unimaginable storms to come.

Boiling Waters

In the scientific community, it’s well-established that climate change intensifies natural disasters. Hurricanes in particular draw energy from warm waters, so as global temperatures rise, it becomes more likely that a given storm will have higher wind speeds and levels of rainfall. Studies show that climate change intensified Hurricane Helene, which struck Florida in September of 2024, by increasing its wind speed by 13 miles per hour and its rainfall by 10-50%.  That same year, Hurricane Milton formed due to “unusually warm sea surface temperatures…[which] were made up to 400 to 800 times more likely by climate change.”

But the general public might not recognize these dangers. In Great Britain, most people support net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, but half “rarely” or “never” talk about it publicly.  In America, people often try to normalize the abnormally destructive power of recent extreme weather events and disasters — not always out of malice, but often out of fear. This means that after the extreme flooding in Texas’s Hill Country in July 2025, which caused catastrophic damage and loss of life, many residents and locals said things like “[they] get flooding all the time.” 

This response often comes not from indifference but from fear and a coping mechanism of normalizing repeated disasters. Despite the severity, such attitudes can make it harder to push urgent climate action, especially as similar patterns of hesitation or regression appear in other countries like Canada and Mexico.

But denial won’t change the fact that what’s happening to our climate isn’t normal. In the past, a hurricane as exceptionally powerful as Melissa would have only happened once every 8,000 years, but climate change has made it four times more likely.  In addition, as it moved through the Atlantic Ocean before hitting Jamaica, it went through two spikes in wind speed and intensity caused by abnormally warm ocean waters. And these conditions will create more monstrous hurricanes in the future if nothing is done.

The Human Impact

As of Friday, November 7, around 45% of Jamaicans across 77% of Jamaica did not have electricity due to the hurricane’s impact on national power lines.

In Massachusetts, Delroy Allen, a high school tennis coach, was unable to contact his family in the country in the aftermath of the hurricane. He’s seen pictures of devastation from his hometown, but can’t reach his family to find doubt if they are safe. A Jamaican chef in Atlanta also feared for his sixteen-year-old daughter after he saw photos of St. Elizabeth, the parish most directly affected by the hurricane, where most homes no longer have a roof. Richard Solomon — the mayor of Black River, a town described as “ground zero” for Hurricane Melissa — struggles with losing both his car and roof to flooding.

Because of stories like this, and the widespread images of Hurricane Melissa’s impact on social media, many individuals, NGOs, and nations have offered their support. The Red Cross is providing shelter, and its Restoring Family Links program can help separated relatives find each other (family members can call 1-844-782-9441, or talk to a member of a Red Cross shelter, to do this). Additionally, Great Britain is giving 2.5 million pounds, and the United States is sending teams to provide direct aid (though, because the current administration shut down the agency that normally coordinated aid, USAID, it may not be as effective). 

Stafford Geohagan, a Brixton restaurateur with family in Jamaica, believes that after Jamaica has wired to save its citizens in immediate peril, and has time to assess the full extent of the hurricane’s impact, the country will “rise up” from this crisis — more united.

Talking About Disaster

But this raises a question – how should we talk about disaster? On the one hand, it’s completely understandable that the leader of a country wants his people to feel hopeful. On the other hand, this notion of “rebuilding” feels at odds with the reality that Jamaica, as a low-lying island, is vulnerable to more climate-related disasters that will continue to occur as it recovers from this one. 

According to Dr. Michael Taylor, a professor of climate science at the University of the West Indies, one reason why Jamaica mobilized so well to prepare for Hurricane Melissa was because of its history with hurricanes — specifically, he mentions Hurricane Beryl, a Category 4 hurricane that struck last year, killed four people, and cut off access to drinkable water for 1 in 5 people.

It may be hard for anyone to talk about this as a pattern, when everyone — in or outside Jamaica, or the other affected Caribbean nations — right now needs to believe in recovery. 

While some heavily industrialized countries are helping Jamaica, their high greenhouse gas emissions, GHG,  means they are some of the same counties most at fault for causing climate change and by default the rise in ever more powerful hurricanes.  

What we have to do now is find ways of having meaningful conversations about how we can all work together to mitigate GHG emissions and slow climate change down.  With COP30 just kicking off in Belém, Brazil – there has never been a more urgent and critical time to do it.  What the world needs now, especially island nations like Jamaica, is meaningful action not just more talking.

A crucial part of fighting climate change is shifting away from fossil fuels toward clean, renewable energy like solar and wind, which produce far fewer greenhouse gases. EARTHDAY.ORG, EDO,  is committed to supporting and amplifying the growth of these cleaner energy sources.  Which is why EDO designated 2025’s Earth Day theme as OUR POWER, OUR PLANET, to highlight the urgent need for renewable energy, calling for a goal of one-third of global electricity to come from renewables by 2030. You can support this movement by signing  the ‘Our Power, Our Plane’  petition for a cleaner, healthier future for us all.

This article is available for republishing on your website, newsletter, magazine, newspaper, or blog. The accompanying imagery is cleared for use with attribution. Please ensure that the author’s name and their affiliation with EARTHDAY.ORG are credited. Kindly inform us if you republish so we can acknowledge, tag, or repost your content. You may notify us via email at davies@earthday.org or fielder@earthday.org. Want more articles? Follow us on substack.

The post Hurricane Melissa Wasn’t a Surprise – It Was a Warning appeared first on Earth Day.

Zombies are a powerful symbol of the impacts of climate change, and the horrific things that happen to us and the planet when we betray nature. 

In the Resident Evil franchise, a corporation carelessly makes a disease that wipes out ecosystems and reanimates people, mirroring the way modern corporations damage the environment for profit.  In the satirical 2019 movie The Dead Don’t Die, “polar fracking” causes the dead to rise from their graves. And in HBO’s hit television series The Last of Us, the fungi that enslave humanity can only do so because rapidly warming climates help the fungi survive inside human hosts. 

While zombies might just be science fiction, not science fact, climate change is our reality, and it is reintroducing long-frozen pathogens back into the world.  Rising temperatures are causing the Arctic permafrost to melt and, in the process, releasing large amounts of greenhouse gases back into the environment. This is exacerbating global warming. 
But this is not the only frightening thing melting permafrost is triggering — because permafrost also contains disease-causing viruses, and, when it melts, these zombie viruses may “come back to life” and spread chaos.

Rising From The Ice  

Since they have been dormant for so long, literally frozen in the ice, we don’t have great immunity to them, and that makes them dangerous. Meaning they pose a grave threat to public health. The adaptive immune system, our body’s strongest line of defense, works by capturing pathogens we’ve already encountered, and developing specific antibodies for them. Since we haven’t encountered these viruses before, our immune systems will be vulnerable to them.

So, how much trouble are we in? In 2023, a study found thirteen zombie viruses in Siberian permafrost that could infect humans. Further investigation, through experiments on viruses that only infect amoebas, revealed that these “revived” viruses can still infect their hosts.  Scientists warn that the disappearance of Arctic sea ice may incentivize mining operations that would both enable more pathogens to wake up, and bring them into contact with people. 

Some zombie viruses have already infected both animals and people. Researchers have excavated human remains buried in permafrost, and found traces of smallpox and the Spanish flu, which they believe came from melted permafrost. In 2016, permafrost thawing caused anthrax-containing spores to resurface in Siberia, triggering an outbreak of the disease. It impacted fewer than a hundred people but killed one young boy.  It also infected the local reindeer population, infecting roughly 2,000, 

Worth Caution, But Not Alarmism

According to Think Global Health, “risk is always the combination of hazard and exposure,” and, because very few people live near the Arctic permafrost, the risk of a pandemic with these viruses is hopefully very low. Additionally, according to professor and researcher Dr. Jonathan Stoye, most of the diseases hidden in the permafrost are bacteria, which are much easier to kill than viruses because they can be killed by antibiotics. Viruses cannot. 

While the cold, oxygen-free environment of permafrost preserves most biological material, the “inherent instability” of most viral genomes makes it less likely that they will all survive their icy preservation and reactivate. Stoye states that the other climate-related impact of rising temperatures, such as changes to bird migration patterns and insect habitats, is likely far more dangerous because of how easily and widely these animals spread viruses.

All in all, the chances of a “zombie virus” pandemic remain low.  But as we saw with COVID-19, what is terrifying about viruses is how quickly they can spread if they are not quickly contained. 

Discovery Versus Prevention

Jean-Michael Claverie and Chantal Abergel, a husband and wife science team, who have spent their lives studying zombie viruses. Claverie’s interest was piqued when he read a study about a plant, frozen in permafrost, that had been regenerated. He wondered if the same thing could happen to a virus, and went on to pioneer research in the field.

 Now he worries that some scientists are trying to investigate and bring back to “life” mysterious permafrost-trapped viruses, like  a Russian team attempting to revive viruses that killed mammoths, which he warns is “stupid and dangerous.”  Although most scientific teams use strict protocols and procedures to protect them from virus contamination and disease, just one accident might be enough to cause a serious outbreak. 

He has repeatedly called for surveillance of Arctic areas, so that scientists can detect pandemic threats fast. Some efforts have been made to detect and track incidents of disease there, but progress is slow. The World Health Organization (WHO) tends to focus on diseases it already knows, and places where diseases are most likely to spread. So zombie viruses in the Arctic are not a priority. Additionally, Russia accounts for 53% of the Arctic coastline, but tends not to be less cooperative with scientists from other countries. 

Perhaps the best pseudo-zombie story for this situation might be Frankenstein, a story of human hubris in the face of the unknown. The novel opens and ends with Captain Walton’s letters from his voyage to the North Pole, where he encounters Victor Frankenstein and later the Creature. The Arctic serves as a stark, isolating backdrop that mirrors the novel’s themes of ambition, discovery, and the dangerous pursuit of knowledge. But just as the Arctic explorer in the novel turns away from glory to save his crew, we can all still make the right choice, and leave nature alone. 

If learning about this was enjoyable for you, or spooked you, or both, consider supporting our CLIMATE EDUCATION project. While unknown things, like these viruses, may be scary, learning can transform them into something fascinating and fun, and prepare us to be brave. 

We provide resources for educators at all levels, around the world, to learn about why keeping our planet is so important. With your support, we turn the dark, scary unknowns into stories, and lessons, that guide us to a brighter future!

This article is available for republishing on your website, newsletter, magazine, newspaper, or blog. The accompanying imagery is cleared for use with attribution. Please ensure that the author’s name and their affiliation with EARTHDAY.ORG are credited. Kindly inform us if you republish so we can acknowledge, tag, or repost your content. You may notify us via email at davies@earthday.org or fielder@earthday.org. Want more articles? Follow us on substack.

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It’s Halloween, which means costumes, candy, and scary movies. Fear turns to fun on October 31 because Halloween lets us seek scary thrills that can’t hurt us. When we feel like threats are closing in on us and things are getting truly scary, we just turn off the TV and turn on the lights. But there is one terror that we can’t escape, no matter the time of year.

We’re talking about climate change! Here are five of the scariest, most bone-chilling facts about climate change to get you in the mood for terror this season (and hopefully also scare you and your fellow trick-or-treaters into action to address it).

1. Within the next 2 decades, global temperatures are likely to reach 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

In its highly-anticipated Sixth Report in 2021, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated that a certain amount of global warming is locked in and is irreversible. They reported that from 2011–2020, the global temperature had already reached 1.1 degrees Celsius above 1850-1900 levels. 

In 2024, global temperatures rose above 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels for the first time, and if this trend persists, we will have failed to reach our climate goals established under the Paris Agreement. As climate change becomes more severe, it is predicted to increase the frequency of “fire weather”, kill 70-90% of coral reefs at 1.5 degrees Celsius warming, and raise our sea levels globally by .3 meters above 2000s level.

Scientists estimate that we are on track to reach the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold by 2030 and reach the “tipping point” for climate change. Although the 1.5 degree threshold is considered by the signatories of the Paris Agreement as an acceptable level of global warming, every “extra bit of warming increases the severity of many weather extremes, ice melt and sea-level rise.” Yet, little has changed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It’s like the movie Don’t Look Up; we know what’s happening but we aren’t doing enough to change the outcome.

In 2019, global carbon emissions from fossil fuels and industry reached a high of 36.44 billion metric tons. In 2020, emissions from fossil fuels and industry fell by 5.8 percent due to COVID-19 and the resulting economic crisis. Despite that year’s reverse trend, however, 2022 emissions were back up to 36.8 billion metric tons. In the latest estimates from 2024, fossil fuel and industry emissions reached a new record high of 37.41 billion metric tons of CO2.

Four years later, Professor Forster’s eerie words still hold true.

2. The last 7 years have been the warmest on record

In 2023, NASA announced that the summer of 2023 was the hottest summer on record globally, surpassing the intense heat experienced in 2016. One year later, 2024 is confirmed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) as the hottest year on record. 

And not only is food security severely at risk because of climate change, but our human security is as well. With temperatures rising due to climate change comes the risk of heat stress, the leading cause of weather-related deaths. 

As we enter the spooky season, the Washington Post reports that it will be an unseasonably hot one in the US. As a marine heatwave amplified by long-term global warming sweeps across the US, we are likely to experience temperatures above seasonal averages, with the Ohio Valley, Appalachians and Northeast predicted to experience 10 to 20 degree deviations.

 “Whether one year is a record or not is not really that important — the important things are long-term trends,” said Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) Director Gavin Schmidt. The current long-term trend is that each year is getting hotter and hotter. 

Are you scared for our future, yet? Well get ready, because it’s going to get even scarier.

3. Our extinction rate is currently estimated to be 1,000-10,000 times the natural rate.

Imagine dressing up as a frog for Halloween and having to explain to younger generations what a frog was and why it’s gone. Currently it is estimated that  41%  of all amphibians species are at risk of extinction due to climate change — so this could be a reality if we don’t act soon.

Extinction is a natural phenomenon, claiming about five species per year. But some experts suggest we’re in the midst of the sixth mass extinction — one that is caused mostly by human activity.

According to a 2023 report, 48% of species are declining and on their way to extinction. It also revealed that the 33% of species listed as non-threatened by the IUCN Red-List are actually decreasing. By mid-century, over one third of the total species found on Earth are predicted to disappear because our extinction rate is currently 1,000 to 10,000 times the natural rate. In 2024, 21 species were declared extinct by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which tragically included the beloved Bachman’s Warbler.

Allowing this to continue is “a crime equivalent to tossing books from the Library of Alexandria thoughtlessly into a fire, erasing the shared inheritance of all mankind,” according to the National Institute of Environmental Health Science in a review from 2009.

Species diversity is crucial for ecosystem resilience, and without it, ecological communities will not have the strength to withstand change — especially not the change we’re throwing at them.

4. Climate change is already happening, and it’s detrimental to human life, too

The impacts to human health are much scarier than any child-eating clown movie.

Rising temperatures — coupled with cities that lack the capacity to minimize the accumulation and generation of urban heat and the increasing population of elderly — have increased heat-related deaths, according to an article published in 2024 by the World Health Organization.

A 2018 report concluded that the lack of adaptive capacities and effort toward reducing emissions threatens human lives and the national health systems people rely on, by pushing services to their limit and disrupting core infrastructure. Vulnerable communities are already being hit first and worst.

But hyperthermia is not the only risk climate change brings to human life. Pollution worsens air quality, and as of 2021, has been reported to be responsible for 1 in 8 deaths worldwide. This makes air pollution the second leading risk factor for death worldwide. 

A warming world also increases the intensity of natural disasters.

According to NASA, extreme wildfire activity has more than doubled worldwide.  This year, California saw one of the most destructive wildfires in US history in terms of loss of life, structural damages, and acres lost. In 2024, an intense wildfire in Chile killed 136 people, making it the deadliest disaster in the country since the 2010 earthquake and tsunami. Not only are the fires themselves deadly, but the smoke they produce is as well. As of this year, smoke from wildfires in Canada and the American West are predicted to cause more than 40,000 premature deaths per year. This is more than all the fatalities from car crashes in 2024. 

Hurricanes are reaching new extremes, too. According to scientists, 84% of Atlantic hurricanes between 2018 and 2023 were, on average, 18 mph stronger because of climate change. It has become immensely more difficult to escape these storms unscathed, and it will only get harder in the future.

Have you noticed that the Halloween season doesn’t feel the same either? If we can’t wear a full costume without sweating then something is wrong, right?

That’s because climate change is shifting the seasons. Over the past five decades, the vegetation season has become lengthened by an average of one month. This means that spring arrives earlier, while fall is delayed. This not only affects Halloween, but it might affect your Christmas plans too! Because of this change in seasons, many popular ski destinations around the world are forced to make their own artificial snow to stay open.

This change in season not only makes dressing up in a full-body werewolf costume uncomfortable but also disrupts the natural interactions between species, their habitats, and their migration patterns. 

BOO!

5. Many leaders still aren’t taking it seriously.

The world has been aware of climate change at least since the IPCC formed in 1988. Scientists and the public rallied around environmental policy, but many global governments had a different idea.

They were going to ignore it.

Countries contributing the most to global emissions have the best chance of curbing climate change, but leaders are doing little to address it.

Although it has been seven years since the Paris Agreement entered into force, none of the world’s major economies are on track to keep global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

To outline steps to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build resilience to climate change, parties submit Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) every five years. February 10 was the deadline to submit updated NDCs, however, some countries failed to submit theirs, including many of the world’s major polluters. Although the US submitted their NDCs, they have since withdrawn from the Paris Climate agreement. Climate literacy is among the climate goals that have missed the mark. Climate literacy (as supported by an integrated K-12 curricula) is needed to prepare youth with an understanding of the climate crisis and skills to create solutions, yet not one country has thoroughly addressed it within its NDC.

Everyone may die at the end of horror movies, but we don’t have to.

We’re not in a Hollywood studio, helplessly in the hands of sadistic screenwriters. We can actively choose to change the ending of our story — and for that we should feel hopeful.

In 2019, younger generations took matters into their own hands and started striking for the climate. They skipped school completely to plead for an end to inaction toward climate change and demanding world leaders to undertake environmental reforms. A 2021 study revealed that 83% of people aged 16-25 feel that we have failed to take care of our planet and concluded that it is vital for governments to take “urgent” action against climate change. In June of this year, UNICEF described this eco-anxiety as “an emergent mental health problem.”

The next UN Conference of Parties (COP30) will be held this November. In this international meeting of heads of state and governments and stakeholders, countries will have an opportunity to heighten their ambition on climate change. 

After decades of inaction on climate change, we don’t have any more time to spare before it’s too late. Join the movement and add your voice to this urgent call for change. You can sign the Global Plastics Treaty petition, and spread the word to your friends! Or, you can donate to our Canopy Project, which organizes tree plantings all over the world, and take the effort not to buy clothes that promote Fast Fashion.

This Halloween we must face our fears. The human-made monster that is climate change won’t go anywhere if you just close your eyes or turn off the TV. Action and advocacy are the only way to flip the script — and not wind up like your favorite victim at the end of the horror film.

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