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Rolling Stone
Opinion

The Only Way to Fight the Climate Crisis Is at the Ballot Box

Saad Amer
5 min read
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Every time I hear “voting is your civic duty,” I cringe. As a climate activist and Get-Out-The-Vote organizer, I can’t help but feel our election system is disconnected from the reality of actual Americans. The platitudes traditional politics offer feel so oblivious to the constant political buffoonery people are expected to endure. Just look at the experience of being a young person in this country right now.

Across the United States, we see books being banned, as if this fascist-hallmark was a hobby. Children are told to hide in corners during shooting drills as they prepare for yet another massacre. Our youth are being mined for data that is owned by corporations who are interested in exploiting privacy for financial gain. New college grads are saddled with debt as they head straight into a housing crisis, and women who are able to vote for the first time have fewer rights over their body than when they were born.

Meanwhile, it doesn’t take a climate expert like myself to tell you that the climate crisis is only getting worse. Wildfires in Hawaii, floods across the Midwest, and intensifying storms across the East coast are becoming so common-place that we are no longer surprised by their devastation. Despite numerous international agreements, we still see the United States’ emissions rising, and according to our own government, it is doubling down as the world’s largest fossil gas producer.

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The response to this reality has, more often than not, been a series of thoughts-and-prayers style platitudes that ignore the core problems themselves. Attacks on our democracy have been consistent. Dozens of states have passed restrictive voting laws since 2020. Our current system is set up to abandon the young voters we need to get to the polls.

And yet, every time someone tells me, “This is the most important election of our lifetime,” for the hundredth vote in a row, I dart back with an eyeroll so deep I can see my brain.

This not the time to offer washed-up buzzwords that overlook reality. This is a pivotal time for the future of our democracy and we need to inspire voters on the issues they care most about. For me, that issue is climate justice. It’s why I am launching the Climate Movement for Democracy.

Over the past few years, I have seen climate change go from being perceived as a hoax to becoming a mainstay policy point. The relentless organizing of the climate movement and demand from the public made climate justice a central pillar to the Biden-Harris administration and to this election. I would have never thought that a voice like mine would be welcomed into the halls of the White House, let alone given their platform to speak. Over the past few years, the Biden administration created the White House Office of Environmental Justice and passed nearly $400 billion dollars for climate, the largest investment in climate, ever.

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These efforts have been revolutionary and valiant, but I would be lying if I didn’t acknowledge that they are still insufficient. Things have been far from perfect, but right now, we have a stark choice to make. We have two very different presidential candidates — Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump — offering very different visions for what the future of this country could look like.

I want to live in a country where it no longer feels like our government is falling apart. I see a vision of a climate-just future, where green jobs are the norm and our entire infrastructure runs on clean energy. Communities that were once disenfranchised are empowered and we can make decisions with our own autonomy. Being a citizen of this democracy should not mean social instability.

And yet, the right-wing policy goals outlined in Project 2025 are engineered to demolish our government’s core infrastructure. The conservative policy and personnel program, designed to help Trump quickly enact his agenda as president, aims to place the entire federal bureaucracy under control of a single person. It’s a fossil fuel lobbyist fever dream that shuts down clean energy funding and destabilizes essential regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency. This unitary executive “project” is the worst possible outcome for our planet and will kneecap our country’s ability to face the climate crisis.

This contrast gets lost in the platitudes. Instead of banal rallying cries, we have to meet people where they are and focus on the issues they care most about. Eight million young people are aging into the voting process this election. Whether they are passionate about reproductive freedom, gun violence, or immigration, the best step forward is at the ballot box.

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On this National Voter Registration Day, I’m launching the Climate Movement for Democracy, a campaign aimed at mobilizing voters to the polls to address the climate crisis. I know how all-consuming this conversation can be, and how disconnected our government can feel. But I take solace in the fact that if we show up to the polls and mobilize our friends, we can fundamentally decide what the future of this country looks like. That’s not a platitude, that’s a fact.

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