We Are Not Desperate, Yet: A Message to My Peers

We’re approaching election day and it’s important that we strongly consider how each candidate plans to work on issues like racial and gender inequality, healthcare and international relations, but there’s a larger issue to be considered as well. 

It’s important that we use language that is specific to whatever issue held, and with that said, the way we speak and therefore think about a problem changes our approach to it. Some of us might prefer the term “climate change” – as it reeks of betrayal and political interest–  but the issue itself is global warming and how important this election will be for not only the moral of our country, our overall existence, but the lives of generations to come. 

In 2017, President Trump backed out of the Paris Agreement, which still serves as an international global warming initiative aimed to strengthen the worlds response to this existential crisis. 

For those who do not understand its intricacies and impact, global warming is a disruption in our planets water cycle and all of life on earth depends this cycles consistency. So as we observing, our atmosphere is holding more water than what is natural and releasing it in these catastrophic weather events like the one we just saw: hurricane Laura and Marco making landfall on the southern most part of the east coast at the same time, flooding some places while other places are in drought and/or completely on fire. This has happened before, but on rare occasions. Theres an obvious imbalance and it does not discriminate based on class, race or ethnicity although our partisanship would have us believe otherwise.

Additionally, If you don’t know, COVID-19 is also a product of deforestation which is a large factor in global warming.

Furthermore, within our current social climate, there is a population of us who felt demoralized by Bernie Sanders’ campaign suspension. I’ve had conversations with my peers who are looking for a complete reconfiguration of our current political and economic system and have expressed reservations about the good voting will do in this election. And rightfully so, considering the mechanism by which Trump secured his seat in 2016: the electoral collage.

However, Joe Biden is not necessarily the candidate we were hoping for, and it seems the world is not ready for some of Bernie’s “socialists” policies.

I understand the romanticism, wanting to undercut the system, but capitalism is where we are at, and we need capital to fund research programs which can help not only help dematerialize and deinstitutionalize systemic racism, defund and reimagine our police force and allocate funds to education, but to save our environment.

On September 19 of this year, artists Gan Golan and Andrew Boyd revealed a clock in Union Square, Manhattan which holds the time we have left to stop global warming before it’s too late. At the time it suggested we had roughly 7 years. 

So we literally cannot afford another four years of Trump, not just because of our economy, and racial equality, international relations and the overall health and morality of our country, but due to the fact that America is one of the largest producers of carbon emissions in the world, yet our current president defunded programs to help curve greenhouse gas emissions in the united states, while placing $350 billion dollars into military development. Thats where his mind is, and if we do not vote, we would have been giving him the capital and the power to use it at will.

President Trump is unconcerned with what is happening to our planet and our society, and quite frankly, I think it’s safe to say he doesn’t live the same reality we do, due to the padded lifestyle afforded to him not only by tax evasion but more generally: his white privilege and elitist status. 

I think we all understand how important it is to go out and vote next month. I’ve seen countless graphics and threads on instagram and twitter which explain how dangerous a coup might be for our nation, and President Trump, although he did not deliver any concrete response to weather or not he’ll leave office peacefully should he lose, his tactics are reminiscent of a dictator, not a president. 

Never the less, there is still hope at this point. We may not be choosing from a set a more favorable candidates, but with the country brought essentially to it’s knees, we must decide. Our future will require more of us to activate, to become less passive, and more willing to move, and assign action to our outrage, being less inclined to simply donate $20 to our favorite organizations and lean more toward actions which will help uplife our community.

Turing up to polls, regardless the reluctance, demoralization or tire.

And even after that, our work has only just begun.