Our future depends on fighting, not doubting, climate change

With the outcome of the presidential election, the United States becomes the only country out of the 195 countries that signed the Paris climate agreement to have a leader who does not “believe” in climate change.

Climate change has somehow been treated as a controversial issue in the United States, but the science is actually pretty straightforward. Every day, the sun heats the Earth, and the Earth must radiate the heat back to space. If it radiates out less heat than it receives, it gets hotter.

CO₂ is a greenhouse gas that traps heat. CO₂ floods out of the tailpipes of cars, trucks, planes and power plants. There is nothing very complicated or controversial about these facts.

CO₂ is absorbed by the oceans and by plants, but we are producing it at a rate far too high for them to keep up. As the CO₂ builds up in the atmosphere, more is absorbed by the ocean, causing it to become more acidic. This is killing shellfish, coral and plankton. Plankton creates half of the Earth’s oxygen. Without plankton, we will die.

We must at least try to get people to think again about this issue. Our future depends on it.

This story was originally published November 25, 2016 at 7:35 PM with the headline "Our future depends on fighting, not doubting, climate change."