Why Every American should Support the Fight Against Climate Change

National Security

• The Pentagon has identified this as the key threat to our national security.
• Oil in the Middle East funds terrorist activities and wastes our resources trying to secure and protect various countries over there. This costs us American lives and billions of dollars every year. Clean Energy sources cut into the wealth of Middle Eastern countries.
• Migration and refugee crisis. As food and water shortages continue to get worse because of flooding and droughts people flee for other countries, creating a massive refugee crisis. This also increases global warfare which we can get dragged into.  Especially if were still reliant on oil.

Taxes

• With all the money we have been spending on disaster relief we could have put that towards something else, and its just going to get worse.
• We not only give fossil fuel companies enormous tax breaks, despite them making billions in profits, we also give them hundreds of billions annually in direct subsidies -corporate welfare.
• Public lands are being sold off at bargain prices to fossil fuel companies. Be nice to have them for the public!

Health

• Breathing and other problems are increasing in the country, especially among children and the elderly who are most vulnerable,
• American average life expectancy is going down, despite it being better in other countries.  Not all of this is due to climate change of course, we also have the most expensive and least effective health care system in the developed world.

Jobs and the Economy

• The renewable energy sector is the fastest growing part of our economy, even as we lose jobs in coal mining to the Natural Gas industry. Oil jobs are boom and bust with layoffs every time the price dips.
• Putting money into renewable energy, especially with some of the more Progressive campaign plans means a lot more jobs in every state. And they are good paying jobs! Senator Sanders plan for example will mean work for building contractors, plumbers, roofers, manufacturing, and more. Instead of trickle down economics its trickle up. Workers tend to spend their money, and much of it locally which spreads the wealth around more effectively than multimillionaires who tend to invest most of their money (often in shell and tax dodges). So more money spent, plus a larger tax base,
• Insurance prices go up as the companies need to make up for money spent covering claims related to climate change.

Farming

• Farmers have been hard hit the past decade and its getting worse with more drought and flooding. Farmers need predictable weather and steady water supplies, not the boom/bust cycle caused by climate change.
• Bees are dying as are other useful insects and this also creates problems for farmers, and others.
• Why does climate change create both droughts and floods? If you live in the South this should be easy to understand. Hotter air can hold more moisture (higher humidity) so as the temperature warms up more water is held in the air and it evaporates from the ground faster. Then when the temperature drops there is more water coming down as rain.  So we get extreme cycles instead of a more even swing between dry and wet spells.
•  As farmers go bankrupt then lose their farms we lose a valuable resource. Also food prices go up from scarcity and we may have to import more food, though the rest of the world is often even worse than we are at the moment.

Hunting and the Great Outdoors

• Places where we can do this get smaller and wild life less due to climate change and over development.

But the Cost!

Yes, addressing climate change is going to be expensive. If we had gotten serious about it in the 70's when the oil companies studies realized what was happening, or the 80's when it was more public knowledge it would have been cheaper and easier.  However the longer we wait the more expensive and harder it gets. Also we lose out on developing technologies if we keep stalling while other countries invest in those sectors. Instead of us making and selling stuff to other countries, we will be buying it from them.

Finally, when someone talks about the cost and how it will hurt the economy ask them these questions.

1. How much is your life and your children's life worth?  Because as it is now Americans are dying from climate change and it will only get worse.
2. Why should we spend money propping up oil and gas companies or bailing out farmers and people who lose their homes from severe weather?  How much does that cost us now? How much will it keep increasing?
3. Doesn't it just make more sense to spend our money on growing industries that make our lives better? On activities that increase our resiliency and stop rising sea levels and dangerous storms or drought powered wildfires?