San Luis Obispo High School students have continued to educate themselves surrounding the 2020 presidential election. According to The Atlantic, 64% of Americans rank the climate crisis just as important as strengthening the economy. With the popularity of the Black Lives Matter movement and the climate crisis, SLOHS students stance on climate change is a determining factor of which candidate to support.
“My stance is simple: Scientists say that in order to limit the global temperature change to under 1.5 degrees Celsius, we have to start making serious change as a nation immediately. Biden has a comprehensive climate change plan, while Trump doesn’t even have a plan, and is actively eliminating progress and causing distrust towards science,” said senior Quinn Brussel.
Joe Biden’s climate plan has an emphasis on sound science and environmental injustice. Biden’s goal of reaching a 100% clean energy economy by 2050 and investing $2 trillion in creating sustainable jobs are just some highlights from Biden’s website. He also vows to focus 40% of his investment to a clean energy revolution to disadvantaged communities. Biden has elaborate plans to combat climate change that further deeper into the issue of environmental injustice, which is a driver of climate change.
“It’s so urgent that if Trump is re-elected we’ve lost the fight according to climate scientists,” said Brussel. On Donald Trump’s website, Trump claims that he signed an executive order to expand offshore oil and gas drilling and open more leases to develop offshore drilling. He has also approved oil and gas production in the United States during his presidency.
Trump sees environmental protection as increasing fossil fuel production, which a majority of climate scientists view as extremely detrimental to our environment.
“Burning fossil fuels emits a number of air pollutants that are harmful to both the environment and public health,” according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Trump’s “promises kept” climate plan is not what climate scientists are enforcing for the complete protection of our earth. Biden’s lengthy and detailed climate plan includes the importance of clean energy and steering away from fossil fuels, along with the importance of addressing environmental injustice. Unfortunately, Trump’s climate plan does not mention environmental injustice. Because of the importance of the environment among voters in the 2020 presidential election, Trump’s inability to include all aspects of climate change has a possibility to have an impact on Republican voters.
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