|
I've been chasing Republican Candidates across my home-state of South Carolina to demand they lay out a plan to #ActOnClimate before today's polls close. Can you chip in $5 or more so we can keep it up?
Friend,
I've spent the last few days attending conservative rallies with candidates like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush. I came to ask them about climate change - an issue that they're not speaking to very much on the campaign trail, but which is vitally important to voters here and to all of us who care about the future of life on earth (including us humans).
I don't know if I can explain exactly what it's like to walk into a rally full of thousands of screaming people who support Ted Cruz (who held a hearing that claimed climate change is a hoax)1 or Marco Rubio (who's been endorsed by the Senate's leading climate denier, James Inhofe).2 The nerves and adrenaline are something else, even though my desire to #AskOnClimate is motivated by my own experience living through climate chaos here in the Palmetto state.
So I'll try and show you - with a short video that chronicles some of our visits over the last two days to major campaign events and rallies around South Carolina. Take a look, and then if you're able please chip in $5, $10 or $50 to help us keep holding climate deniers accountable and fighting for action for our planet everywhere we're needed.
There are 3 basic reasons I've driven dozens of hours to sit through stump speeches by leading GOP candidates for President this week: First of all, I’m doing it for me - I live here in South Carolina, where was saw a climate-fueled super storm tear apart our state just last October.3 I'm also doing it for you! Almost 200,000 of us have signed a petition to the GOP candidates asking them to drop the denial and lay out a clear, detailed plan for how to act on climate. And we're working hard to deliver your signatures to the campaigns right now to let them know we expect everyone who wants to be President to act on climate.4
And finally I’m doing this for all of us, because it wasn’t just Columbia that was hit by a big storm last year. Fifteen of the last 16 years have been the hottest ever recorded. And in the last two years alone, the U.S. experienced 25 climate-fueled disasters that claimed over 1,100 lives and dealt $175 billion in damages to our economy.5
That’s what makes this campaign so important - and why I’m also asking you to support it. The work we do together is moving the debate. Sometimes in the crazy circus of our election politics it doesn’t look like it - but the media is talking more about climate change than ever. Candidates are laying out plans for how they would address issues like drilling on public lands, how they’d implement the Paris climate accords, or who they think should serve on the supreme court to rule on the Clean Power Plan. Those are the kinds of facts climate voters want and need to know - and we’re getting them because people like you are demanding the answers. So thanks!
And if you can, please consider chipping in a few dollars to keep this campaign going. South Carolina votes today, but it’s a long road to the election in November. We want to stay at it: pressing the campaigns for details, hosting debate parties online so you can watch for free and get instant reactions from environmental leaders, and lots more. Your support powers all our work here at Environmental Action -- from fighting for endangered species to calling out climate denial on the campaign trail. If you can, please consider chipping in a few dollars to keep us out here.
Thanks,
Drew and the South Carolina Crew at Environmental Action
1 - Emily Atkin, Ted Cruz Challenged Science At His Climate Change Hearing. Science Won, Think Progress, December 10, 2015
2 - Elliot Smilowitz, GOP senator endorses Rubio, The Hill, January 09, 2016
3 - Daniel Manzo & David Chiu, Catastrophic Flooding Throughout South Carolina, ABC News October 5, 2015
- Amanda Holpuch, Climate Change Intensified South Carolina Floods, The Guardian, October 6th, 2015
4 - Climate Deniers Are Not Fit For The White House, Environmental Action
5 - Andrew Restuccia, U.S. posts second hottest year on record, NOAA says, Politico, January 7, 2016
|
