Published by The Daily Progress.
As a young birder, I am increasingly disturbed by the effects of climate change, especially on birds. Birders around the country witness the damage firsthand, and it is happening at an alarming rate.
Warm-weather species are shifting northward faster than ever before, and cold-weather species are retreating ahead of them. Unprecedented seasonal weather shifts are leaving thousands of migrants confused and vulnerable. Sea rise is driving coastal species to higher ground, which occupied by condos and other development. The list goes on.
Yet, despite the well-documented and dangerous situation we find our planet in, there are still those who deny that these problems are relevant or even exist.
The president of the United States has dismissed climate change as a hoax perpetuated by the Chinese. He has proposed a ghastly 30 percent cut to the Environmental Protection Agency, crippling one of our greatest assets in the fight to save our planet.
In addition, our president has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Accord. This uninformed and rash decision will set us down a dark and solitary path, isolating us from the level-headed rest of the world.
It is inevitable that the president, his cronies, and his followers will do nothing to help our endangered planet, and the creatures that inhabit it.
Because our government will not do it for us, we the people must defeat climate change on our own. Those of us in America who believe the irrefutable evidence of climate change must unify to protect our planet. Not just for the birds, or the polar bears, or even for clean air. If climate change continues, it will haunt every aspect of our lives.
Thus, we must protest each and every executive decision that threatens our planet’s future. We must each do our best to educate ourselves on the issues of climate change, do our best to inform others, and contact our representatives: These are our moral obligations. We owe it to the planet upon which we are singularly dependent. Our planet has given us everything we have. This is the least we can do to repay it.
Baxter Beamer
Charlottesville
