Tell presidential debate moderator Chris Wallace not to ignore the climate crisis!

Dear MoveOn member,

My name is Anisa Nanavati, and I am the North American Continental Coordinator of Earth Uprising, a youth-led climate justice movement. As young people, we will bear the greatest impacts of climate change, and we refuse to stay silent while our future is destroyed.

Chris Wallace just announced the topics he will discuss as the moderator for the first presidential debate on September 29, and climate is missing! This is simply unacceptable.

Unprecedented hurricanes, wildfires, flooding, and droughts are devastating communities across the United States, and youth climate activists are uniting to take action and demand a better future for ourselves and future generations.

Add your name to our petition and demand that the climate crisis be addressed in the upcoming presidential debate on September 29.

We at Earth Uprising believe that equity should be at the core of all climate change solutions. Climate change, racial justice, and economic justice are connected. Climate change impacts communities of color and low-income communities more than others. We are seeing this with frontline communities having to consume toxic water and contend with harmful air pollution.¹ We are seeing this with the farmworkers in California who are breathing in toxic air as they do the heavy labor outdoors, while ash rains down on them, to supply food for American families.²

Tell Chris Wallace and the Commission on Presidential Debates that you want the climate crisis to be featured among other important topics discussed at the first presidential debate.

With millions of Americans facing down climate change at their doorsteps, those seeking to lead the country must feel the same sense of urgency. Presidential candidates must be asked during the very first presidential debate to describe how they will decrease and reverse the impact of climate change on communities ravaged by flooding on farmland, wildfires in forests, hurricanes along the coasts, and other disasters.

Furthermore, research shows a statistical connection between death rates from COVID-19 and long-term exposure to air pollution; each increased microgram of this kind of pollution per cubic meter of air is associated with an 8% increase in death from COVID-19.³

In 2016 there were no questions on the climate crisis during the presidential debates, but another youth-led petition did help get the issue on the radar for a debate primary this time around. Now we need to ensure that all Americans, regardless of their political affiliation, can hear from the candidates themselves.

Sign the petition to demand a climate segment as part of the first presidential debate.

Just like the toll on human life, the economic cost of climate change is incalculable. In August, there were four billion-dollar weather disasters: the derecho storm in the Midwest, Hurricanes Isaias and Laura, and California's wildfires.⁴ If that money didn't have to be spent on responding to the fallout from the climate crisis, it could have been spent to support and help local communities.

Questions for the first debate are "subject to possible changes because of news developments." Let's collect as many signatures on this petition as we can to make it clear that the climate crisis must not be ignored and has to be addressed in the presidential debates.

Click here to add your name to this petition, and then pass it along to your friends.

–Anisa Nanavati, Earth Uprising

Sources:

1. "Pollution Is Killing Black Americans. This Community Fought Back." The New York Times, July 28, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/144304?t=13&akid=275297%2E40999114%2EjKO-Ww

2. "Farm Workers Face Double Threat: Wildfire Smoke And COVID-19," NPR, September 7, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/144180?t=15&akid=275297%2E40999114%2EjKO-Ww

3. "Pollution Is Killing Black Americans. This Community Fought Back." The New York Times, July 28, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/144304?t=17&akid=275297%2E40999114%2EjKO-Ww

4. "Four disasters cost more than $1 billion each in August." The New York Times, accessed September 21, 2020
https://act.moveon.org/go/144306?t=19&akid=275297%2E40999114%2EjKO-Ww

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