We are doomed.

Climate change is going to ruin the future for us all and we can’t change it. All we can do is prepare and mitigate.

This isn’t alarmism, this is reality.

When I drove back home for Labor Day weekend, I was followed and then followed, for almost miles by U.S. National Guard vehicles going to Baton Rouge and other parts of Louisiana carrying with them emergency supplies and generators.

I saw parts of Baton Rouge in complete disorder. They had no power, major commercial areas were closed and parking garages were loaded with electrical and National Guard vehicles.

Power didn’t return in some parts until half a week later and people lost their homes and even lives.

This was due to Hurricane Ida, a hurricane that has now killed nearly 70 people nationwide and went as far as New York City.
Sights, as I saw a few days ago, will become more common and perhaps worse for us all.

More emergency evacuations, more people losing their homes, more National Guard convoys, more lives lost.

It means more Idas, Katrinas, Great Floods of 2016, all of which will be longer and harsher.

And, the worst part of it all is, we can’t stop it. We missed our time to stop it. This will be our reality in less than 20 years.

A few weeks ago, the United Nations’ IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) said within 20 years it was guaranteed Earth would see a one and a half Celsius increase in global temperatures.

In their report, they estimated almost half a billion people face harsher conditions like droughts, extreme heat, food scarcity and much more.

They also said that if no action is done on a global scale, the global climate can see an increase of a deadly two degrees Celsius.

As climate change worsens weather conditions all across the globe will become harsher and more abnormal weather patterns, and those abnormal patterns will become the new norm.

According to the British Broadcasting Corporation, due to climate change’s effects of warming up the Earth, the polar vortex (a rotating pattern of cold airstreams in North America) will be affected. That means harsher winters will hit North America.

Last year’s harsh winters that knocked out Texas’ power grid for weeks and the harsh weather Louisiana saw during that same time is a sign of it, and it will become more and more common.

That means due to snowstorms in Louisiana of all places, we’re going to experience more weeks spent in Iberville Dining Hall.

Climate change isn’t the only thing but also, political nightmares we can’t imagine.

When Europe’s migrant crisis occurred in the 2010s, far-right and fascist parties gained international fame and electoral gains for the first time.

Brexit in the United Kingdom happened due to refugee scares and economic anxiety. Le Pen’s Far-Right Neo-Nazi party almost won the French presidential elections. Hungary’s Prime Minister who was elected on an anti-migrant platform is now Europe’s first dictator in a long while, and much more could be said, but that was the most noteworthy of Europe.

This wasn’t caused by climate change, but this was a taste of what happens when people are faced with a crisis and are filled with fear and anxiety for the future.

America can easily slide into such politics. The last president, Donald Trump was elected on a platform of fear and almost open hatred for foreigners, ranging from his comments of Mexicans and attempts to enact a Muslim ban around the same time as the migrant crisis reached its peak.

America can easily elect another president like that who is far more extreme and far more authoritarian all because of worsening domestic affairs caused by climate change.

I say all of this, not because I want to make you depressed, but to hopefully make this a wake-up call.
Denying this reality is at best optimistic delusion and at worst, willful ignorance.

I could and would be right to say some pretty harsh things about both, especially since those who’ve denied this could happen are partially to blame for it happening.

We can’t prevent a one and a half degree Celsius increase, but we can become kinder people.

We can learn from mistakes of inaction and ignorance.

We can form better and new communities centered around not just fighting against a new dangerous extreme of politics and climate.

We can act now, by strengthening our communities, building solidarity with one another and a common goal that we all share.

We can be less doomed together.