Congress should be more like my classroom

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Every year, it’s the same question: “What is global warming?” My students answer back with the usual responses. Rising temperatures lead to the melting of the polar ice caps and rising sea levels cause flooding of coastal areas. How come? Carbon dioxide, which is able to retain heat, has been increasing. Give me an example. It’s like when you’ve left your car out in the parking lot on a hot day in the summer. On a tangent, they reminisce about the summer. 

The kids get it. They understand. They may have answered those questions in a less formal manner, but I’ll give them participation points. They even discuss, in groups, ways in which we can lessen the impact we have on the environment. We need to start reducing our carbon emissions. So that future generations can live in a safe, healthy planet. We create a list of vocabulary words and I quiz them on it the next day. My enthusiastic students perform a mock debate, with one side agreeing and the other disagreeing with global warming. If only Congress can emulate this microcosm.

That there is a debate is above them. These students know that the climate has been changing. Humans have made a significant impact on the planet during the last century in which we have been living, relative to Earth’s 4.6 billion year geologic history. I’ve known that since I was in middle school myself. What we have created for ourselves as adults, however, is the same futile debate. It is clear that a bipartisan disparity exists when roughly 56 percent of congressional Republicans deny or question climate change. We agree to disagree in a constant tug-of-war fixed in political ideologies. At a time when drought becomes a problem for the United States and the world, action needs to be taken.

climate change, Mark Basa
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