Environmentalists are now using kids to “school” lawmakers on the science behind man-made global warming.
On Tuesday, six high schoolers from states “hard hit” by global warming will go to Capitol Hill to try and convince lawmakers skeptical of man-made global warming that it’s real and it’s impacting peoples’ lives today.
“What I know about climate change is that it’s real, it’s man-made and there’s scientific evidence to back it up,” Helen Winston, a high schooler from Nebraska, said in a video produced by the liberal campaign group Avaaz.
“Climate change impacts my life most directly through sea level rise,” echoed Jack Levy from Florida. He was joined by Georgia teen Jeremiah Thompson who said that “human beings are a major cause in climate change.”
“I think the dumbest thing I’ve heard is Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe saying that man cannot change climate,” Levy added, as the video cut to recent footage of Inhofe throwing a snowball on the Senate floor.
“If you have any sort of education, you have to be willing to look at the world and think about it objectively and see that there is indeed climate change going,” Winston said. “Denying it is, I think, detrimental and possibly dangerous.”
Levy, Thompson and Winston will target four Republican senators on their hill visits Tuesday within their respective states. Other high schoolers will target Republicans from North Carolina — a state that recently lost a Democratic Senate seat in the 2014 election.
The push comes as Avaaz releases a new poll showing that 90 percent of 8th graders accept the theory that global warming is mostly man-made. The implication of the whole campaign is that high schoolers and 8th graders are more knowledgeable about climate science than their state’s own elected officials.
“As we release fossil fuels that have been trapped under our earth for millions and millions of years, we’re going to warm the planet, and that’s just from a 6th grade science level. It baffles me that these senators can’t grasp that,” high schooler Bailey Recktenwald of North Carolina told the blog Grist.
Avaaz’s use of high schoolers to shame Republicans who don’t believe mankind is the driving force behind global warming comes after the Obama campaign group Organizing for Action began a campaign to out so-called “climate deniers” in Congress.
“It’s tough out there for climate change deniers,” reads an OFA email sent to supporters in February. The email encourages subscribers to join in on “calling out climate change deniers.”
“One by one, literally every argument and excuse they’ve been using for years is being proven false. They’re still grasping at myths and conspiracy theories, but deniers are on the run,” the OFA email adds.
OFA’s website contains a list of 161 Republican lawmakers with the label “DENIER” next to each of their pictures. The website encourages visitors angry enough about the Republican stance on global warming to “call them out” by sending them an indicting mass email.
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