The Middle made me think more about being a moderate in today's society. Over the years of supporting conservation, science and climate as a "moderate conservative," I have experienced first-hand that the country has become the most polarized that it has ever been. The moderate has almost become an endangered species.

Growing up in suburbia in Dayton, Ohio, I had grown accustomed to a mixture of political ideologies — but also with my Texan roots sprinkled with a military family I had been mostly inundated with conservative ideals. For the longest time I had no clue what my father or mother "was" and why. Maybe I didn't care what they were. Today, however, it is very apparent.

I remembered learning about presidential candidates and I would choose them solely by who I liked as a person, their background, maybe their morals (it just so happened they turned out to be conservative, but I'd not attach correlation here). Then as I got older, I began to pay more attention to their actual policy across all issues. I have always been an outdoorsman and passionate about wildlife and nature, so the environment was always very important to me. Probably more than most human beings (I joke).

I had begun to reinforce my scientific background and passion with education. This only caused my care for environmental issues to become an even higher priority when it came to politics. After the environment, came the economy and national debt; really, all other issues came afterwards, although they tended to be conservative. But — I am always willing to compromise for my highest priority. It's why I've always tried to pick candidates that aligned with my views and would be best overall. Of course, the last presidential election was the worse election for me to pick because both candidates seemed so far from me, it was as if they were on other planets. So I “threw away” my vote to libertarian to prove a point. That's another topic, however.

As a result, I'm sometimes deried as a hippy, a treehugger, a liberal. I always chalk this up to everyone knowing that I care strongly about the environment, which is looked at as more of a liberal issue. My closer circle of friends, some more conservative than myself, understand that I lean more right than left — the only thing really making me seem liberal is my stance on the environment. Is that so bad?

When it comes to other issues I do have more of a moderate view, which to a lot of conservatives today is taboo. There's the idea that rooting even partially for the other side instantly means you are one of them. In today’s political climate, it really is about navigating everyday trying to not “concede” to the other side of your opponent.

When I was younger it was easier to have a bipartisan view. My friends and family would come to a nice even ground in discussion with me, since I was not extremely on one side. But now, as I speak up for climate solutions, people from both ends seem to attack me. Even liberals come after me for praising conservative leadership in this area, failing to understand that if we keep bashing on conservatives for the past and don't support them when they do do things for climate, that this creates even more disparity between the two parties. Many also forget that the environment and conservation was a conservative thing. Conservation is conservative.

Conservatives bash me for supporting things such as a “carbon tax” or “carbon fee & dividend," — even though a carbon fee & dividend type plan is economically conservative in its roots. Recently when I gave props to Mitt Romney for going against the grain when voting on impeachment and this was seen as fully supporting Trump’s impeachment — when in actuality I applauded Mitt for doing what he thought was right and not just what the GOP told him too. He did not drink the Kool Aid; he was his own voice.

It makes me wonder: what happened to the days when our parents grew up or my grandparents grew up? I missed the period when it seemed, at least to others, that we were united as one country and we were the greatest country in the world. People wanted to be us. Today, other countries laugh as we inch closer and closer to what people think could be another civil war, conservative versus liberal.

We used to be able to find a middle ground and be civil to come to solutions to make the country better and this is why I strive to stress bipartisanship. Our country was founded on it and it is vital for our country to progress. We traditionally seemed united for one cause at any given point — yes, often war related: defeating the Axis powers, defeating communism, defeating terrorism. But, what if we had a new unifying objective?

I honestly believe climate change and making our country take the lead should be that new unifying cause. It affects us all and both sides are beginning to add their voices in a meaningful way.

Bipartisanship and compromise is how we get our best work done because two perspectives are represented. I have a dream that one day the nation will come together and kick climate change’s ass, and that day is coming closer...