John Stepanek

Guest Opinion

When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, and Sen. Ed Markey, D-MA, introduced the Green New Deal just weeks ago, Oregon Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden signed on right away.

While their support for this proposal to address climate change within a decade is exactly what we need, a discouraging number of Oregonians are still in denial of the crisis that we’re in.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change told us last year that we need to cut our global carbon emissions in half by 2030 and eliminate them altogether by 2050 to avoid passing stable thresholds and entering irreversible global catastrophe.

When the leading scientific authority comprised of thousands of the brightest climate scientists around the world tells us we need to act, we do.

As a young scientist, I know this better than most people.

As a Ph.D. student at Oregon State University, I study how dune grasses change the coastline and protect vulnerable communities from rising seas, hurricanes, and massive storm surges that are exacerbated by climate change.

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I do field research on the Outer Banks of North Carolina and I was there in 2018 a month after Hurricane Florence had decimated the coastline. Homes were flooded and destroyed, ruined furniture and belongings were still piled in the streets, and the 12-foot sand dunes that protect the mainland from the worst of the storm surge were completely eroded, leaving communities extremely vulnerable to the next hurricane.

Reading a headline like “Planet has only until 2030 to stem catastrophic climate change, experts warn” (CNN, October 2018) only takes about 5 seconds, and sadly, that’s about how long it takes for many people to forget it, ignore it, or dismiss it altogether.

But as I’ve learned during my early career as a scientist, it takes years of work to produce knowledge that can be reduced to such a simple headline.

It took me 3 years of unpaid research to publish my first paper, and after earning my Bachelors’ in Ecology and Biology, I worked as a field biologist around the country for little to no pay for 9 months, witnessing first-hand how climate change is destroying our environment.

It will take me 5 years to earn my Ph.D. (earning a barely livable wage), another year or two for a postdoc, and then another 5 to become tenured faculty at a research institution if I’m lucky.

So, when people’s reaction to climate change is to roll their eyes, shake their heads, and claim that scientists are making the whole thing up so they can get more money, it’s infuriating!

The science is real, the crisis is here, and we need to act.

The Green New Deal calls for sweeping economic reform that will reduce carbon emissions, protect our communities, and invigorate local economies with new green infrastructure projects.

We have the technology and the money (despite misinformation from ignorant critics); we need the will.

Oregonians should demand that their representatives support this resolution – for the planet, and for the people.

John Stepanek is working on hisPh.D. at Oregon State University studying invasive dune grasses on the Oregon coast. He can be reached at jsstepanek@gmail.com