The Green Party is actively pursuing an agenda that will lead to a dramatic acceleration in climate change.

The Green Party likes to portray itself as an agent of potential positive change to U.S. politics. As of this year, that is no longer so. Jill Stein’s irresponsible and dangerous anti-Clinton rhetoric deliberately made a play for angry Bernie Sanders supporters and has tried to convince them that their vote in a two-party process doesn’t matter because “both sides are the same.” This is fine for Jill Stein. She’s an older wealthy woman of privilege who can afford to take such a gamble with her own future. In fact, she gambles nothing. Her life won’t change no matter which candidate is elected. But if she succeeds in tricking thousands of Millennials to follow her lead it will spell disaster for them. The most insidious effect of seeding distrust is the way it will render millions of young voters powerless in any major US election for years to come.

As an urgent plea to every voter in America, 375 members of the National Academy of Sciences published an open letter to draw attention to the serious risks of unabated climate change. At the top of their list of grave concerns are an outline of the serious consequences of opting out of the Paris Agreement ratified on behalf of the U.S.A. by President Obama earlier this month, and describes what that would mean for the future of life on earth and credibility of the United States:

“Human-caused climate change is not a belief, a hoax, or a conspiracy. It is a physical reality. Fossil fuels powered the Industrial Revolution. But the burning of oil, coal, and gas also caused most of the historical increase in atmospheric levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. This increase in greenhouse gases is changing Earth’s climate. “During the Presidential primary campaign, claims were made that the Earth is not warming, or that warming is due to purely natural causes outside of human control. Such claims are inconsistent with reality. “The United States can and must be a major player in developing innovative solutions to the problem of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. Nations that find innovative ways of decarbonizing energy systems and sequestering CO2 will be the economic leaders of the 21st century. Walking away from Paris makes it less likely that the U.S. will have a global leadership role, politically, economically, or morally. We cannot afford to cross that tipping point.”

Walking away from Paris will certainly happen if Trump wins.

— Cancel the Paris Climate Agreement and stop all payments of U.S. tax dollars to U.N. global warming programs.

— Rescind all of President Obama’s executive actions including the Climate Action Plan and the Waters of the U.S. rule.

— Ask Trans Canada to renew its permit application for the Keystone Pipeline.

— Lift moratoriums on energy production in federal areas

— Any future regulation will go through a simple test: is this regulation good for the American worker? If it doesn’t pass this test, the rule will not be approved. The environment is not a consideration.

A vote for Jill Stein is a vote for Trump.

Jill Stein and the Green Party are encouraging voters to turn away from the only Democrat who can ensure the United States continues its essential participation in global climate talks.

We are no longer in a situation where we can sit around and wait for the “Green Party,” as they falsely refer to themselves, to destroy the two-party system, demand impossible changes instantly, and do nothing but pound their fists on the table until that change happens.

Jill Stein laughs it off and says, oh, Congress won’t “let” Trump do that. Well, Congress is dominated by Paul Ryan and the science-deniers of the Freedom Caucus. All Ryan really needs to build an unstoppable juggernaut is a conservative Supreme Court, which he will get if Trump is elected.

Jill Stein and the Green Party are lying to you. They’re telling you that one side is “just as bad as the other.” They are planting the dangerous idea that the “ corrupt system must be brought down” and rebuilt from scratch before anything worthwhile can happen. It’s a pernicious lie.

Even if you do not support Hillary Clinton herself, it is a lie to teach young voters that “both sides are the same” — especially with regard to the environment. One party will go to Paris and work hard to scale back emissions and one party will not. It is as simple as that.

16 years ago the American people had a chance to elect Al Gore. Not only would we have had a Democrat in the White House who would not have invaded Iraq (wasting trillions of dollars and destroying millions of lives), he would have been a Democrat who would have put climate change at the top of his agenda. Gore knew over a decade ago that we were headed for potentially irreversible global warming — a term that simplistic people couldn’t understand. (“Why does it snow if the world is warm?”)

He would not have rested until effective legislation was enacted. Sixteen years later, the projections of what’s coming next could not be more dire. You can put the blame on a few thousand entitled liberals who “didn’t feel like” voting for Al Gore. Maybe they thought the system was so corrupt, why bother. Maybe they didn’t like Gore’s tone of voice, and they felt like little rebels for a few seconds when they pulled that lever for Nader.

Here is the situation we’re potentially facing:

Overpopulation in India and Africa, places that simply do not have the financial infrastructure to manage the environmental stress of population booms. That means the warming climate will cause many regions to become uninhabitable, and we will have hundreds of millions of refugees on top of those we already have.

Planetary warming by 4 degrees, which will cause storms we can’t even imagine, not to mention rendering entire regions of Earth uninhabitable, beloved cities submerged under water. The luckiest human beings might survive it, or a portion of them, but certainly not the poorest of them.

Antibiotic resistance is already a challenge and will only get worse as population, especially in the mega-cities, increases. It is estimated that antibiotic resistance will kill 300 million people by 2050.

The extinction rate is 1000 times the normal rate right now. That is only going to get worse. “We’re currently experiencing the worst spate of species die-offs since the loss of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.”

Mankind is, quite simply, the worst invasive species this planet has ever known. We are more destructive. We drain and spoil precious resources. We do not clean up our trash. We do not plan for our future.

Put all of these things together, as scientists have, and you’ll see what kind of bleak future awaits. There isn’t much we can do about some things. We can’t turn the clock back on population, or on antibiotics. But we CAN take steps now to reverse the negative effects of our own behavior. We still have a chance to slow, to halt, and possible reverse the catastrophic warming trends that this planet hasn’t seen for millions and millions of years.

Knowing all of this, why would anyone put their faith in a party that purports to care about the environment, while taking the biggest risk imaginable in encouraging its members to vote against Hillary Clinton. Shame on Jill Stein. Shame on the Green Party. Shame on anyone reading this who votes that way. YOU DO NOT CARE ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT AND STOP PRETENDING THAT YOU DO.