Kamala Harris Is the Only Candidate Who Can Take on the Climate Crisis

The devastation of Hurricanes Helene and Milton is almost indescribable. Businesses and infrastructure have been destroyed, people are in hospitals, and many have been forced out of their homes. At a time when the nation should be united — to prepare, respond, and recover from these storms — communities are being flooded with misinformation, disinformation, and outright lies promulgated for political purposes. Some elected voices have even promoted bizarre conspiracy theories implying that the storms have been created by the government, and the Republican ticket for president has lied about the availability of disaster relief. Shame on them all.

But when the floods recede and the rebuilding begins in earnest, we must also wrestle with the reality that stronger, more frequent hurricanes are the byproducts of climate change, and we need leadership that faces this truth instead of lying about it. The climate crisis is not, as Donald Trump would have you believe, a “hoax.” The science is unequivocal, and coastal communities everywhere need us to solve the crisis or each and every year to come will only be more dangerous for our fellow Americans.

The interaction between warming air and warming seawater creates stronger storms, as well as the rapid intensification that we have seen with Hurricanes Helene and Milton. These storms grew rapidly over the Gulf of Mexico, where the sea surface has reached unprecedented temperatures —  between 85 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit. In the last 18 months alone, the upper layer of our ocean has broken numerous temperature records. 

We know the cause: the burning of fossil fuels, which drives up greenhouse gas levels and leads to 90 percent of that excess heat being absorbed by the oceans. This ocean warming spells disaster for life in the ocean and on land. Until we reduce our emissions, and even for a time thereafter because oceans will remain warm, our battered Gulf Coast and all those across the Southeast will face escalating danger.  

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But guess what? Because climate change is human-made, so are its solutions. We can reduce emissions and create good jobs and clean energy at the same time. There’s a big difference in this election: Trump wrongly thinks wind turbines cause cancer, while Vice President Kamala Harris knows they do create jobs. 

There’s a reason nearly 100 U.S. ocean conservation leaders from all walks of life and across the political spectrum have come together to support Harris and Governor Tim Walz in this year’s presidential election. They know that a healthy ocean is critical not just for our environment but for our economy, our culture, and our future, and that only one candidate understands the risk to coastal communities if we don’t act now.

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Harris has been on the ground in Georgia and in North Carolina, consoling those who’ve lost everything and committing resources to help them rebuild. She knows it’s not enough to respond to disasters after they’ve happened. We need to prevent them. Prevention is the foundation of resilience. That’s why the Biden-Harris administration has invested nearly $7 billion in FEMA to help communities proactively reduce their vulnerability to climate-fueled events. The vice president’s support for clean energy, including offshore wind, is helping to create jobs and make us a global leader in renewable energy innovation.

Coastal communities are hurting. They have our prayers, but they also need national leadership in the next White House. If we want a healthy ocean, resilient coastal communities, and a livable planet, we need a politics based on truth — and the truth is, there’s only one choice in this election: Kamala Harris.