Climate change is an existential threat to humanity. Today, I introduced with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez a resolution in Congress declaring climate change to be a national emergency. I am writing to ask for your support for this idea. This is how our resolution starts:

If you agree that climate change is an existential threat, and that we must take urgent, immediate action on this emergency, please add your name to mine right now.

ADD YOUR NAME

Climate change is real, it is caused by human activity, and it is already causing devastating harm to the United States and countries around the world.

Yesterday, parts of Washington, DC experienced nearly unprecedented flooding because of a rain storm. Devastating storms regularly rip across the Midwest at increasing scale. Alaska had 90 degree temperatures this weekend, which was the hottest ever recorded.

Yet it is not just the United States. All over the world, you see communities displaced by climate change. People suffer daily because of floods, storms, and more.

Let’s be clear. Failure to act decisively on climate change will mean more drought, more famine, more rising sea levels, more floods, more ocean acidification, more extreme weather disturbances, more disease and more human suffering. Climate change is about our survival of the human race.

The good news is that we now have the knowledge and technology to address climate change, and it starts with creating an international energy system that is clean, efficient, and sustainable. The bad news is that we are up against the fossil fuel industry, which is one of the most powerful political forces in the country.

They spend hundreds of millions of dollars on campaigns and lobbying every election cycle to protect their interests, while they continue to lie and deny the reality of climate change. And they make billions in profits by continuing to pump, refine, and burn oil, while future generations will be forced to deal with the catastrophic consequences of climate change.

It is past time for the United States to call climate change what it is: an emergency that is an existential threat to humanity that requires an urgent, massive response.

In doing so, we will be going against the fossil fuel industry’s army of lobbyists, PACs, and bought-and-sold legislators. But that is a fight worth having.

The only way that we can be successful in the fight against climate change is if the American people stand up to the fossil fuel industry and make their voices heard. So I’m asking you today:

Add your name if you agree the United States must declare an emergency on climate change and take immediate, large-scale action to reverse its effects. This is an existential threat.

We have a president who not only believes that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese government, but is pursuing policies which make a frightening situation even worse. Further, we have a major political party, the Republican Party, that marches in lockstep behind the ignorance of the president.

But in our campaign, we have an opportunity for the U.S. to be a leader in the global fight against climate change.

Thank you for being a part of this fight.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders

ADD YOUR NAME

PO BOX 391, Burlington, VT 05402

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