We need some climate action now

To the editor:

The United Nations climate organization Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently released a report saying humanity needed to take dramatic action immediately — unprecedented in scope in human history — if we are to avoid a civilization-threatening climate disaster.

New York Times Magazine devoted an entire edition in August to a story on how we are too late to save humanity because our politicians will never agree to do so.

Climate change is humanity’s greatest threat, and it is happening much faster than the worst-case scenarios previously outlined.

I am running for state comptroller on the Green Party line in support of the simple step of getting the state to divest our pension funds from fossil fuels so that we no longer seek to profit from the destruction of the planet. It is morally wrong, and an increasingly bad financial investment.

Since 350.org started the divestment campaign five years ago, to help create the political will to act on climate, more than 1,000 institutions with $7.2 trillion in investments have agreed to divest.

New York City and the Republic of Ireland have agreed to do so as well.

The hardest task we face is to commit to a society-wide emergency mobilization to save humanity.

The good news is that we already know how to do a lot of things that will help, like renewable energy from wind, solar and geothermal. Moving to those energy sources means millions of new living wage jobs, thousands of fewer deaths annually in New York State from air pollution, and much lower electric rates in the future.

Scientists with the Drawdown Project recently put out a list of the 100 most-effective (including on cost) steps we can take to reduce climate change — many of them surprising (increasing education of women, agriculture practices).

We need to vote this election for candidates who are wholeheartedly committed to climate justice and taking immediate action. Ask them how they stand on the issue. Vote knowing that the lives of your children and grandchildren depend on it.

Mark Dunlea