Written by Mikaela L. Gantz
There were a lot of things said in the first republican presidential primary that didn’t make much sense. However, that’s just politics. A bunch of men, and one woman, get on the stage and hurl insults at each other, all of them completely aware that in reality, this is a vice presidential debate. The front runner by miles didn’t even bother to show up. Perhaps he was preparing to turn himself into the jail in Georgia. Polls show that the only candidate who is facing four indictments is somehow pulling more than 50% of those voting in the republican primaries. Now this does not mean that Trump is going to win a national election. But, it certainly looks like he may win the GOP pick. The only president in history to be charged with either state or federal crimes is polling 30% higher than Desantis, who in my opinion is the only one who stands a chance against him for the GOP pick. Right now it looks like a slim chance at that. With that summing up what was a mediocre debate at best, I’d like to point my attention to the man who appeared out of nowhere and yet is rising rapidly in the polls, Vivek Ramaswamy.
Now there are a lot of things said in the debate that I took offense with, but nothing even came close to what Ramaswamy said about climate change. He said “the climate change agenda is a hoax… the reality is more people are dying of bad climate change policies than they are of actual climate change.” Now, I along with other people concerned about climate change was taken aback. I stared at my laptop screen wondering what on earth this man was talking about. He appears to admit that climate change is real, but goes on to say that somehow it’s a huge overdramatization.
This, in fact, is not the case. Now I have absolutely no idea where he pulled this statistic from. It’s not supported by science and I’ve never heard it before in the echo-chamber of anti-climate rhetoric. I tried to figure out what he was talking about to no avail. So under the assumption that he made this up, let me offer some real facts about the devastating effects of climate change.
Huge floods, caused by changes in climate patterns and severity of storms like hurricanes and typhoons leave thousands of people homeless every year. As the world warms, due to the greenhouse effect, these storms will become more frequent, and more severe. It is predictedthat by the turn of the century 83 million people will die due to global warming specifically. It’s also estimated that 15,000 people died from heat related deaths in 2022 alone. In fact, the warmest 8 years on record have all occurred since 2015. The earth is rapidly warming, resulting in more and more deaths. Climate change is real, and it is devastatingly deadly.
