Although proven by many scientists, there are still people – and government officials – who believe climate change is a hoax. This division is killing our planet.

In order to save our planet, bipartisan policies need to be achieved.

The proposed Green New Deal “calls on the federal government to wean the United States from fossil fuels and curb planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions across the economy. It also aims to guarantee new high-paying jobs in clean energy industries,” according to The New York Times.

In a study by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, 69% of registered voters support the Green New Deal; including 93% of Democrats, 44% of Republicans and 64% of Independents. Unfortunately, the lack of Republican support will likely prevent this deal from coming to fruition.

Additionally, exact calculations on the cost of the Green New Deal have not been published yet, but experts predict it could cost trillions of dollars, according to The New York Times.

It bothers me when people say climate change is fake, especially government officials, because evidence is coming from their very own government agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

According to NASA, oceans temperatures have increased by more than 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1969 and sea levels have risen globally about 8 inches in the last century.

The evidence surrounding climate change is “unequivocal,” according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It is a proven fact that climate change is occurring, but people still insist it isn’t an issue.

With all these facts, how can the U.S. government not be inspired to unite on this issue and make a change?

Selfish political agendas and partisan divisions have made creating reforms for climate change an impossible task.

President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement – a policy for nations worldwide to combat climate change – was an economic and political move by Trump that embarrassed our country and shocked the world. Trump promised voters he would withdraw from the agreement during his campaign – his political agenda was to win the election.

I believe in order to fix climate change, such agendas should be dismantled and those who are against climate action should be educated on the issue.

“One last productive avenue for action: identifying and acting against those who abetted an active suppression of public knowledge and public policy to address the grave risks of climate change,” said Timmons Roberts in a Brookings Institution article.

Gregory Freeland, a political science professor at California Lutheran University, said the government should have some say in issues concerning the well-being and health of people, but the only answer to climate change is bipartisan policy.

“Corporations are not going to step in and say ‘I got to look out for the people’ when it’s going to cost them millions of dollars,” Freeland said.

Many corporations responsible for emitting millions of tons of toxic waste into the atmosphere are not trying to fix the issue, so it is necessary for government to step in, Freeland said.

“If you look at the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, all those are government things, the American government has to step up,” Freeland said.

In order to stop or even reduce the rate of climate change, it is necessary for political parties to work together.

When our children and grandchildren grow up, perhaps they’ll ask how climate change progressed so far without government officials doing anything to stop it. We’ll answer that it was impossible for politicians to agree on a solution because it did not benefit their party.