LAUREN UNDERWOOD Representative from the 14th congressional district of Illinois

Dear Greg, Thank you for your message in support of H.R. 9, the Climate Action Now Act. Like you, I believe that our country has an urgent responsibility to act to address the challenges of climate change head-on. That is why I proudly cosponsored and voted for this bill. As you know, H.R. 9 prohibits any federal funds from being used towards the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Climate Accord. It also requires the Administration to develop a plan for how the United States will meet our commitment to reduce pollution and grow the green energy and technology sectors, which create good-paying jobs for American workers. I am happy to inform you that H.R. 9 was passed by the House of Representatives on May 2, 2019. We are already feeling the impacts of climate change in northern Illinois, as extreme weather and flooding devastate homeowners and farmers in our community. You can count on me to continue to fight for policies that take strong action against climate change on behalf of Illinois’ 14th District. Thank you again for your message. I value hearing from you on these important issues that impact our community. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any further thoughts or concerns. Sincerely, Lauren Underwood Climate Change as an Issue To Lauren Underwood: Thank you for your response to my concern with respect to climate change with the explanation of actions you have taken in the House of Representatives to address this problem. This year I will be teaching Earth Science, Life Science and Physical Science to middle school students and climate change will be circulated throughout these formative curriculum to inspire and motivate young minds.  The physics and the chemistry fueling global warming and its effect upon climate change does not abdicate to political winds and political agendas.  As I work to enlighten the minds of these students I will not dismiss their understanding of the true onslaught of changes, driven by climate change, to upend and degrade the ecosystem and the biodiversity of the world that we live in. As a society, we need to move progressively and champion bold and serious measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to a point where we live in a carbon-neutral world.  This is a world where any carbon dioxide emissions would be linked to equivalent carbon dioxide sequestration efforts. Carbon-neutral environments will put the world on a trajectory toward a viable solution to stop the rise of global temperatures to not more than 1.5 degree Celsius this century.  Levels of carbon dioxide gas concentrated in the Earth’s atmosphere must be reduced to 350 parts per million.  This concentration would be down from the current level of over 410 parts per million.  The historic level of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere over the past 10,000 years were about 285 parts per million up and until the beginning of the industrial revolution in the early 1800’s. Since that time there has been a steady and relentless climb in the quantity of carbon dioxide gas in the Earth’s atmosphere as a result of humankind burning coal, oil and natural gas to fuel the energy needs of modern society. If our nation moves robustly, as a world leader, to cap carbon dioxide emissions then other nations will follow suite and a truly united global effort will evolve to save the planet as we know today. The current “business as usual” situation allows for over 30 billion tons of additional carbon dioxide gas to be emitted each year resulting in high levels of carbon dioxide gas concentrations in our atmosphere for centuries to come.  Over 3 trillion tons of carbon dioxide has already been spewed into the atmosphere since the dawn of the industrial revolution and the acceleration of this polluting effort continues to today. Over time, the hockey stick curve of exponential growth of carbon dioxide gas concentrations in the Earth’s atmosphere will rain havoc upon the ecosystems of the world and to the extreme determent of human life on this planet.  This is what I will convey to my students this year in science.  Unless the immediacy of the problem is clearly recognized now, then we can expect a degradation of human life on this planet into the future. There is no more time to get ready for this change. It is upon us.  So, what can we do?  Well, I think the reverse question is why have we done so little?  As an educator I can help learned minds to embrace the reality of this situation, but I can only hope that this realization permeates into society from family to family and from community to community. It is a moral imperative begging for action as we witness the destruction of the world we live in and desperately look for alternatives to the way we can change how we conduct our lives and the degree that we appreciate the nurturing biodiversity of our planet.  My final comment is that as an educator I have two choices.  First, I can continue to teach children about the efforts and the science behind reducing carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere and possible new designs of alternative energy producing sources like solar panels, wind turbines and new electricity storage technologies.  The second option, considering the reality descending upon us, is that I could teach resiliency and the art of preparing ourselves to survive the coming waves of catastrophic changes to our environment that will put immense pressure on the sustainability of human existence on this planet into the 22nd century.  The close proximity of an environmental tipping point (less than a decade away), that we as a society are careening toward, with just a smattering degree of urgency, is actually now making this decision for me. ***