Activist Greta Thunberg called out world leaders this past week. COP26 in Glasgow has been long on talk, not so much on concrete action. As the name implies it is the 26^th international summit on the worsening threat of human-powered climate change. Year after year, promises and pledges are made, but greenhouse gas emissions keep rising worldwide. New fields for fossil fuels are opened, and existing wells are continuing to produce planet-killing toxins. Politicians in thrall to the fossil fuel industry fret about the economic cost of climate change-mitigating policy.

Here’s a news flash: the climate crisis is already costing billions in annual damages from increasingly extreme storms, floods, droughts, and wildfires. Coal, a potent worldwide source of greenhouse emissions, causes 800,000 premature deaths globally per year. New research finds that fossil fuels were responsible for over 1 million deaths in 2017 alone. The Pentagon regards climate change as a primary threat to national security, and climate refugees—their homelands made uninhabitable by flood, drought, fire, and reduced agricultural fertility—are on the rise, complicating regional conflicts and compromising international borders.

How can we afford not to make the necessary policy changes to reduce global emissions and ensure sustainable energy production?

Progressive Democrats of America and allied organizations are in this fight 24/7. We have been agitating for serious policy changes in the Build Back Better reconciliation bill, from expansion of high-speed rail to ending fossil fuel subsidies to increased support for environmental justice issues affecting frontline communities. Our endorsed candidates must be climate champions like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ed Markey, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, Ron Wyden, Jared Huffman, Cori Bush, and Earl Blumenauer. We are in this fight for the long haul, and we need your sustaining financial support to continue and expand our efforts.

We’ll be expanding staff and enhancing our virtual organizing tools, monthly budget permitting. Please support PDA’s climate crisis initiatives with a monthly gift of $27, $12, $10, or whatever amount fits your budget. We have only one planet, and it’s worth fighting for.

Thank you so much for anything you can do right now.