We have six years left until the effects of climate change are irreversible, and in six years we will all be either in college or young workers, and being young makes me even more scared about climate change. I am optimistic that we, as teenagers, have the capability to influence climate policies that would help to reverse our carbon footprint. The best way to reduce climate change is to pass legislation like the Green New Deal. Conservatives’ and moderates’ common arguments on the Green New Deal include cost, timing, and loss of jobs. 

To start off, the Green New Deal’s plan is to reallocate money the federal government already has to climate justice. This means that the money would not be coming out of our pockets. In 2020, the military budget was around $721.5 billion, and some of this money could help as we transition to all renewable energy. I’m not arguing that we need to reallocate all of the military’s yearly budget, but even a quarter of that could be invested into our future. We already have the money to pay for the Green New Deal, it’s just whether or not we choose to have a future. No amount of money should be too much to save our planet. 

It has been thirty-three years since James Hansen, a NASA scientist said that climate change was caused by humans. In that time we could have made steps in the right direction, and now we only have six years to solve this problem so legislation needs to be immediate. People worry about the loss of jobs in the fossil fuel industry when the US goes to only renewable energy, but the beauty of this is that new jobs will be created in the renewable energy industry. Plus, the Green New Deal is devoted to creating jobs with livable wages. I think no matter what our political beliefs are, we have a common goal to provide the best lives for Americans. As COVID-19 has caused an economic decline, it is important to develop new jobs in the renewable energy, public transportation, and farming industries.