Don’t Go Quiet as the Climate Crisis Gets Worse

The world is about to cross a climate threshold we spent decades trying to avoid. Congress must not use this as an excuse for inaction.

A sobering United Nations report concludes that exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming is now essentially unavoidable. Even under the most optimistic scenario examined, temperatures are expected to peak around 1.8 degrees above preindustrial levels before potentially coming back down.

That is frightening. But it is not an excuse to give up.

Every fraction of a degree still matters. The hotter the planet gets — and the longer it stays that hot — the greater the danger from extreme heat, wildfires, floods, food and water shortages, rising seas and collapsing ecosystems.

Scientists also warn that higher temperatures increase the risk of crossing irreversible tipping points, including destabilizing major ice sheets and severely damaging the Amazon rainforest.

In other words, there is an enormous difference between temporarily crossing 1.5 degrees and allowing temperatures to race past 2 degrees and beyond.

Yet at the very moment the world needs to cut climate pollution faster, the United States has been moving in the wrong direction. The Trump administration and its allies have attacked climate protections, put up new barriers to clean energy and continued promoting fossil fuels.

And too many political leaders are responding to this moment by talking less about climate change — apparently betting that avoiding the issue will make it easier to win elections or hold onto power.

That is climate hushing — and it is as cynical as it is dangerous. When elected officials treat climate change as politically inconvenient and push it out of the conversation, they make it easier for people to assume the threat is less urgent and for fossil fuel interests to dominate the debate. Silence sends exactly the wrong message at a moment when scientists are warning that the window to limit even more dangerous warming is rapidly narrowing.

Congress should be doing the opposite: speaking honestly about the climate crisis, keeping it front and center in public debate, and turning that urgency into legislation that cuts pollution and accelerates clean energy.

Crossing 1.5 degrees cannot become the moment America goes quiet on climate. It must become the moment we fight harder to prevent every additional fraction of warming.

There is still an extraordinary amount worth saving. Every tenth of a degree we prevent means less destruction, less suffering and a better chance of avoiding irreversible changes to the planet.

Please sign the petition and tell Congress: Don’t hide from the climate crisis. Fight harder to limit the damage.

The petition to Congress reads: The United Nations warns that exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming is now unavoidable, but every fraction of additional warming will increase the danger. Reject climate hushing and policy rollbacks, speak honestly about the crisis, and enact policies that rapidly cut greenhouse gas pollution, accelerate clean energy and keep global warming as low and short-lived as possible.

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Source:

www.nytimes.com/2026/09/02/climate/united-nations-climate-target-overshoot.html