In purple Pennsylvania, older climate activists tell potential voters, “We caused it. We can solve it.'

Autumn has arrived and the leaves have turned red, orange and deep brown as 73-year-old Phyllis Blumberg walks the streets of West Philadelphia in the middle of one record heat wave and a persistent droughta clipboard in her hand and the climate in her mind.

The severity of the world’s climate crisis has pushed the veteran political researcher and other seniors into neighborhoods like this to wake up potential voters and urge them to cast their ballots. Although some did not answer, Blumberg – after twenty years of knocking on doors to get out the vote – accepted it as a reality.

“I never want to go to my grave thinking, ‘I didn’t do everything,’” she said.

The Montgomery County The resident was one of about 75 seniors who gathered Oct. 22 at historic Clark Park, where climate activist Bill McKibben, founder of the environmental activist group 350.orgprepared them for a day when they could reach potential climate voters. The stakes are clear for McKibben, who can rile an audience at any time by reciting a laundry list of natural disasters unfolding across the United States.

“In the strange architecture of our electoral system, Pennsylvania will likely decide the presidency, (and) with it the fate of our democracy and, in no small part, how high the temperature on our planet will get,” McKibben told Capital & Main ahead of time. to the acquisition event. Pennsylvania, with 19 votes in the electoral college That could tilt the presidency, and a population split between blue cities and deep red rural areas is both politically powerful And painful purple.

It is for that reason, McKibben said, without mincing words: “This is the most important place on earth.”

McKibben’s trip to Philadelphia came after stops in Montana and Georgia and ahead of storm tours in Phoenix and Reno, Nevada, as part of the Silver Wave toura series of recruitment events that mobilize environmentally conscious older Americans in key swing states. In Pennsylvania, his organization, Third Actconsisting of adults over 60 who are concerned about climate change, combined with impartial people Environmental Voters Projectwhose mission is to engage environmentally conscious non-voters in elections, up and down the ballot. The two groups, with a cohort of volunteers, made their way through West Philadelphia in hopes of reaching the climate-conscious who might not otherwise vote.

Just two weeks after Election Day, it may sound tired to remind Americans that this is the most important election of their lives. But McKibben means it. Scientists preach that preventing total climate breakdown will be a necessity halving greenhouse gas emissions from 2010 levels over the next six years. “The next president after this one will be inaugurated in January 2029,” McKibben told the audience during his pre-canvasing talk in Philadelphia. “So this is the last election that counts for that.”

For him, that means running for vice president Kamala Harriswho he has criticized for failing to put climate at the top of her policy platform, but which he believes is the country’s only chance to avoid a total environmental catastrophe. Harris was the decisive vote about the Inflation Reduction Act, a series of clean energy investments that McKibben says are disrupting the economic power of the fossil fuel industry. Like California Attorney General Harris punished polluting oil and gas companies, and in her September debate With Donald Trump running for the highest office in the land, she cited the urgency of tackling extreme weather. Her economic plan promises to “address the climate crisis” and “(protect) public lands and public health,” while declaring that U.S. energy production “from a diverse range of sources, including natural gas and renewable technologies, is at historic levels, and that Vice President remains committed to supporting the growth of America’s energy production.”

Oil production increased dramatically under Harris and President Biden, and they recently expressed support for the planet-warming natural gas industry, a position McKibben does not share. But he promised the audience that no matter who is elected, he will not hesitate to push the White House to keep climate at the top of the agenda.

Former President Trump, meanwhile, has promised “drill, baby, drill” as he asked $1 billion from oil and gas executives with the promise that if elected he will withdraw clean energy incentives And regulations.

For Blumberg, who paraded through the streets with clipboard and sun hat in tow, the consequences of the climate crisis are deep-seated. She grew up in a family of naturalists and remembers taking her children on hikes as soon as they could walk. She said she sees the environment changing all around her. She points to two maple trees that appear to be dying and laments the devastation humans have wrought on ecosystems. “I’m very, very angry at people who don’t understand that this is real,” she said. “We caused it. We can solve it.”

In the neighborhood where she knocked, Blumberg sees environmental injustice all around her. A nearby botanical garden was the site of one industrial chemical spill. The historically black neighborhood has no tree canopy, making its streets noticeably warmer than nearby blocks.

Blumberg said she hopes a climate-conscious candidate — although the Environmental Voter Project, a bipartisan group, can’t push for one party — is the obvious choice for voters here.

But in other parts of Pennsylvania, where deep red rural areas contrast sharply with the blue isles of Philadelphia, the choice is less obvious. Many in rural areas identify themselves as conservationists, even as they support Trump’s embrace of oil and gas. Some receive royalties from the state’s abundant fossil fuel production or have worked the oil or gas fields themselves. Some fear government intervention as much as corporate greed. More Pennsylvanians are embracing regulations on hydraulic fracturing or fracking than either candidate seems to acknowledge. show new data – but even among these voters, many remain comfortable with the technology.

In battlefield districts – clustered north by Philadelphia And around Pittsburgthe picture becomes more complicated, and both parties have done so turned their attention to these areas, hoping to take advantage of any doubt.

“We don’t tell people who to vote for; we’re just mobilizing them to vote,” said Shannon Seigal, organizer and field director of the Environmental Voter Project. “We want so many climate voters to vote that everyone who runs for office must be a climate leader.”

A handful of people from outside the city who took to the streets next to Blumberg did so out of their own sense of urgency.

“I’m just really scared about the outcome of the election, but as we say in the climate movement, action is the antidote to despair,” said Veronique Graham, a Brooklyn-based executive with Third Act and a longtime U.S. resident who can’t. vote because she is not yet a citizen. Her daughter Charlotte, who missed a day of school to apply for a job, faces the same limitations: at 15, she is deeply concerned about the climate crisis, but she is too young to vote. “I really want to vote,” she said. “I’m really scared.”

Roberta Rominger, 69, who flew from Renton, Washington, to canvass voters in Pennsylvania, did so with a different sense of urgency. “In Washington, our votes don’t count for much,” she said, referring to the state’s long liberal history. “I came here hoping to make a difference in the elections. I really, really want to make a difference.”

When Pennsylvanians go to the polls on November 5, many will do so with their own experiences with climate disasters that could make a difference in their decision. In August, extreme flooding swept north-central Pennsylvania amid Tropical Storm Debby. In June, Pittsburgh residents experienced near-record temperatures when it was blanketed by a heat dome. Last summer, smoke from wildfires suffocated the state when it came in from Canada.

These and other natural disasters remind McKibben that the timeline for action is shrinking. “If we don’t win quickly,” he said, “we won’t win.”