We all have one thing in common and I’m not talking about our love of Oreos covered in peanut butter…

I’m talking about where we live and the fact that we all share the same planet. We share an ecosystem and that means, like it or not, we share the responsibility to take care of it.

Think of it as living in a snow globe. When part of our planet gets covered in white fluff, all of us eventually get covered in it.

It doesn’t matter where you live, something having to do with the weather impacted your life this year.

For some, it could have been as minor as a string of bad hair days brought on by rare bouts of humidity, but for others it was much more devastating. This year record high temperatures have contributed to more wildfires, heavier floods, longer droughts, and bigger hurricanes.

Do you realize more than 250,000 people are likely to die each year due to Climate Change?

Yeah, things are looking pretty dire but perk up, because this is the year we can change all that because this is a year we get to vote.

Voting for candidates who care about our planet must become everyone’s top, single issue.

So before you choose a candidate to sit on your city council or in the Oval Office, consider this:

• 2020 saw more deaths due to intense tornadoes than any previous year in history.

• Over 4.5 million acres of land have burned in California, Oregon and Washington to date. (To put it in perspective, this is bigger than the state of Connecticut!) We have had more wildfires this year than any other year in history. Fires have destroyed over 18 million trees, millions of species of plants and wildlife and thousands of people’s homes. To date, over 9,200 structures have burned and 31 people have died in California alone.

• A record number of tropical storms and hurricanes have formed. So many that we have started using the Greek Alphabet to continue naming them, creating, once again, a historical record.

• Melting glaciers are causing sea waters to rise along the East Coast turning old, established forests into ‘ghost forests’ and “all along the Atlantic coast, saltwater is inundating freshwater marshes, cypress swamps and farm fields.”

• We have recorded the hottest year on record and in the Arctic the land of permafrost and glaciers temperatures hit over 100 degrees Fahrenheit this summer breaking an all time record. Unless you’re living in a cave, you had to notice how hot it’s been. (Wearing jeans on a hundred degree day is brutal enough, but can you imagine being a Polar Bear?)

I hate statistics because unless you’ve lived through one of these weather events, it’s impossible to feel affected by it. Just like having a baby, until you’ve had one, you can’t imagine how hard it is waking up three times a night to feed it. Trust ME, you CAN’T!

Still, statistics tell a story and while reading about Climate Change can lift your spirits about as much as watching Schindler’s List it’s time to face our reality.

We have to make caring for our planet our number one priority. That’s because no matter where you live, you are bound to feel the negative impact Climate Change is having on all of us. It’s one thing to hear about severe weather events and a whole other thing to live thru them.

My brother who lives in Los Angeles has been living with record-breaking heat that has added to the record amount of wildfires. He was confined to his home for weeks because smoke made the air quality so bad, it was rated the worst in the world. Think about that. The wealthiest country on the planet had the worst air… On the bright side, he’s incredibly lucky to still have his house when hundreds of others have lost theirs, but the impact of those fires has left the state in disarray and so many people are struggling to meet their basic needs.

Here in the Midwest, we witnessed flaming red sunsets during the worst of those fires and although they were beautiful, it felt a little too much like Total Recall to fully enjoy them.

Maybe that’s because I was still recovering from what happened this past August when a rare derecho blew into town. A derecho is like a hurricane but without the palm trees and killer waves. This one started in South Dakota and traveled 770 miles east into Ohio devastating everything in its path. In Iowa 140 mile per hour winds leveled hundreds of farms and destroyed over 14 million acres of corn and soybean crops.

When it hit Chicago, it took out hundred-year-old trees and it even tore the roof off our office. The day it hit, I was by a window facing west and I watched that storm come barreling towards us, slamming into our old, sturdy, brick building. The wind sounded just like a freight train and it sent our dog running for cover under my desk. We probably should have joined her there, but instead we stood frozen in place until a loud boom jarred us into action. Rain started pouring thru our ceiling and we scrambled to move our inventory, computers and other electronics out of harm’s way.

We were incredibly lucky that none of us were hurt, although our dog still suffers from a bit of mental trauma. I’m not gonna lie, it was a terrifying experience but unlike our neighbor in the space next door, we escaped without experiencing a big financial loss because we have business insurance. We had a remediation team in our office two hours later but she arrived the next morning to find her only sewing machine and bolts of her finest fabrics under water. Yet another reason we must vote for Climate Conscious Candidates...

That’s because major climate events impact poor and marginalized people on a much greater level.

People like our office neighbor who never knew business insurance was something she could have, stand to lose more than just one sewing machine.

They risk losing their entire livelihoods, and that’s not all. Severe weather events impact our food supply, force people from their homes, and even separate families.

Devastating tornadoes, fierce storms, flash floods and fast spreading fires are the cause of greater conflicts, an increase in hunger and the reason more people are thrown into poverty. For those already living in poverty these weather events are forever life-changing, making it impossible to ever recover.

You don’t need me to remind you that we are living in a pandemic that stands to push 150 million people into poverty. That’s over 1.4% of the world’s population!

Another statistic that feels too large to register, but if you were one of these people barely making ends meet, as my mother liked to say, you are by far more at risk of suffering from the impacts of our changing climate.

The good news is we still have a little time to fix things.

This may be the year we’ve experienced some of the worst weather and health disasters in recent history, but it’s also the year we can turn things around because this, my friends, is an election year.

We can vote in candidates who care about the planet as much as Mother Nature does.

Lucky for you, I am sharing links for Grist and Greenpeace so you know just who to vote for locally and nationally.

In the past, when I’ve written about voting, I’ve been accused of being a “single issue” voter and in a way, I guess that’s true…

That’s because I see Climate Change as the number one reason to vote this year and the number one reason to vote for candidates who believe in science and understand the real threat Climate Change poses on everything from our health to the economy to our simple survival.

If you think about it, nothing else can be resolved if we don’t fix the problems Climate Change is creating.

I don’t want to live in a world where the air is so bad I can’t go outside. I don’t want to live in a world without natural forests and habitats for all the plants, bugs and animals WE need to survive. God knows I definitely don’t want to live in a world without Oreos and peanut butter…

So please join ME and vote for the candidates who are willing to face Climate Change head on, because when you vote for the candidates who believe in finding solutions to save our planet, you are voting to save humanity itself.

– Germaine Caprio, MAJAMAS EARTH Company Owner & Designer

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Let ME know:

Will you vote for Mother Earth with ME?

Please share your own thoughts with us – let’s get a conversation started in the comments below!