Liberal Forum

 Look around:Over the last few days, nearly 2/3 of the population of the United States of America was living under either a flood warning, watch, or a heat advisory. Temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean are the highest ever recorded. Wildfires are ravaging parts of Greece. A typhoon has forced tens of thousands of people from their homes in Beijing. And July is on track to be the hottest month in recorded history.

Meanwhile, the latest report from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is very clear and it is very foreboding. If the United States, China and the rest of the world do not act extremely aggressively in cutting carbon emissions, our planet will face enormous and irreversible damage.

Let me be clear about that last part: If the entire planet, led by the largest economies in the world — the United States of America and China — does not get its act together, the world that we will be leaving our children and future generations will be increasingly unhealthy and uninhabitable.

What makes this issue so difficult and so complicated is that it is a crisis that no individual nation can solve alone for its own people. It is a global crisis. It is an issue that requires the cooperation of every nation on earth. Whether we like it or not, we are all in this together. 

Just one exampleespite the frightening impact of climate change on the United States, highly populated Asian countries are facing even worse challenges. Sea levels on China’s coastline are rising more quickly than the global average. Major cities like Shanghai, Tianjin and Shenzhen are all located along the Chinese coast and could face catastrophic flooding in years to come – creating havoc with the entire Chinese economy. There are projections that Shanghai, a city of 24 million, could be underwater by the end of the century.

Now, the bad news is that developing a mutually beneficial relationship with China to save the future of this planet will not be easy. Sadly, there are “hawks” in both countries who are working hard to create a new cold war.The good news is that we still have time — the United States, China and other countries around the world — to make the decision to act aggressively in combating climate change and prevent irreparable damage to our country and the planet.

While we must work diligently to foster international cooperation on climate change, we must also do something else. In the United States, and around the world, we must ask a very simple question.