By Ross Brown
CCC Journalism Program
Climate change is increasingly becoming a concern for many people of this generation, including students at Camden County College. With the 2024 election right around the corner, many students are factoring in climate change as one of the issues they think about when picking a presidential candidate.
According to Kamala Harris’s website, she plans to tackle the environmental crisis by lowering housing energy costs, providing more resources to climate disaster agencies, protecting public lands, protecting public health and holding people accountable for contributing to the country’s pollution. She also plans to create millions of new jobs in the midst of these actions.
According to Donald Trump’s website, he plans to lower the cost of oil and natural gas to provide clean and affordable energy to Americans. He plans to reverse the Green New Deal bill brought about by the Biden Administration in an effort to lower the costs of gasoline, oil and other fuels to promote friendly, clean and safe energy for everyone.
Students at CCC have hopes for the candidates to combat climate change in different ways.
Chase Rutter, 19, when asked if the government is doing enough, said, “I really don’t see politicians as people on either side who really care about climate change.”
For this election, he said he hopes the next president will be bold and double down on the restrictions put in place to help combat climate change. “There’s a lot of people who don’t really care about the environment and only really care about the economy. So, I would honestly just like a president who’s not as much worried about how people are going to react and just go for it, you know?”
Rutter is studying to be a marine biologist.
Restrictions are not the only matter that students care about when it comes to climate change.
James Burt, 21, said he wants the next president to continue fracking to provide more opportunities for jobs. Trump “wants people to have more jobs. He wants to provide better money opportunities for families,” Burt stated. “For example, in PA, a lot of people lost their jobs when Joe Biden banned the Road Clearing Executive Order. So, I just think that more jobs are better.”
Burt said he also hopes that whoever gets elected will not just hold America accountable for causing pollution but other countries as well, like China. “I want to see him start asking questions about other countries. For example, China, why is China’s pollution so high? They need to be held accountable, too.”
Burt is studying to become a police officer.