Wish I could vote

I'm a high school senior, born in 2001, so I can't vote in next week's election. Also, I don't live in the 6th district, so even if I were old enough, I couldn't vote for either Sean Casten or Peter Roskam. But I want to have a say on one issue, climate change, that will affect young people the most, wherever they live - an issue that Mr. Casten and Mr. Roskam disagree on.

Leaders should understand climate change and not deny the reality of it. Because Mr. Roskam does deny it - he even has called it "junk science" - he should be voted out.

According to NASA, seventeen of the eighteen warmest years on record have occurred since the year I was born.

For my whole life the world has had a fever. If Mr. Roskam were the pediatrician for the planet, he would say don't worry. Is this the kind of attitude you want from somebody your children are counting on? If your child's doctor said the thermometer can be ignored, that doctor would be facing a lawsuit.

In contrast, Mr. Casten knows climate change is real. He knows denying or ignoring it is no answer. He deserves support now and in the future.

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are at their highest in 650,000 years.

Today's level, above 400 parts per million, is almost 50 percent higher than just two centuries ago. Even now, according to reliable sources, this change is causing droughts that drive human migration, like the "caravan" in Mexico that's getting so much attention.

Those migrants are driven largely by hunger caused by drought.

Young people all over the country and the world, will be most hurt by climate-change deniers like Mr. Roskam. Please support Mr. Casten, for those of us who don't have a say yet.

Zephyr Balch

Evanston