This is Political

John says, "Man, I got to go out in my Halloween costume with no coat last weekend!"
Sally sarcastically cheers, "Thanks Global Warming!"

Today, my genetics class talked about sickle cell anemia. I asked my professor if he thought that the area affected by sickle cell anemia might expand in the same way we're seeing with the malarial belt, as the global climate changes. Individuals who are heterozygous for sickle cell anemia (meaning they have one copy of a normal red blood cell gene and one copy of a sickle cell gene) are at a reproductive advantage in areas also affected by malaria because the odd-shaped red blood cells are more easily damaged, which encourages the body to dispose of old cells more quickly, thus interrupting the life cycle of the malaria parasite.

We came to the conclusion that, in a world without modern medicine, that would probably be the case, eventually. If sickle cell anemia improves your chances of surviving malaria, it follows that selective pressure would push the two forward in the same places. But that wasn't the only value in our conversation.

I came face to face with my scientific privilege today. In a room scattered with college students, I threw up my hands and said, "okay, let's talk about global warming!" and I got an entertained smirk from my professor, but it was clear that no one in the room was a denier... at least not vocally. This is the crowd I'm used to. I ask questions about how disease, migration, habitats, and human activity are affected by climate change. All this time I figured we were all on the same page.

But this election has me turn on my head. I keep hearing about candidates who don't believe in climate change. How is that even possible?! It's HAPPENING! It is measurable! And it's not just that we got to go trick-or-treating without our coats on this year. You can see it in the Northward spread of malaria and the change in migration of the birds and the melting ice caps and the vanishing ski resorts and yearly restrictions on watering your lawn. If you want to do the math, all the charts will show you an unprecedented and horrifying climb. Even if you're still on the fence about it, you could at least err on the side of caution in case all those scientists actually know what they're talking about, because the predictions for the consequences are truly apocalyptic.

I can't vote for a person who thinks all of those highly educated, hard-working, award-winning scientists are just wasting their time by trying to warn us about our own undoing. But that's only one of the backwards things I'm hearing about.

I won't let a man tell my daughters that the things Donald said are, "just locker room talk." It disgusted me to see him say it at the debate. We watch those with our kids! No matter what he wants you to believe, a good man doesn't talk that way about women, even in private. He judges women on their appearance and bad mouths them for not having big enough breasts. Then he says no one has more respect for women than he does... Well, I DO!

It seems like everywhere I turn, I read an admonition against voting for this man, and not a single one of them lists all of the reasons I could come up with. I think it's because there are too many. But people are still voting for him... which scares me.

My fear is not that the orange man will become president. My fear is that this country is a hot damn mess if these are the people we have put forth as our options for POTUS. Plus, I'm realizing that, as close as this elections has been, I clearly don't understand a surprising number of people in my own country.

I have so much more to say. I've been stewing in this anxiety/depression/rage/disappointment bubble for far too long. This election cycle is painful and probably ruinous, especially to my outlook on my fellow Americans. But I voted. I just want this to be over.