Views expressed in opinion columns are the author’s own.

In the years following Trump’s election, there has been an exciting wave of unlikely progressive candidates. Randy Bryce, also known as Ironstache, is an ironworker running for Congress as a Democrat in Wisconsin’s 1st district, originally to challenge Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, who has since announced he will not seek reelection. Bryce represents a sharp detour from Speaker Ryan, who has been “dreaming” of slashing Medicaid since he was “drinking out kegs” — an allusion to the classic college activity of slamming beers and plotting the systematic destruction of the poor.

Then there’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a former bartender from the Bronx, who scored the political upset of the summer by defeating ten-term incumbent Representative Joe Crowley. Like Randy Bryce, Ocasio-Cortez, is one of the most progressive candidates in recent memory. She’s a dues-paying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, an advocate for guaranteed jobs and the abolition of private prisons and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

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Both of these candidates have an important similarity in their platforms. They advocate for a Green New Deal, a stimulus package meant to increase job growth in the renewable energy sector and reform our infrastructure to be more environmentally friendly and, eventually, carbon neutral.

According to the Green Party of the United States, a Green New Deal has four pillars: an economic bill of rights that includes a right to employment, affordable housing, healthcare and education; a green transition that will prioritize research into environmentally friendly alternative technologies and replacement of decaying, inefficient infrastructure; real financial reform via nationalized banking and restoring the Glass-Steagall Act; and revitalizing a functioning democracy by ensuring the right to vote and revoking corporate personhood.

Although originally included in his 2008 campaign platform, Barack Obama’s advocacy for a Green New Deal fizzled away among partisan gridlock and the budget cuts following the 2008 financial crisis. Climate policy is so often the first to be cut in times of hardship, despite the time-sensitive nature of such policies. Because of the vital time we have wasted, Green New Deal policies should be a required component of progressive platforms.

Climate change is the defining issue of our generation, and every moment without action is another nail in our collective coffin. At this point in our climate history, if we were to completely cease emitting carbon dioxide, the atmospheric concentration of carbon would stabilize at 400 parts per million, leading to a global temperature increase of 1.1 degrees Celsius. 1.1 degrees may not sound like much, but that amount of warming would still have potentially catastrophic effects on the way we live our lives. Without substantive action, warming could increase by 5 degrees by the end of the century.

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In order to reduce our atmospheric concentration of CO₂, we have to reach negative carbon emissions, which is entirely possible with carbon sequestration technology and full implementation of carbon neutral energy infrastructure. As The Onion so eloquently put it in a 2014 headline, “Scientists Politely Remind World That Clean Energy Technology Ready to Go Whenever,” the only thing standing in our way is our politicians.

Fighting climate change is still possible, but we have to fight now, and we have to fight aggressively, which includes a fundamental restructuring of our transportation and energy sectors. It might seem impossible with a Trump administration, but with progressive candidates at the local and federal level advocating for a Green New Deal, we may have a fighting chance.

Emily Maurer is a junior environmental policy major. She can be reached at emrosma@gmail.com.