Tonight’s debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump has massive ecological and existential stakes.

A whopping 30 percent of Americans say tonight’s televised showdown will help them determine who to vote for in November. And their choice will help determine whether 4 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions get released into the atmosphere over the next six years—an amount equating to $900 billion in global climate damages.

That’s why, despite some pretty severe jet lag, I’ll be watching—and reacting/chatting live with subscribers starting at 8:45 p.m. Eastern time.

Chat with me during the debate

If you’ll also be watching, and if you’d like a place to hang out that’s full of people who care about the climate crisis, please join me! We’ve done similar threads during previous debates and they’ve been pretty well-attended.

The only difference this time is that we’ll be using Substack’s new-ish chat function instead of the usual comment thread function. I’m hoping this will be a bit more user-friendly. We’ll see!

Again, the chat will begin at 8:45 p.m Eastern time. So set your alarms and come back! Paid subscribers will also get an e-mail when the time comes.

Also, chats are only available to paid subscribers. So if you’ve been following along as a free subscriber for awhile, upgrade now to join!

Join Emily Atkin’s subscriber chat

Available in the Substack app and on web

Join chat

If you’re not planning on watching the debate tonight, don’t fret. Arielle and I will send out a climate-focused re-cap and analysis for you as quickly as we can.

We do this for every debate because not everyone has the time, bandwidth or resources to watch hours-long political yelling matches late in the evening. But everyone deserves to be informed about the issues that matter most. So if you value this service, we hope you’ll consider subscribing; it’s the only way we make money.

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