To the editor:

I thank U.S. Rep. Ann Wagner for her leadership in Congress to stop sex trafficking locally and nationally.

It’s alarming that St. Louis is one of the top cities nationally for this heartbreaking injustice.

Even more, we need your leadership on climate change. Over 97 percent of climate scientists, the Catholic Church, the Department of Defense and the American Medical Association tell us climate change is real and caused by humans, but we can limit the damage if we act now. Similar to sex trafficking, scientists tell us the biggest victims of climate change are the poor. They are least able to defend themselves from this global threat.

Climate change hurts the poor with sea-level rise, increased extreme weather such as floods, droughts, heat waves and hurricanes and mosquito-borne diseases, and stress with the changing conditions.

We ask you to lead on climate change by supporting the Citizens’ Climate Lobby’s carbon fee and dividend proposal. We must tax pollution to clean our air for St. Louis residents suffering from asthma at twice the national average.

We owe our most vulnerable people locally and globally protection from sex trafficking and harmful impacts of climate change.