One of the most dangerous flaws in human nature is the tendency to think that if you can’t see something, it isn’t there. We refuse to truly open our eyes and see things for what they really are. Climate change is there—even if we can’t see it. For some reason, such a simple sentence is one of the most difficult things for so many people to comprehend. 

Climate change is a disease we have implanted at the roots of our world. It is global warming, rising sea levels, bizarre weather events, and so much more that we don’t care to fix. According to New York Times journalists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes that “nations aren’t doing nearly enough to protect cities, farms, and coastlines from the hazards that climate change has unleashed so far.” They also warn of “even greater disasters in store as the planet continues to warm.” In addition, Canadian journalist Christy Ferguson brings up how the IPCC cautioned that carbon pollution has to be cut in half in the next 11 years to avoid catastrophic consequences. These statistics are warnings of impending disaster, so why does no one heed them? We are literally in the calm before the storm. All of the information and data is right in front of us, but we have only discussed it and have not taken the proper action to address it. The time has come to gather the best minds from all corners of the world and get started on the war against climate change. 

Dramatic shifts in our climate will turn our unique, beautiful world filled with vast oceans and magnificent mountains into a hot, barren hell. This is a tragically fitting end to a problem that the towering, gray, fiery smokestacks of the Industrial Revolution caused. However, we don’t have to be the cause of our own extinction. We don’t have to continue on this path. As a society, we’ve been immersed in long wars and global controversies, but what we don’t realize is that these all take place within a second of the day that is Earth’s lifetime. Climate change is something that will affect the Earth forever, long after humans are gone. The legacy we will leave behind can be good or bad. It is up to us to choose. It is up to us to restore this world to its fullest. 

Sources:

Ferguson, Christy. “Acting Like Climate Change Really Is an Emergency.” Toronto Star, 28 Jun 2019. eLibrary, 

Plumer, Brad, and Raymond Zhong. “Climate Change Is Harming the Planet Faster than We Can Adapt, U.N. Warns.” The New York Times, 2022,