Opinion: Climate Change vs. the World

Going outside and breathing fresh air is the first thing to do in the morning; it wakes you up. This joy is a thing to be grateful for; it won’t be something our grandchildren will get to experience. I enjoy going outside when it’s the perfect temperature, but recently the weather has been too hot, smokes in the air not being able to breathe or it is raining and cold. 

I can’t get the perfect weather I want. When people hear about climate change, they usually think, “Oh, is there something I can do?” But never actually do anything. There have been so many warnings about it and they are increasing everyday. 

Climate change is destroying the world fast. We need to do something about it. 

In the 8th grade I wrote a research paper about climate change. The book “100 Facts Saving the Earth” was published in 2008, the book stated, “The ice in the Arctic Ocean is melting so fast that scientists think over half of it could be gone by 2100.” 

This scared my eighth grade self to think about because it’s something I would experience if I lived up to 90. But now the world is changing so fast that the ice would melt by 2050 or 2040 when I’ll be in my mid 30s’ or 40s’. I’ll still be living life. I’ll see the world change with my own eyes while I still have my life to be worried about.

The battle of The World vs. Climate Change has been an issue for over 800,000 years and it is still an issue, but an even bigger issue since we’ve been doing as much as we can for over 800,000 years to change it. This issue will continue for a while, but by 2050 it could be dire. If we don’t do anything it will most likely not be an issue anymore  because we could be gone by then because of the circumstances humans would have created for themselves. 

One day, I was scrolling through TikTok and my feed had changed into what I was searching for because it was the day where Colorado experienced some of the worst air quality in the world at the time. CO experienced an AQI of 120 to 140 which is an unhealthy air quality. When I went outside I thought this is how it would look in the future because it was groggy, smoky and I couldn’t see the shadows of the mountains anymore. The TikTok I was looking at was one informing me how the world would look like in 2050 if we continue doing what we are doing now. 

The video was made by @tarabellerose and stated, “[The air is hot and heavy, you will look at the air quality instead of the weather, the arctic sea ice will be gone, forests are burned to the floor, wildlife is extinct they are a memory, hurricanes and tropical storms are normal, there is high moisture and high sea levels, extreme flooding, diseases will spread more easily causing some to be common to get, the sea will be mainly carbon dioxide causing sealife to die, temperatures will rise, food production isn’t normal, and places that don’t grow crops like Alaska can now grow them.]”  This is a description of what 2050 is going to look like, which is a terrible future to imagine. 

Teenagers imagine 2050 as “I think that we will be seriously harmed by the irresponsibility of big companies. Our atmospheres. Dead. Our water. Dead. Our animals. Dead,” said RHS Sophomore Aiyana Fragoso.. Teens don’t have hope for our World. This shows we need to slow down climate change.

To prevent climate change from happening too fast and destroying the World we should listen to activists who are trying to tell us what to do it, we can also listen to what warnings road signs are telling us, for example if a sign says OZONE WARNING search up what ozone means and what you can do so it’s not a warning anymore. 

“The first thing I’m thinking about is politically, making sure there are policies in place that essentially stop corporations from polluting since it is one of the biggest sources of pollution and greenhouse gases are going to be industries rather than individual consumers. So I think so far a lot of the emphasis has been on consumers and what can we do, but the bulk of things are going to rely on industries changing their ways,” stated RHS Chemistry teacher and Environmental Club sponsor Ms. Pierce. 

This is one of the biggest things we can do to help the world, try and convince big corporations to change their policies. It will be a huge change for the future of our world if we change the big things rather than the small things.  There are many warnings that climate change is throwing at us. We should follow what activists say we should do.

Climate change is happening too fast. It’s not allowing kids to grow up and be leaders of the world. The world is a valuable place that we should protect, everyone should start helping before climate change wins against the World.