Let's be blunt, the Earth is our only home right now and it needs our help. Various scientist and climate specialist have estimated that we have about twelve years to start dramatically fixing the damage we've caused to the Earth and reduce pollution to make the Earth more habitable for us all. Several scientist have even said that by 2036 the Earth will have crossed in climate danger territory, making the world even hotter and the weather more unpredictable.

Climate change has been getting some of the attention it needs recently, with kids even striking school to make a statement! It's a hugely important topic, maybe the most important? I believe if everyone does just a little bit to help fight climate change, it makes the world of difference. When it comes to making that difference, it seems the easiest thing you can do is cutting back or cutting out your meat intake.

Recently, I’ve come across many social media posts referring to recycling and how our waste has been affecting the environment. The topic has also come along multiple times in school, whether it be something I’ve been learning or just being reminded to always recycle. Many teenagers these days don’t realize the damage it’s causing, Not treating the situation as it should be, or even being one of the causes for the damage. I wanted to touch upon this topic with kids my age, older and younger. So hopefully, they can change their mind about how they are affecting their environment.

The Fourth Assessment Report (4AR) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released in February 2007, provided the strongest statement yet that global warming (or climate change) is (1) real, (2) is going to lead to significant adverse impacts within the next century, and (3) is being driven by human activity. The 4AR is the latest iteration of the IPCC's flagship summary of the scientific basis of climate change and its impacts (the previous one was in 2001) and concludes:

How would you imagine a world with parlous storms, extinct animals, and severe droughts? It may be hard to picture Earth as a barren wasteland with increasingly harsh hurricanes and floods, but it's soon becoming a reality. Warming temperatures can have dire consequences for life on Earth, and our world will never be the same again.

Does Hell exist?

In recent years, global warming has become a bit of a problem to the world around us. With rising sea levels, ice caps melting, and to even potentially bringing back the plague! Now you may be asking yourself, what is global warming and why does it affect me? Well, here is the thing: Global warming is a gradual increase in temperature of the Earth's atmosphere. Meaning, it slowly warms up the Earth. To simplify this even further, when baking a cake or cooking dinner, you need to preheat the oven in order to get it to its desired temperature. As of right now, the Earth is still preheating and warming up.

I aim to uncover the real damage humans are having on the world around us.

I watched an eye-opening documentary on Netflix today, Chasing Coral, which highlights the issues faced by our coral reefs. These issues being caused by none other than climate change. A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem which should be thriving with life; however, as the seas warm up, it causes the coral to bleach then causing the polyps to eject their plant-like cells, causing them to lose their source of food, and eventually, this causes them to die. It is thought that within recent years, this has happened to half of the world's coral reefs. Two-thirds of one of the most well-known coral reefs, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, has died. Some scientists believe that by the end of the century, coral reefs will be completely extinct. (Blue Planet II, 2017). Our marine ecosystems are facing a possible collapse if nothing is done to stop these environmental issues. This major problem is being addressed in so many ways, art being one of them. Jason DeCaires Taylor, a sculptor, created his own artificial coral reefs after looking at the effects of global warming, pollution, overfishing, and ocean acidification, the impact of tourism and habitat loss. Initially, Taylor placed one sculpture, called “The Lost Correspondent,” off the coast of Grenada, where he quickly saw how it was quickly transformed by marine creatures, making it their own. This first sculpture then led to many more in an attempt to continue growing his artificial reefs. Taylor has created over 800 new coral habitats. The sculptures are created with a PH neutral marine cement for healthy and natural growth, that coral polyps can easily attach to and allow fish to congregate on a large scale. The marine creatures turn the sculptures into their own. Taylor stated that once the sculptures are submerged, they no longer belong to him, they belong to the ocean (Ted Talk, 2015). The pieces are never finished as they are continuously changing due to life forms constantly adding to the sculptures. Taylor now has a large range of underwater sculptures, his largest being 60 tonnes in Nassau, the Bahamas. The piece, titled “Ocean Atlas,” presents a young girl kneeling on the seafloor, holding up the ocean, like she has the weight of the ocean on her back. “The piece symbolizes the burden we are currently asking future generations to carry and the collective responsibility we have to prevent its collapse.” (deCaires Taylor, n.d.). This particularly spoke to me. We are a generation who seems to be blissfully living in ignorance. We all know that climate change is a major issue but that’s it. We hear about it but none of us act upon the information we hear, unfortunately.

A long time ago, dragonflies spanned five feet and centipedes, ten. The glorious time was the Carboniferous period; a time known for growth and prosperity. The creatures that roamed earth were limitless and beautiful. That is until the forests became deserts and oceans became flaming acid. The world would stop in its tracks due to methane-producing bacteria. This was known as the Great Dying; almost 90% of species suffered a horrendous extinction. Bacteria produced that mass extinction—but we as humans will soon have done even worse.