Why YOU should be worried about climate change.

There have been eons worth of temperature fluctuations throughout the Earth’s history. It has experienced ice ages, vast droughts and everything in between. You would think that now would be no different, but the Earth’s temperature is rapidly increasing at a rate that can cause irreversible damage if nothing is done about it. I myself am a pretty avid supporter of environmental sustainability efforts and the reversal of climate change, so when the weather went from almost 70 degrees last Friday to snowing on Sunday, I knew that things were getting bad. In fact, they have been since 1850: in the time between then and 2025, there has been a global increase in temperature of up to two degrees fahrenheit, which has caused most of the issues that we see now. There are more extreme weather events, colder winters, warmer summers and these extremes are only becoming more and more normal. 2024 was named the hottest year on record, and that beat 2023 (the previous record holder) by a large margin. According to the World Meteorological Organization, the past 11 years (as of 2025) have been the hottest years on record.

A little known fact about global warming is that it can also cause extreme cold seasons. As the Earth warms, it weakens the polar jet streams, causing this cold air to flow down to typically warmer parts of the Earth. Earlier this year we saw a huge snow storm pass through areas that typically do not get snow or temperatures below freezing, which brings us back to the topic of increased extreme weather events. These can consist of snow storms, hurricanes or other precipitation events such as extreme thunderstorms and tornadoes. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted an increase in hurricanes and tropical storms throughout the 2025 hurricane season. 

“What’s causing this rise in heat?” you might ask. Well, it’s caused by a multitude of factors, but carbon emissions are the main driving factor behind climate change. As corporations burn fossil fuels and we drive our cars or eat meat from factory farms, we all contribute to the problem, myself included. While politicians walk around screaming that climate change is a lie, it is important to pay the most attention to what you see, feel and hear around you. If things seem like they have been different throughout the seasons, then chances are they have been, and the scientific evidence is there to prove it. It takes all of us to fix the environmental problems that we have right now, or else there might be none of us left to do it.

-MXH