In middle school, I pictured global warming as someone holding the globe and heating it up with a hair dryer. But needless to say, I was in middle school, and it’s just not that simple. Instead of a magic hairdryer, the culprit is the greenhouse effect, resulting from the atmosphere trapping in heat radiating toward earth’s surface.

Our earth is dying.

The pollution humans have put on the planet has finally caught up to us and the earth is heating up. With this change in temperature comes the melting of polar ice caps and severe weather events, including hurricanes.

According to NASA, “the planet’s average surface temperature has risen about 2.0 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 degrees Celsius) since the late 19th century, a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere.”

Every single year the earth’s temperature is increasing, allowing hurricanes like Irma and Harvey to exist. Because hurricanes are spiraling storms, any increase in temperature will increase the intensity of their energy.

Honestly, I’m afraid of what the planet is going to look like in just 10 years. Will people’s eyes finally be opened to the fact that our actions have consequences? Or will earth become a wasteland?

Growing up, my favorite movie was “The Lorax” (and is to this day). That movie taught me that how we treat our planet affects how it will look in the future. If we don’t speak up and change the way we treat our earth, then we will soon live in a place where no one can thrive.