For many years there has been debate over whether or not global warming is a real issue. Multiple scientists have tested and studied the topic and many have offered up solutions to slow its causes–and in turn hopefully its harmful effects on the environment. In Northern California, an area where nature and healthy living are high up on the list of important issues, 200 high school students skipped their Friday classes to gather at the capitol in Sacramento and hold a rally as a climate strike.

This was just one of over two thousand climate strikes around the world. Global warming in itself is a global issue and people are taking a stand. More than one hundred countries are participating in the strike against global warming in hopes of getting enough attention to make some major change. An issue like global warming cannot be fixed with one group or one country, it requires an agreement between every nation across the world. If one country makes an effort to lessen its emission of greenhouse gases, yet all others continue on as they were no change will come. Getting enough countries to agree on the issue and how to handle it is its own issue in itself. Most countries around the world would disagree with each other out of spite, rather than allowing themselves to fix anything.

The rally in Sacramento, California was particularly close to many of the attendee’s hearts due to the recent fires that have plagued their area. On top of losing many homes and having to grieve numerous lives, there was also endless amounts of smoke released into the air. The smoke to this day, several months later, still plagues their everyday lives. They cannot even breathe fresh air on a daily basis.

Realistically, this is an issue that every human being should be worried about. Madison Dekker (12) says she thinks “the issues that surround global warming are often stupidly overlooked.” Even if global warming is not going to affect you in your lifetime, it will affect your kids, and grandchildren, and great grandchildren, and so on. You may not care about your own air quality, but as it continuously worsens it will eventually reach a point where it is toxic to human beings. Is that really a future you want to create for our future generations?

I urge everyone to make an effort to make some changes in their lives that would help aid this cause. You can carpool, drive electric cars, use less electricity, really anything that would help to lessen your contribution to the amount of greenhouse gases being released. One person cannot stop global warming, but as a group, if every individual makes some change then as a whole we can at least slow down the damage that global warming causes on our country.