If You Don't Have Time For Climate Change, I Don't Have Time For You

Our planet is dying. It's not my opinion. It's not something companies say to make money or spread fear. It's not a hoax.

It's a fact. It's been scientifically proven.

Numerous men and women with Ph.D.'s who work in varying areas of science have agreed that we are hurling our planet towards being too warm to inhabit.

Climate change is man-made, caused by human-produced pollution. Again, not my opinion. A scientifically. Proven. Fact.

Despite the abundance of scientific evidence that's been shown time and time again for decades, there are still so many who doubt that climate change even exists, or worse, they don't care.

I could bore you with statistics and facts that should probably worry you. I could tell you that between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year, from things like malnutrition, malaria, and heat stress. Or that Antarctica's ice mass is reduced by 134 billion metric tons every year.

I could try and scare you by telling you that if the Earth warms 0.5 degrees Celcius, the effects of droughts, floods, famine, poverty, and natural disasters will increase exponentially, putting millions of lives in direct danger.

I could confuse you by telling you that in 2016, 92 countries came together to ratify the Paris Agreement and agree to do their part preventing the temperature of the Earth from rising. As of now, there are 185 parties who have signed the agreement. But in June of 2017, President Donald Trump decided that America would pull out of the Paris Agreement and join the 13 countries who currently do not participate in the agreement's provisions. The United States has grouped itself together with countries like Russia, Iran, Iraq, and Yemen, all of which have decided to take no action against climate change.

I could tell you that President Trump has denied the existence of climate change, or global warming, his entire presidency. He disregards scientific evidence, proven facts, and insists that because parts of the world are cold, that means global warming cannot possibly exist. He even takes to Twitter to mock the concept of global warming.

I could tell you all of these things, I could present you with a mountain of facts and reports and data that all say the same thing: climate change is real, and it will result in fatalities if we don't reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we produce. I could try any number of ways to persuade you to care about or believe in climate change, but in the end, if you're against it then I'll have a very small chance of changing your mind.

People tend to be very stuck in their ways and beliefs, on both sides of politics. Those of us with strong beliefs aren't likely to be persuaded away from said beliefs. Meaning that those who deny climate change, those who don't care whether it's real or not, won't care and won't be any help in the fight to save our planet.

So for me personally, from now on, if you don't have time for climate change, I don't have time for you. I won't debate you. I won't spew facts at you until I'm blue in the face, I won't indulge your disbelief. Because trying to convince someone of something they'll never believe wastes too much time, time that could be spent fighting climate change.

The breath I could use to try and prove you wrong in an endless argument is breath I could be using to reach those who do believe in saving Earth from getting too hot for us to survive.

The brain power I could use to compile facts and present them to you is brain power I could be using to collaborate with others and come up with ways we can do our part in preventing climate change.

I'm no longer wasting my efforts fighting with those who have made it clear that they've never believed in climate change and never will. Instead, I'll focus on the small part I play on an individual level and reaching out to those who don't know much about climate change.

We'll have to work twice, even three times as hard to make up for those who don't care about global warming. We'll have to work harder to elect officials who care about our planet (See: Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez and the Green New Deal) and vote out the ones who don't (yes, I'm talking about our sitting president) and we'll be tired. We'll be completely, mentally exhausted. But hopefully, there are enough of us to make even the slightest change and maybe prevent our planet from becoming unlivable.