As most of you should know by now, California is being destroyed by wildfires that are spreading quickly. The fires originated in Chico and Malibu and have now spread so far that the fires are affecting Northern California as well.

Last week, my roommate and I woke up to our campus covered in smoke. This had happened before when there were wildfires in Napa so we knew what the cause was. We went about our day worried, but we knew that it would go away. But, for the next few days, the smoke didn't go away. In fact, the smoke increases and we could barely go outside because our lungs would hurt from inhaling the smoke. Then, the president of our school informed us that there was a fire less than 200 miles away from us. He closed our campus due to the poor air quality. According to scientists, Northern California has the worst air quality in the world right now. In the fucking world. If that doesn't shock you, I don't know what will. After hearing all of this and experiencing the effects of the fires firsthand, it's absolutely absurd to me how our government can still say that global warming isn't real. Our president has managed to side with the fires in a recent string of tweets. The EPA department is refusing to see that these fires are not normal and should not be happening. Yes, California is in drought and the forests are dry, but these fires still not be happening. Because of the way we are treating the Earth, these natural disasters are going to happen more and more frequently. At this rate, so many horrible things have happened: fires in California, earthquakes in Nepal, hurricanes in Florida and South Carolina. Those are three examples out of the numerous natural disasters that are happening. If we don't acknowledge that this is a real threat and we don't change the way we are polluting this planet, then the worst is yet to come.