The other day I was driving down the street, just minding my own business and singing along to Rihanna like any normal college student does when a driver in front of me threw an empty pack of cigarettes out of their window. At this moment I only had two thoughts in my head,

1. Ew... cigarettes

2. Why wouldn't you just wait and throw it away? Was is so important that you HAD to get rid of that empty box right at this minute?

With this past election passing and everybody throwing a fit about this country's problems and what we need, I think everybody needs to realize that we will not have these problems and will definitely not find any solutions if we do not have a planet anymore. No matter who we elect as President, no matter how many riots are held, no matter how much we all complain about our daily lives, reviving this planet should truly be something that is at the top of all our lists.

Have you ever noticed how little we are actually taught about the planet we live on? In all of my schooling (keep in mind that I am now a Freshman in college), I have had exactly one class having anything to do with our Earth and the environment. This class was called Environmental Science, my freshman year of high school, and honestly, it wasn't even beneficial to me and my knowledge of this planet.

In one of my classes now, this topic came up and we had a very interesting discussion about educational systems and the Earth. We were put into a scenario: You are moving with a group of people to Mars. What's the first thing you do? What do you figure out?

What most students replied was to learn about their new planet and speak with the aliens, inhabitants if you will, about the in and outs of this new world. So why is this our first instinct for another planet but not our own? We all claim we know about or planet but why are we doing nothing to bring it back to life? Did you know that we will lose about an acre of rain forest a second? Or how about that today the human population will increase by a couple hundred thousand, adding tons of carbon dioxide to the air thus making the earth a little hotter and it's water a little more acidic?

This is a problem that we cannot ignore.

This is a problem that we ALL need to be more educated on before it is too late.

This is a problem that needs to be included in all lower education curriculum's so everybody grows up with basic knowledge about where they are living.

I know you've all seen the t-shirts talking about saving the planet, and you've all heard the hippies preach about going green...but..

Please listen to the hippies.