If you are living on the East Coast, then you know of the recent drastic weather changes. It's caused you to go from wearing those cute new spring clothes to a parka in less than 24 hours. It's caused you to go from carrying an umbrella in your bag always to thinking you don't need it anymore and getting soaked from an unexpected rainstorm. This, ladies and gents, is Climate Change.

Ah, climate change, a beloved controversial topic. It is real, and it is very much so happening. We often overlook the reality of climate change because as a collective society, we believe that humans can do no wrong and the earth should bend to our changes and our will rather than us bending to its changes. However, even though globalization and rapid development seem to be advancing society and helping us all, it is also harming us all. More trees are being cut down, sea levels are rising, more animals are becoming endangered, the list goes on and on. These are all things many of you have heard before and information that has made you yawn because of the countless advertisements you've seen on the TV, social media, or even on fliers around campus.

It is real though, and as we move from a society that enjoys the outdoors to one that can do everything from the comfort of one's living room, we seem to be forgetting how much the Native Americans, the Vikings, and the pre-colonialism cultures enjoyed nature and protected it. We often forget that, as spiritual as it sounds, we come from nature only to go back to nature. But if buildings are constantly arising,[parks are turning into arcades and movie theaters, where will we go back to once we all die? Where will we be buried once all the graveyards are full and surrounded by buildings and other infrastructure?

If we all do the smallest of tasks, the world, the environment, the animals will be better off. If we all turn off the tap while we're brushing our teeth, turn off the lights when we leave the room, or even carpool with our friends if we're going in the same place, the environment will be better off. If we fund and support environmental groups, be passionate about sea levels rising and the effect it has on coastal cities and animals, we, as a society, will feel as if we are protecting the world that we live in.

It seems as though humans often feel like we don't owe the planet anything, but we owe the planet so much. We don't ask the ground if we can dig it up and build upon it, if we can extract the goodies that lie within, we just do it. Granted, the ground can't talk but that's hardly the point. The point is that we have to respect the walls and rules when we are tenants in an apartment or a house, but we fail to realize that we are all tenants of Mother Earth.

We fail to realize that every decision we make affects the Earth whether we realize it immediately or not. We fail to realize that climate change is real, it is happening, and it won't stop anytime soon unless we acknowledge it and work together to end it.