It is time to rise.

 Our predecessors have failed us and it is now our responsibility to save the world.  We cannot idly sit back and hope our government will solve one of the most prevalent issues of our generation: global warming.    

Despite the fact that global warming is affecting our lives right now, the Trump administration pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement in 2017, an agreement to gradually lower fossil fuel emissions, according to NBC.  

Already we see global warming affecting our planet: according to Live Science, animals are moving away from the equator to find habitats with cooler temperatures that they can comfortably live in.  With an increase in droughts and severe weather disasters, scientists believe that the loss of land and groundwater will cause crop and livestock shortages throughout the world.  

This in turn will lead to international panic as markets collapse, something that  will affect every one of us.  

However, we are not without hope.  There is still time for activists like Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish climate activist, to rally the world and express the need for action.  Thunberg spoke to the U.N. on Sept. 20 in New York and begged world leaders to take action and stop climate change.  

According to Thunberg, the problem is that world leaders are content forcing our generation to solve global warming.  It is clear that our leaders will not change detrimental practices despite mounting scientific evidence. As such, it is our job to ensure the survival of the human race.  

As Thunberg’s message soars across the nation, igniting student activists around the world, others are more skeptical of her impact and take to slinging insults at a 16-year-old girl trying to save the world.  

Fox News has been a perpetrator of such insults. 

According to The Washington Post, Fox News pundit Michael Knowel said, “If it were about science, it would be led by scientists rather than by politicians and a mentally ill Swedish child who is being exploited by her parents and by the international left.”

A grown man calling a teenage activist “mentally ill” is an example of why we must strike. According to Independent, Fox News host Laura Ingraham compared Thunberg’s speech at the U.N. to a horror film in which children from a cult kill the adults in their town. 

So, if these so-called “adults” ridicule us and watch as the Earth is torn to shreds by global warming, what can we do? 

Take Thunberg’s advice: “since our leaders are behaving like children, we will have to take the responsibility they should have taken long ago.” 

Thunberg has the answer.  The youth must take to the streets, strike and let national governments know that we will fight for the world even if they will not. 

According to EcoWatch, 7.6 billion people around the world participated in climate strikes during the week of Sept. 20 with Thunberg as the head of the rallying call.  

This is what we must do.  We rise up, and we make the changes that our governments refuse to make.  Don’t just wait for the next climate strike, go to the global climate strike website, and do your part to save our world.