Every activist has their story.

Every activist has their story. The way they began to see a problem and how they knew they needed to do something to help. If you asked me 5-10 years ago if I ever thought i’d be an activist, i’d probably tell you no. I’m too shy and have too much anxiety for that. Man how things change. While the shyness and anxiety is still very relevant today, my fight for doing what’s right has grown immensely.

I’m writing this post not only because I’m a firm believer in global warming and climate change, and I’m not writing this just because protecting the environment is my passion, I’m writing this because over the last few months we’ve all learned that our planet is in more trouble now that it ever has been. It is one thing when some parts of the government are at least trying to help fight climate change, it is another when the government is trying to completely make the subject vanish. You can take it off websites, you can refuse to answer questions, but you cannot stop it from still happening and you cannot stop the believers from fighting to make you see the truth.

In 2014 a show called “Years of Living Dangerously” premiered on HBOs Showtime and was aired on National Geographic for its second season. Created by David Gelber and Joel Bach and produced by the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Joel Bach, and more. Years of Living Dangerously takes a team of correspondents from the different industries and goes around the world to see firsthand the effects of climate change and global warming are doing to certain peoples in certain parts of the world. You’ll see the correspondents travel to places such as Bangladesh, Greenland, and the amazon. You’ll see correspondents travel underwater with scientists to get a hands-on experience, you’ll see them go over charts, analysis and data with scientists who’s every day work is to find out how climate change is happening, and ways to stop it. You’ll see them fight to speak to government officials to discuss the climate change problem, you’ll see them speak to believers, as well as skeptics. You’ll hear the frustration in their voices and see the sadness in their eyes as they learn alongside you the effects global warming is having on our planet and how not enough is being done to stop it.

I began watching this series mid-way through season one when actor Ian Somerhalder was going to be a correspondent. I’d been following Ians work as an actor and an activist for a while now and that’s what drew me to the show… that’s not what made me keep watching. Since that one episode I spent weeks researching and gathering as much information of my own as I could. I didn’t like what I was finding. I’ve watched every single episode from both seasons and in every single episode, whether they were discussing the effects here in the U.S, the effects in third world countries, the life in the ocean, or right in our own backyard, I was shocked and devastated every single time. The more I learned I was no longer just shocked and saddened, I was angry. I was angry at all the people, the government officials, to be exact, that have the power to help us save our planet and they weren’t. They wouldn’t even talk about it; the phrase climate change was taboo. It was easier for them to ignore it, it is easier for them to keep blindly making money off the oil companies than to sit down for five minutes and learn that in 100 years, high percentages of our planet could be destroyed.

Climate change is REAL. It is very real and it is very scary. If you have children or grandchildren or hope to have any, you should be terrified about the world you’ll be leaving them with. The mess they’ll have to endure because we knew something was wrong and we did nothing to aid in the help of stopping it.

Fighting climate change isn’t always about the money. Yes, scientists need money to aid in their research, and yes, they need it to use the equipment that is necessary to finding a solution. BUT money isn’t the only thing that can help fight climate change. You reading this right now, in your everyday lives can fight by doing simple things that you probably don’t think too much about.

Be energy efficient. It’s more than just shutting off all the lights when you don’t need them, it’s using LED light bulbs, it’s unplugging electronics when not in use, not just shutting them off. Hand dry your clothes whenever possible. Look for Energy star labels when buying new appliances.
Eat better. Chose locally grown foods whenever possible and organic if you can afford to do so. Eat as many meat free meals as you can, or like me, go completely meat and dairy free. 18% of the greenhouse gas emissions comes from the meat and dairy production. Even if you switched from beef to chicken, that alone makes all the difference as cows produce a lot of Methane, and require lots of land which results in deforestation, which releases CO2.
Stop wasting. Have a compost in your kitchen to keep kitchen scraps and garden trimmings out of landfills. Recycle paper, plastic, metal and glass ALWAYS. Use recyclable bags when at the grocery store.
Make polluters pay. Big polluters, such as oil and gas companies, don’t care that they’re polluting…. If they had to shell out money every time they did… I bet you they’d care. There’s a project called “ Putting a price on carbon” which you can look up information on, I’ll have a post about it coming soon as well.
Fuel- efficient vehicles. Or better yet, walk, or use your bike. Carpool or use public transits .
I think this is the most important one: BE INFORMED. You have the internet at your disposal in more ways than ever before. Look up facts. Look up ways to save. The best way to help fight this is to be informed and to help inform others.

These are simple, easy things that everyone can do if you just take two seconds to think over what decisions you’re making.

I’m not a scientist. I don’t have a degree. I’m just a girl who did her research, checked her facts and got informed. I did all of that, didn’t like what I saw and joined the fight to stop it.

One big fact I’ve come across:

Places such as but not limited too:

Miami FL
Boston, Ma
Atlantic City, NJ.
Honolulu, Hawaii
New Orleans, La.
Savannah, GA
Los Angeles, Calif.
South Charleston, S.C.
Virginia Beach, Va.
Seattle, Wash.

These places are all at risks at no longer existing in 80-100 years because of climate change, and that is just in the U.S alone. While most of us might not be here when that time comes, our children and our children’s children will be. They will be the ones who won’t be able to enjoy everything we have been, and when they know that we knew this was coming, and we had the means to help stop it, and we did nothing, it’ll be the biggest disappointment. Wouldn’t you be devastated to know that your parents and grandparents had the information that we do today, years ago, and did NOTHING to save our only living planet? I don’t see how anyone, in good conscious, would say they wouldn’t be.

With today’s government, we have an even bigger fight on our hands. Not only is our President a climate change denier, he’s doing everything in his power, which he has a lot of, to erase any facts and information on the subject. He’s promises to cut funding to projects, he chose to restart the Dakota pipeline, and threatens to pull out of the Paris agreement. Please do yourself a favor and look up what these things mean for our planet. I plan to have a post-up about each other theses things very soon, but before that, get yourself informed while you can, before our President manages to erase everything. On January 21^st, the women ( and men) of this country ( and around the world) took to the streets to peacefully come together to remind, not only our new president, but the world, that us, as women, have rights, an those rights are human rights. There is no difference, they are the same thing. We should have control over our own bodies. The government should never be allowed to tell me what to do with my own body. These thousands and thousands of women who marched that day agree. So many people say we have rights, we have more rights then a lot of women around the world and we should be grateful we have what we have. AND to a point you’re right. We, as Americans, have had more rights than many other women in the world and if you think that this march was us acting ungrateful you’re wrong. This march was a fight to keep those rights. To show the entire world that, men and women are EQUAL, because somewhere along the way in the last few years, people have forgotten that. It’s a travesty that in this century we are at risks of losing our rights and we are at risks of being completely controlled by the government and by men. It’s disgusting. This march was to show that we will not go down without a fight. That we are equal and we will remain that way and ANYONE who tries to take our rights away, it will NOT be an easy task.

The incredible women’s match opened the door to fight for climate change in the same way. On April 29^th in Washington DC there will be a climate march. Women and men from all over will come together again and force our dear president to listen. He doesn’t want to entertain the fact that climate change is real and change is necessary, we’ll make him listen. We’ll remind him that the first amendment is the most important amendment we have, and he CANNOT take that away from us. This is our planet we are fighting for. We only have one. And we’re losing it fast. If our President continues his work to eliminate all climate change talk, to erase all progress, take away all funding, there will not be enough time to fix it by the time he is no longer president. It’ll be too late. We cannot wait anymore. We cannot wait for someone else to make the change, we have to make the change now.

So I’ll leave you with this. Climate Change is real. It’s not a hoax, it’s not a fade. It’s real. Its happening. Our planet, our only planet, is slowly dying and we cannot sit back and watch. It’s a big scary subject, I understand that more than you can know, but it’s scary because it’s so important. Do you want to be the ones to tell your grandchild in 70 years, I’m sorry I knew this would happen and now you’re stuck with enormous heat waves, and devastating hurricanes every single day. Do you want to be the ones to tell them stories and show pictures of Virginia beach and LA California because it no longer exists for them to see themselves? Do you want to be the one to tell them you could have stopped the ice from melting so fast and the sea levels from rising so fast, but instead you did nothing?

I want to be able to look at my grandchildren some day and tell them that I was apart of the fight to do something. The fight that was an uphill battle from the start, but we never gave up. We are not doomed yet, we still have time to stop it, but it’s not much time. Many will think that it’s not my problem, I’ll be gone before it’s a major problem… but your family won’t be. They’ll be the ones who will suffer the devastation.

Get informed. Do your part. Keep fighting. Don’t be silenced. Stay peaceful but loud.

Don’t stand idle by as our beautiful planet gets destroyed. Stand up and fight for it.

I’ll have more posts like this one coming, hopefully by the end of this week and more to come next week. I think this is a good way to help people understand if I can put it in terms that don’t scare people away. Scientific talk can be overwhelming, it is for me. The price on carbon initiative, the #NODapl fight, climate change facts and familiar faces who are fighting alongside us, and more coming soon. .