Our planet is rich in a variety of environments, ranging from the sands of the Sahara to the rain forests of the Amazon, and each of these unique places nourishes animal and plants found nowhere else.

We have the ability to acknowledge such beauty and diversity by protecting it. However, we get so caught up in our lives that we fail to recognize the beauty that surrounds us.

We are so focused on development and wealth that we are ruining the paradise that we call Earth. It is our greed and thoughtlessness that could bring an end to the world as we know it.

With industrialization and the creation of the engine, our civilization began releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels.

Unprecedented growth has destroyed millions of acres of forests and open land,

We are faced with rising global temperatures and this rate of warming is higher than any previous climate change in the past 10,000 years.

With the rising heat, many animals, plants and ecosystems will cease to exist. This new, overheated planet will foster disease and natural disasters that will consequently destroy the beautiful places in the world that we were too busy to cherish.

It is important to realize that we are destroying our home and that we may bring an end to the Earth as we know it today. It is our greed, selfishness and incompetence that is winning now, when our love and passion for the Earth could have prevented this impending disaster.

If we significantly decrease greenhouse gas emissions to the levels they were in 2000, the Earth would still warm 1 degree Fahrenheit over the next 100 years.

That doesn’t mean, however, that we shouldn’t try. One hundred years from now our descendants will inhabit the Earth and for them we should try to make the world a better place.

So let’s hop onto our bikes, use our legs, take public transportation and be the change.