​​That's fair.

​

Look, I'm not here to convince you.

I don't want to.

I don't want your money.

I don't want your vote.

I'm just a college kid sitting at my dining hall writing this in-between classes.

 

I literally have no ulterior motives.

 

But look, I believe in climate change and it scares me, and like a kid who turns on his bathroom light every night to be able sleep because he's afraid of the dark, I want to build a solar panel because I'm afraid of climate change. 

​

Now,

you might say I'm just spinning my wheels and I'm aimlessly wasting my time and if that's true then so be it.

At least I've only wasted my time and not yours.

​

​​But, If you care to read further, here's why I'm scared

(Don't feel like you have to read this, I won't make you)

​​​

​

​

Scientists claim climate change is exponential. 

It builds upon itself. 

​

We start with emitting a bunch of CO2. ​

From cars. That's a fact.

(Don't believe me? Look up "gasoline or diesel + oxygen chemical reaction" and you'll see CO2 on the other side of the equation).

From making cement. That's a fact.

(Don't believe me? Look up "the chemical reaction of calcination" - which is the process used to make cement - and you'll see CO2 on the other side of the equation).

From ACs and Heating Systems. That's a fact. 

(Don't believe me? Look up "chemical equation of combustion" - which is the process used to make fire and heat - and you'll see CO2 is produced on the other side of the equation).

​

The problem is sunlight always comes down to Earth, hits the ground and heats up the planet. 

Normally our planet just radiates out that extra heat back to space. 

But all this CO2 we're making just clumps up in our air and atmosphere and doesn't let the heat get through. 

(Dont believe me? Take a deep breath in. Hold it for 5 seconds. Then put your hand in front of your mouth and let out that air. It's hot right? That's because you breathe out CO2)

​

Now that we agree CO2 makes things hotter, here's the problem. 

At our poles there's a lot of ice. 

That ice melts because we make too much CO2. 

Melting that ice though releases a whole bunch of CO2 and methane that's been trapped in it since the ice age. 

(Don't believe me? We just said you breathe out CO2. So do a lot of other living things (like cats and dogs and so on). If you die, you stop breathing out that CO2. All the dead bodies of animals and microbes from thousands of years ago are trapped and decomposed in that ice, that's where the CO2 comes from).

​

So we just released even more CO2 without directly doing it ourselves. 

​​

Okay, heat also burns things. 

Things like wood. 

So more CO2 means forest fires.

​

Well, plants do the opposite of us, they consume CO2 and release oxygen (what we use to breathe). 

If the extra heat from the CO2 burns all the plants, not only do we now have a bunch of extra CO2 lying around, we also have less oxygen (for things like breathing).

Not good. 

​

And this just keeps going. 

The extra CO2 lying around melts ice and burns forests and that leaves more CO2 which melts more ice and burns more forests and so on and so on and so on until we're sitting on tiny islands because all the melted ice has pushed our shore lines inwards, surrounded by a burning inferno of forest fires from every direction, and what little land isn't already on fire is now a desert that won't grow any food. 

Being alive then becomes very, very hard. 

​​

Okay.

But that's just a doomsday picture, we're no where near that, right?

​

Well,

20 years ago we were at 0.8 degrees celsius above normal.

10 years ago we were 1.0 degrees celsius above normal.

The climate change preachers are saying that now we're at 1.2 degrees above normal.

Doomsday happens at 1.5 degress above normal. 

If every 10 years we go up 0.1 degrees we've got 30 more years till Doomsday. 

Not good.

​

That's why I'm scared.

That's why I'm going to build my solar panel.