The Amazon is burning — the lungs of the Earth are rapidly collapsing in size. Greenland is the first to lose a glacier — 12.5 billion tons of ice. According to the BBC, the ice melt raised sea levels by more than a millimeter and can affect coastal cities around the world. Basically, temperatures are rising, the oceans are warming, the ice sheets are shrinking and sadly, we are not doing enough to help the planet.

Since the Amazon fires broke out, there have been divided responses from everyone about the state of the planet. The worst part of it is that the fires were caused by farmers, who were further encouraged by the Brazilian government. Regeneration of the forest can take anywhere from 65 to 4,000 years, according to New Scientist.

Some believe that it is the duty of everyone to reduce their waste, while others remain convinced that the onus is on major corporations and their greed, such as fossil fuel companies. And quite frankly, it’s not just about the environment, but the animals too.

According to the One Kind Planet website, “the Hawksbill Turtle has lost 90 percent of its population, 80 percent of which has been lost in the past 10 years.” Then, there are gorillas, orangutans, rhinos, and elephants, most of whom have lost their homes due to deforestation. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Now the question remains: how ‘green’ can we go? Gone are the days when we had 12 years to save the planet. Now, we have 18 months, at least according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

It doesn’t take a lot to make a change, everyone just has to do one tiny, little thing.

Based on their 2019 reports, the IPCC has concluded the global temperature has to go down to 1.5C in order to slow down climate change — not stop it, but slow it down enough for it to not be destructive. This decrease will balance out global temperatures between bad and, well, terrifying. Governments are taking control of their countries to control carbon dioxide emissions. Currently, there are 19 countries who have signed up for a carbon-neutral committee— Canada is one of them.

We can take it in turns to blame fossil fuel companies or factories or even that person over there who didn’t recycle, but it turns out that unless we all decide to do something, it won’t actually matter.

People are coming forward with very inventive ways to reduce their carbon emissions in their daily lives. It’s all about the little things we can all do in order to really make a change in the world. There are many ways we can reduce carbon emissions: we can carpool, take transit, or walk. The options are there for us.

Climate change is a natural process that has happened before and will continue to happen. The only difference here is that the current changes are man-made. So it’s up to us to reverse it. It doesn’t take a lot to make a change, everyone just has to do one tiny, little thing.