Hawksbill turtle. Indian Elephant. Orangutan. African Wild Dog. These are all endangered animal species that the earth has the potential to lose in the future. Animals that our children and grandchildren might only ever get to see in pictures.

According to the World Wildlife Foundation, we are in a mass extinction event, one where we are seeing thousands of animals go extinct every year. Despite this, people are still ignoring the implications of our actions and the fact that not only we are suffering from them but so are other organisms.

As we continue to pollute our home with unnaturally produced greenhouse gasses, tear down the habitats of animals that have been around longer than we have, or heat up the waters to a degree that the organisms can not keep up with, we also continue to pretend that we haven’t contributed to these problems.

Big companies turn a blind eye when disposing of toxic materials simply because it costs them less to be fined than it does to dispose of them correctly. Everyday people fail to realize the harmful effects of the consumerist era that we live in, one where people feel the need to compete with each other materialistically instead of just basing success on character and happiness.

We are continuously polluting the environment in a way that leads to intense warming of the earth that will become irreversible if we do not do anything about it. We cannot continue to wait for someone else to do the right thing, to wait for someone to speak up and make the change that needs to happen. We have to rely on ourselves to do what is right and protect our environment for the good of humanity and every other living organism that now relies on us to continue living on this earth.