Fact Check: The Planet’s on Fire

By Amy Willard

9/30/25

Why is it 80 degrees in October?

Why don’t we get snow like we did when I was a kid?

Why was it so hot this past summer that we couldn’t go outside for a long time in Ohio?

I’m a cashier at a grocery store, and I have to ask every customer I ring out if they want plastic bags or not. I’ve had at least five people use this question as an excuse to launch into a tirade about how global warming is a religion of lies (a direct quote from a real customer) and how pollution is a lie from a government (also a direct quote), and I can’t comprehend how people genuinely believe that. It’s so obvious that global warming is a real issue, pollution is a real issue, the ozone layer is obviously depleted, yes, plastic bags are bad for the environment, and yet people are convinced that actual science is propaganda. 

Specifically, global warming has become increasingly alarming recently. 2024 was the hottest year on record, and the period of 2015 to 2024 was the warmest 10-year span ever recorded. Even the rate of global warming has tripled since the 1980s. Due to this warming, wildfires and droughts have happened with much more frequency and intensity. The Antarctic ice is melting, sea levels are rising, and coral reefs are dying. NASA and NOAA have confirmed these facts, along with other research groups. 

There is also an astounding amount of evidence that human activity is the principal cause of global warming, again from NASA, NOAA, and various other research groups. Why aren’t we taking more steps to combat climate change? Well, there’s a lot of nuance to the situation. The issue isn’t the nuance; it’s so obviously an issue.

But the solution is not so straightforward. As damaging as gas-powered cars are to the environment for various reasons, it’s not realistic to just stop drilling for oil or stop driving gas-powered cars. However, we can start slowly, ending our reliance on fossil fuels by investing some of the money we use to invest in fossil fuels into our sustainable energy sources. To begin this process, we first need to find the most cost-effective form of sustainable energy that can be implemented into our society on a mass scale. Solar power has been studied a lot and implemented in many areas of America, and I think it would be the logical next step to implement solar power into our society on a much larger scale.