Throughout most of our childhoods, we have all heard the term ‘global warming’ as a sort of background noise, like a slightly annoying buzzing fly. Living in West Sonoma County, we are all probably more well versed in the science of it all than most–and yet I feel that few of us truly grasp the magnitude of the issue.

Hurricane Patricia recently threatened the Mexican Coast, with winds exceeding 200mph in its center when it raged through the Pacific. If it hit land, the hurricane would have proved devastating. As it is, it mostly avoided the coast, losing momentum and breaking relatively safely on the shorelines.

Scientists are pointing to global climate change as the culprit for this storm; because warmer ocean currents are spreading throughout the globe, storms get more intense more quickly because the cold upwelling is no longer strong enough to tame them.

Now some scientists still argue that these global climate shifts are a natural process and that there is no need to panic about our role in them. But the majority of environmental scientists agree there is a direct and dangerous connection between human emission levels and increasingly intense weather patterns. Hurricane Patricia was the strongest hurricane to be recorded in known history, and it goes hand in hand with myriad other signs of global warming, which creates more issues beyond an imperfect atmosphere. Life down here on the blue planet itself is getting messy because of our actions; it isn’t just the sky.

The effect of a hurricane like Patricia would certainly be devastating to any coastal cities it hit, but it would also arguably serve as a wakeup call for our complacent pollutant-happy habits. The majority of our world’s population lives on a coast or near a coast, so halting global warming and its subsequent oceanic effects is in everyone’s best interest.

I remember when hurricane Katrina hit when we were all little, and back then I had no idea what caused such big storms. When I learned more about global warming and “natural disasters” that aren’t quite so natural, I became enraged that we as a nation have done so little to protect our own shores from these environmental catastrophes. When New Orleans was hit, an entire city filled with millions of people was changed forever. But rarely in mainstream media did the idea of cutting back our emissions to save our coasts get any real attention.

National governments have no choice but to take their countries’ safeties into consideration when they are considering signing off on a new oil pipeline, or subsidizing a natural gas company. As students, we have enormous power; we represent the next wave of influence; the up-and-coming senators, writers, protesters, engineers, and scientists who can make it their goal to save our tranquil planet from becoming a raging tempest.