The recent occurrences of back-to-back global natural disasters spanning from the Americas all the way to South Asia with great haste poses one seemingly unanswerable question: what exactly is happening to the world? Ice caps are melting, temperatures and sea levels are rising, precipitation is intensifying, natural disasters are becoming increasingly more dangerous, and species are suffering. One of the biggest debates as to the causes of these rapid changes in nature is over climate change.

Texas was hit with the historic Hurricane Harvey from August 25th to September 2nd; nearly 51 inches of rainfall flooded the streets, leaving many fearful and without shelter. As a traditionally conservative state, Hurricane Harvey and its counterparts, Irma and Katia, were real eye openers for Texas’ inhabitants in terms of climate change.

“After Hurricane Harvey and all of the other hurricanes happening all around the world at once,  I became more aware of how drastic the impacts of climate change truly are.” Said Ariel Jove, senior.

Though the hurricanes are indeed “happening all around the world at once”, it is questionable whether or not this is due to the dreaded issue of climate change.

“The cause of all of these hurricanes isn’t because of climate change, but rather because it is hurricane season. Climate change isn’t something that is too prevalent as of right now. There is always a way to explain the changes in nature.” Said Wiktoria Wojcinska, senior.

The question of whether or not climate change is legitimate is causing quite a stir.  However, this seemingly unanswerable topic can only be proved or refuted by Mother Nature herself. As for now, the government is considering imposing a carbon tax in order to prevent any further potential harm done to the environment. This tax, similar to climate change,  is being debated widely among government officials. In essence, the point of this tax would be to prevent anymore carbon dioxide emissions due to burning fossil fuels and mass deforestation from occurring in bulk. If global warming is concrete and this tax is imposed, it could cause environmental warming to decelerate rather than increase at such an alarming rate. However, there hasn’t been a major tax reform since 1986 and it would take much pushing economically and socially on the government’s part to get this tax enforced. It is likely that climate change will continue a debate for many years to come and that nothing drastic will be done to prevent this enigma anytime soon.