Planet Earth is our home the only known location in the universe where humans can live unaided by sophisticated technology. Given the fact that we are the fruit of this worlds soil, it follows that we are also its caretakers. Whether or not life started here or hitched a ride on a comet from elsewhere is irrelevant. We evolved here. We call it Mother Earth for a reason.

Climate change is real, and it is caused by human actions. It has been reassuring to see the majority of politicians on both sides of the aisle endorse this statement. The Trump administration, however, has given indications that it will look to cut NASAs funding for research into environmental concerns like global warming.

This crusade against science is reminiscent of a dictatorship and comes at a critical time in the progression of climate change. At a certain point, it will become irreversible. In order to preserve our ecosystem, we must adapt our infrastructure and lifestyles. Humans are not wired to be long-term thinkers, but this is one situation in which we must overcome our basic instincts.

The problem is that climate change will not kill the Earth as such, though it will likely make her barren. The Earth as a celestial sphere is simply too massive to be affected by anything that humans can do, at least at this point in our technological development. However, it will surely make the planet unfit for human life.

In comparison to any other celestial body within a reasonable voyage, Earth is a veritable Garden of Eden, and we must not squander it.

One only has to look at Venus to visualize what the Earth would look like after a runaway greenhouse effect. The average surface temperature is 462 degrees Celsius and the atmosphere, made of poisonous carbon and sulfur dioxides, creates an average surface pressure of a whopping 90 Earth atmospheres. Venus is about as inhospitable as it gets in our solar system.

Mars, on the other hand, shows what the Earth would look like if it got too cold, where most of its atmosphere is frozen at the poles and in the soil itself. As a result, Mars has less than 1 percent of the atmosphere of Earth, and a human would have about a minute to live if exposed to it. Like Venus, Mars atmosphere is 98 percent carbon dioxide. Additionally, the average surface temperature is a balmy -63 degrees Celsius, and in places it can drop below -140 degrees Celsius. Thus, with the exception of Earth, this trend of less-than-ideal living conditions continues in our solar system.

While our two closest planetary neighbors would prove extremely difficult to colonize in their current states, they can offer insight into the workings of planetology and the cause and effect relationships of climatology that have proven so elusive to understand fully.

Interestingly, part of NASAs Earth science budget supports missions to these planets to study them, such as the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Exploration Mission (MAVEN). These data are then compared with data taken from our own planet, and suddenly there are three data points with which to extrapolate planetary trends instead of just one.

Any scientist would be able to appreciate that. In political science, for example, the prominent scholar Ken Waltz developed an international relations theory called neorealism. One of the largest criticisms of the theory is that most of its tenets such as the fact that a bipolar world system is the most stable are based on a single period of history. In this case, the Cold War was the only period where such a system existed. Such theories are very inconsistent when used to try to to predict the future.

Predicting the future reliably is an ability we must have when we are talking about the fate of the human race. Climate change is real, and it has very relevant consequences that will only get worse. According to NASA, the past three years have all set new global surface temperature records respectively and scientists observed record low total Arctic ice sheet areas. So far, 2017 seems to be continuing that trend.

Warmer temperatures are the most readily observed effects, but the problem is that we do not fully understand what those temperature changes will do to the fragile balance of our ecosystem. For example, some areas, like northern Africa, Brazil and, more recently, southern California, have experienced widespread droughts, threatening the viability of their water supply systems and draining their aquifers at unsustainable rates. In the past two years, Sao Paulo, South Americas largest city, experienced a drought that pushed it to the brink of a water crisis.

A contributing factor to these droughts is the troubling rate of rainforest clearing across the tropical zone. Rainforests are not only the largest producers of oxygen on the planet, but they also transpire huge quantities of water vapor into the atmosphere. Their deforestation for short-term economic benefits is utterly reckless.

While regions such as these are becoming more arid and deserts are expanding, other areas are quite literally drowning in excesses of water. Rising sea levels are threatening to erase some small island nations from the map, such as the Republic of Kiribati and the Maldives. Combined with storms of ever-increasing ferocity, coastal population centers are more and more at risk of catastrophic flooding, as we saw in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and in New York City after Hurricane Sandy.

In southern Asia, millions were displaced in the aftermath of Cyclone Komen in 2015 and there was widespread infrastructure collapse. Consider the devastation in New Orleans and the amount of time it took for the city and its population to recover, especially given the fact that the disaster occurred in the worlds wealthiest country. Now consider Bangladesh, a relatively poor country where most of the 150 million people live in and around the Padma (Ganges) River delta. The destruction there is unimaginable.

The answer to the question of whether or not the human race has the capacity to facilitate the reversal of these trends is an unequivocal yes. We have the knowledge and the technology. What is lacking is the political will and, in large part, the initiatives of individuals. Climate change seems so abstract that most people either are not aware of the true threat that it poses, or put it out of mind because that is easier and more pain-free. But if we want to preserve the habitability and cleanliness of our planet, everyone has to be on board.

There needs to be widespread consensus that action must be taken and a clear outline of what that action should be. For example, as a college student, turning off your power strip in your room when you arent there saves a great deal of power, and remembering to turn off the faucet when youre washing dishes or brushing your teeth does the same for water.

When youre making decisions in your daily life, consider your own impact on the environment and dont forget that you have the potential to make the world a better place through simple actions.

Analyzing the behavior of the Earth and her processes is absolutely critical to understanding the nature and progression of global warming. Removing the funding for NASA to carry out this research is like going into a boxing match blindfolded. It is completely idiotic and contrary to hundreds of years of respect for the scientific process. It also sends the message that science is not legitimate when it exposes the detrimental side of business practices and their effects.

Trump should leave the science to the scientists, which includes not telling them what they can and cannot research, and focus on the innumerable other problems he should be worrying about as the president of the United States.

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NASA funding crucial to Earth's future - Virginia Tech Collegiate Times