Global warming is causing the melting of the ice caps of the North and South poles. As everyone knows, ice is frozen water, and melting ice becomes liquid water. As ice melts, the water adds to that which is already in the oceans, causing the oceans to rise.

This is bad for the obvious reasons of destroying the habitats of polar creatures like arctic polar bears and Antarctic penguins, and to make things worse, it means that land will be submerged all over the world.

This doesn't just mean small Asian/Latin American countries like Vietnam, Cuba, or Panama, but it means literally every coastal city and island in the world may be submerged.

Urban areas in cities such as New York, Sydney, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Hong Kong, and countless others may soon have permanently flooded streets and become uninhabitable for humans. The displacement of the people living in these cities will cause a refugee crisis unmatched by any historical event.

California Youth Climate Activists calls on California leadership, including Governor Gavin Newsom to declare a statewide climate emergency.

A climate emergency declaration or declaring a climate emergency is an action taken by governments and scientists to acknowledge humanity is in a climate emergency. The first such declaration was made in December 2016. Since then over 1,400 local governments in 28 countries have made climate emergency declarations. Let's make the state of California one of these.