Climate change is real and if you are reading this anywhere in the United States you have, without question, felt its effects.

The fact that you were able to tan on the grassy knoll in front of the library in April and regularly find yourself getting drenched by bizarrely thick and sudden rainfall should be neither amusing nor annoying for you. Rather, you should be alarmed. Incredibly alarmed.

Earlier this week the Federal Government released an enormous report it had commissioned and overseen conducted by several different scientific groups that came to the terrifying and firm conclusion that over the past century the United States has warmed (on average) two degrees Fahrenheit—a shift which is likely responsible for much of the wacky (and sometimes fatal) weather we have seen around the nation over the last few years.

Increasingly, it is becoming clear that we live in a world that no longer wants us here and that the sustenance of human existence (at this rate) is only going to become more and more difficult. The message of the report is clear: the time for doubt-spreading and blame-gaming must end. Those who continue to deny the existence of widespread climate change and its consequences for human life are no longer just eye-roll-worthy, but dangerous.

The fate of our children and their children lie wholly in our hands today. The actions that our society will take over the coming years will, indeed, directly shape the future of humanity and the planet and must, therefore, be considered with utmost care and urgency.

We have been handed an enormous burden by our forefathers, and an enormous responsibility by virtue of those to come. Whatever you may be doing now, it isn’t enough. The task ahead won’t be simple for anyone, by any stretch, but it is indeed the great crisis of our generation. Resources need to be redirected, priorities shifted, action taken.

We must save the world today, should we hope to see a tomorrow.