Emily Marcil, guest writer As an incoming student at the University of Michigan School of Environment and Sustainability, I am afraid of how my life will look post-grad even though I'm supposed to be starting my life — not fearing it. Every summer we have record setting temperatures, intense droughts, wildfires and storms. Consequences such as rising food prices, housing and energy costs and increase in respiratory diseases and death disproportionately impact poor people and people of color. I feel like I will be left behind financially as the gap widens between the rich and the poor. When I first learned about climate change in my high school environmental science class, I was completely taken aback by how we can just go on — business as usual — and not take action. As a sophomore in high school, I went fully vegan because that was my way of decreasing my carbon footprint. However, I knew that because of environmental racism, veganism is not accessible or affordable for many people. I also am aware of the fact that veganism alone cannot solve the complex problem of climate change. I'm not saying that change at the individual level is useless, because it does have great benefits; however we need to push for systemic changes.