It is April, it is snowing, it is cold and the end of winter does not seem to be in sight. In the past several years, this has become the norm and climate change has become a more and more pressing issue. To address this issue and to make the Creighton community and the broader Omaha community aware of the urgency of the problem, GreenJays is sponsoring the We Matter Walk: Our Climate, Our Future with help from the Creighton Center for Service and Justice which will take place on April 26.

The goal of this walk is to raise awareness for climate change and to provide a space for participants, whether they are students, faculty or staff, to publicly show their concern and to discuss this issue together.

“[We hope they] start to realize the gravity climate change and to start making positive changes to say, ‘Hey, We Matter, here is what we need to do, and here is what I can do,’” said GreenJays president and Arts & Sciences junior Alexandria Clark.

Climate change is an issue that affects every single human being and is not an issue that can be reversed overnight.

“Climate change, I think, is without question the most important issue the human community faces, perhaps has ever faced,” said GreenJays moderator and associate professor of systematic theology Richard Miller. “Global warming is not merely a dangerous possibility; it is a presently unfolding reality.”

“What is important is what climate change means; it can have devastating effects on agriculture, water and even the tourism industry. All of these things will affect us, our economy and possibly upset the way we as a society have become accustomed to,” Clark said.

Although many people recognize that climate change is an issue, according to Miller, they are unaware of how urgent this is. For the past three decades, scientists have predicted the effects of climate change and those effects have now become a reality in the form of rising sea levels, melting glaciers and increasingly severe storms.

Arts & Sciences freshman Jessica Sheldon, a Creighton Climate Action Plan intern, explained that Creighton’s Climate Action Plan policy’s purpose is “to affirm its moral obligation to practice ecological responsibility and social justice to work towards creating a better, more sustainable world for us and for those that come after us.”

With this walk, GreenJays hopes to uphold this policy of creating a better world by bringing to light the importance of addressing climate change. Pre-walk activities will begin at 3:30 pm on the Kiewit Fitness Center Lawn. These will include live music from Tom Breiding and several Creighton students. The walk will start at 5 pm, and all interested students and staff are encouraged to participate. There are no fees associated with the walk, so participants simply need to be on time. As winter slowly draws to a close, the We Matter Walk reminds Creighton to look at the bigger picture.