Abigail Gonzalez Ramirez, a sophomore, is the only student who walked out of school on September 20 at 11 a.m. to protest climate change.

According to a picture being shared all over social media, Morton East had a Global Climate Change protest/walkout with ONE participant. This organization was made by themselves.  Climate change is caused by human activity, the more we pollute the worse the world gets. Over the years, the climate has been changing == as you can tell in Chicago:  one day it’s almost 100 degrees outside, and the next day it is raining and in the ’60s, weird. You remember when we were in elementary with an Earth day talking about every day should be Earth day, what happened to that? If we stuck to our elementary plan that could have made a major impact on our lives today, tomorrow, and so on. In a random survey of 10 Morton East students, 9 out of 10 think we should do something about climate change.

I asked Abigail if she mentioned walking out to anyone.

“I told some friends (but they didn’t walk out),” she said.

I also asked her why she decided to participate in walking out.

“Global warming is happening around the world.  I think it is important to start acting now; politicians with the most power should take this seriously,” Abigail said.

Abigail believed in something so much that she decided to do it by herself.  It takes a lot of courage to stand up for something you believe in — especially if you are alone.   On behalf of the Pony Express News staff, I’d like to say Abigail is a real role model!   As someone who is on social media most of the time, I have seen her photo shared saying how brave she is.