Watch Katy Perry pretend to be a meteorologist to fight global warming.
She's helping UNICEF stop global warming.
Katy Perry is a proud California girl. So when it comes to climate change, she gets it.
After all, she can see the effects of global warming in her own backyard. If you hadn't heard, climate change has made the drought in the Golden State much, much worse.
To highlight how important it is that we act now, Perry swapped her stage costumes for a pantsuit and got real about global warming.
She hasn't quit her day job, but Perry — a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador since 2013 — did successfully pull off the role of "meteorologist" in a short video for the humanitarian group, seen below.
Her goal? To point out how climate change will affect families and children around the world.
Because, beyond California, increasingly warmer temperatures have wreaked havoc in poorer countries — areas that studies have shown will be hit hardest by a warming planet.
Areas like the Pacific Islands, where hurricanes have gotten worse.
And in South Asia where horrible floods have dispersed millions.
Not to mention hotter temperatures in East Africa mean increased risk of malaria (which kills 800 children every day).
And unfortunately, even if we act now, these places won't see relief overnight.
Our reliance on fossil fuels means, at least in the near future, the forecast looks bleak.
“It's always children who are first to suffer from [global warming's] impact," Perry warns in the video.
But ... why does climate change generally affect people in, say, the Philippines, more severely than in the U.S.?
Well, for one, underdeveloped regions happen to be in areas that are expected to see "stronger cyclones, warmer days and nights, more unpredictable rains, and larger and longer heatwaves," as The Guardian reported, citing a 2013 study by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
But beyond simply getting hit hardest, poor countries also lack the infrastructure to successfully handle increasingly severe storms, disastrous floods, and rising sea levels.
They'll need to invest billions of dollars more to prepare for the worst of what climate change has in-store.
But here's the thing: We can avoid the worst of it. And there are plenty of reasons to believe we will.
World leaders are coming together to cut way back on carbon emissions, President Obama's administration is aiming to prioritize clean power over dirty energy, and organizations like UNICEF (with a little help from Ms. Perry) are helping those most impacted by a changing climate.
I'm very hopeful my grandkids will live in a green world, and you should be, too.
You can make sure your voice is heard by signing this petition to demand climate action at the Paris Climate Summit.
