Flowers; something depicted as something lovely and sweet in spring or a gift someone would give to their partner. Would flowers ever be considered dangerous?

A discovery this year that may seem harmless, but could spell disaster, is the growing of wildflowers in Antarctica, the biggest desert on Earth. This tundra is home to brutal temperatures that do not allow many plants to grow there, and harbors frozen pathogens and diseases humanity has not encountered in thousands, or even millions, of years.

Global warming is something the media has talked about for decades, from finding out hairspray is the reason the ozone layer was disappearing in the 80s, to finding out the temperatures are dangerously rising. Blooming flowers are just another sign that the Earth is going into a downhill spiral of more terrible events yet to come.

As the polar ice caps melt and the water continues to rise, more and more dangerous things start to appear. For example, old and dangerous diseases are frozen into the ice and when the ice melts those diseases make their way to humanity.

The flowers themselves were found to be Antarctic Pearlwort, also known as Colobanthus quitensis and Antarctic Hair Grass or Deschampsia antarctica. Both of these species of plants are native to Antarctica. They are completely thriving in these environments, which worries scientists.

Recently on social media there have been images circulating showing Antarctica with bright pink blooming flowers in the ice caps. According to scientists and other researchers, these images are fake, but bring up very big problems that the general public should be aware of—which is, of course, global warming. Because of these images, it has sparked media and news outlet attention and has got the conversations regarding global warming rolling again.

Although the images on social media are fake, there is some truth to it. The pink flowers themselves in the photos are fake, but there are some few plants thriving in Antarctica, which are typically found there.

“Honestly, hearing about this is really worrying. If we have flowers blooming then we might be closer to losing our polar ice caps than we might think. This says quite a lot about our temperatures rising as well as our water levels going up. Hopefully, we find a solution to fix this soon and increase awareness,” junior Lexi Radabaigh said.

Increasing awareness would have a huge impact on how we interact with our environment and developing solutions to global warming. Students are becoming more aware and worried about the effects of global warming, especially since these students are the leaders of tomorrow.

“It’s almost unbelievable to hear that it’s gotten so bad that flowers and plants are blooming in Antarctica,” Environmental Science teacher Ryan Allshouse commented.

Plants being found in Antarctica is not even the worst of it, there are still plenty of things increasing the chances of a true downfall. Taking steps in order to help the environment, even if it’s little, makes a huge impact. For example, reducing carbon footprint and recycling. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has tons of ways to help improve the environment and one small step can lead to big things.