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Our View: Youths lead the way Tuesday Dec 20, 2016 at 12:01 AM Donald Trump said in 2012 that the idea of global warming was created by China to damage U.S. industry. In the run-up to his election as president, he said that was a joke. Like a lot of us, the students in Jennifer Craugh's Ashland Middle School class don't think it's funny. But they're doing more than complaining; they're following their teacher's suggestion and taking action, both in their personal lives and in trying to convince the president-elect to take the danger seriously. Take it seriously he obviously should. The 2009 U.N. Climate Change Conference said a rise of 2 degrees centigrade would create uncontrollable and catastrophic climate change. Current estimates are that the 2 percent increase will arrive around 2040, unless significant action is taken. While climate warming deniers have his ear, Trump has at least on occasion suggested he has not totally written off the opinions of the vast majority of scientists who say we are in the midst of a warming trend that will dramatically, and negatively, alter the globe's climate. Craugh's students are doing their part to help convince him he should heed those concerns, by writing letters and creating posters they plan to send to the White House. Will it make a difference? It could, if one classroom's effort is picked up by a community, then by a state, then by a nation. We should take our lead from the students, who know that in their lifetimes this will become more than a theoretical classroom issue.