Let’s start with a basic understanding of what climate change is. Climate change today is the fact that earth's average temperature is rising. “The impacts of global climate change in the United States are already being felt and are projected to intensify in the future, especially without further action to reduce climate-related risks,” globalchange.gov says. There are many factors that contribute to the rising global temperatures.

It is also important for people to know the factors that contribute to climate change. The three main factors that cause the temperatures to rise are industrialization, deforestation and large scale agriculture, according to the United Nations.

Industrialization causes more cars, factories and power plants to be made. All can produce carbon emissions that get trapped in the earth’s atmosphere.

Deforestation negatively affects climate change because trees are important in the carbon cycle. If trees aren’t present, then there would be nothing to balance the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.

Large scale agriculture produces three greenhouse gasses that contribute to climate change: nitrous-oxide, methane, and carbon dioxide. “Livestock are reckoned to be responsible for up to 14% of all greenhouse emissions from human activities,” bbc.com says.

One direct product of climate change that we can see today are the wildfires that have spread around California and Australia these past couple of years.

“Global warming directly intensifies wildfires by drying out soil and vegetation, creating more fuel to burn farther and faster. That’s particularly a problem in drought-prone regions like Australia and California,” Peter Sinclair said.

Australia is still currently fighting the massive fires that have ruined much of their forest.

“Researchers estimate that more than a billion animals have been killed,” yaleclimateconnections.org said. It is crazy that such small temperature changes can cause this much damage.

Lastly, it is important to know how we can reduce climate change to make a better future for ourselves. The main factor that causes global warming is the abundance of carbon in the atmosphere. So, if we can reduce carbon emissions by switching to better energy sources, it would make a massive difference.

Instead of making most of our power by burning fossil fuels, we can switch to nuclear energy. Nuclear energy produces little to zero carbon emissions compared to fossil fuels which pollute our earth. Also, switching to electric cars would be extremely beneficial. Without the presence of gas cars and power plants from fossil fuels, we can make it easier on ourselves in the long run.