Even if you haven’t been following the news, the likelihood of you not hearing about climate change is incredibly low. It is a huge issue that has ravaged every corner of the world, and I’m sure it’s something that you’ve thought about at least a handful of times, if not many more. I hope I mention something that you don’t know or a perspective that hasn’t crossed your mind, and you can learn something, however abstract, from this article. I’d like to start with some information about climate change, or global warming, as you may have heard it called. Now, to put it all into one article, let alone a few paragraphs, would be impossible. Instead, I’ll touch on what climate change is, about when it started, and what we can do to slow or stop it. Climate change is the increased creation of carbon dioxide within the atmosphere, caused by the burning of fossil fuels, where most of our energy comes from. Because of this, the Earth is warming more rapidly than ever before. This causes numerous problems—among them glaciers melting (which leads to flooding), hotter climates, increased heat waves, and more. Climate change really became a problem about 100 years ago, and only got worse from there—not to mention forests cut down, habitats destroyed, and many species going extinct or being endangered. According to a study done by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, the amount of native species in many places has decreased greatly in the last century. Even honey bees might soon be endangered. Other species of bees, among them the rusty patched bumblebee, are already on the list, and populations of other bees are declining, even if they are not technically endangered yet. Bees are vital because of their contributions to pollination. Now, that may all seem very far away and insignificant to you at the moment, but climate change can have an impact locally as well. It can range anywhere from poor air quality to warmer temperatures to increased risk of extreme weather phenomenons, especially flooding.

Just because climate change is a huge global issue, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t solutions, or that people aren’t trying to fix it. Scientists from all over the world are working their hardest to slow the warming of the planet, some more successfully than others. For example, there is a large global summit (the Glasgow Summit) about climate change and biodiversity scheduled for later this month, with thousands of people attending. There has been incredible progress in helping coral reefs (which are also suffering tremendously), finding sustainable energy alternatives, planting trees, helping bees, restoring the life we’ve killed on Earth.

We have done so much harm to the planet, and so many of us are still oblivious to the immense problems we’ve caused. It makes me wonder how many of us don’t know, or how many of us refuse to know. For example, former President Donald Trump stopped work former President Obama did with officials of government agencies dealing with climate threats. This work was beneficial to making progress in changing the climate for the better.

So, what can you do? The simple answer is this: be more green. Don’t fly or drive quite as much, switch to a sustainable energy provider, eat less meat. Most importantly, learn more. Be aware of what you could be doing, which actions of yours impact the environment the most, and what will and won’t make a difference. With that knowledge, you’ll start actually following through with your actions, rather than only your thoughts and feelings. While ideas are great, having knowledge to back them up will make you considerably more conscious about your environmental footprint and how to change it.