Climate Change 101

This website has some good nature images, but these are the places that either aren't affected by the temperatures yet or they are outdated.

Hang on, what are we even talking about? Let's back up.

What is climate change, anyway??

Here are some basic facts to get you started:

1. The climate is a basically long-term weather patterns. Climate change is long-term shifts in temperatures and said weather patterns.

2. Some warming is natural (like when solar cycles happen).

3. Since the 1800s however, human activities have been making it much worse than it should be (mostly from burning fossil fuels: coal and gas).

4. Burning fossil fuels generates greenhouse gas emissions which, in turn act like a blanket wrapped around the Earth, trapping the sun’s heat and raising climate temperatures.

5. Carbon dioxide and methane are two examples of really bad greenhouse gases.

6. Getting rid of and and forests can also cause carbon dioxide to seep into our atmosphere.

7. Landfills for garbage are a big source of methane- especially with food waste (PUT YOUR FOOD IN COMPOST! It needs air to break down or it will become methane!)

8. Sadly, greenhouse gas concentrations are higher than they have been in 2 million years!!

9. This can cause intense droughts, warm weather, horrendous fires, rising sea levels, food web imbalances, invasive species, flooding, melting polar ice, catastrophic storms and less biodiversity.

10. Human intervention is needed immediately to stop this spread and begin restoring the planet.

11. This restoration will not only benefit the plants and animals, but also people who can gain access to jobs in green technology AND have a much cleaner and healthier Earth to enjoy and leave to the next generations!

Click through the rest of our page to see more about how to start that process!

Reference:

https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/what-is-climate-change