Climate change is an extremely important topic within environmental science. Many different factors affect Earth’s climate change. Natural factors such as volcanic eruptions can contribute to climate change. Human actions can also affect and contribute to climate change. But what is climate change? How is it different from the weather? What are some effects of climate change? And how can we reverse or stop climate change? Climate change may not seem like a big deal but it could change our lives, and not for the better.
Climate change is not the same as the weather. Climate change is a change in the normal weather or weather patterns in a specific region. For example, this could be a change in the amount of rain or it could be a change in the temperature for a month or season. Now a popular question asked about climate change is: “Is the Earth’s climate changing?”. Yes, it is. Scientists that are currently studying the Earth’s temperature have said that the Earth’s overall temperature has gone up one degree Fahrenheit. This may seem like a small amount but even the temperature rising this much can have harmful effects on the environment, effects that will be mentioned later. Climate change is not as small of an issue as people think and if we do not try to reverse it, it will only get worse.
Climate change can have different effects on the environment. If humans continue to negatively impact the environment through actions such as burning fossil fuels which causes harmful, heat-trapping, emissions to release into the atmosphere. The Earth’s overall temperature will continue to rise to dangerous levels. Precipitation will become more frequent. Sea levels will also rise because glaciers and other ice formations will melt faster. Extreme weather like hurricanes will become stronger and more intense, this could cause many problems for people living in hurricane zones. Many effects are very extreme and harmful to our quality of life. The benefit of climate change could be longer growing seasons for agricultural communities. This is because the warmer temperatures hold the frost at bay. We could produce a larger yield for crops. Although there is a benefit to climate change, we need to reverse it because it does more harm than good.
It is important to know ways that can help to reverse climate change and prevent the harmful effects. One way to reduce damaging emissions is to reduce your use of a car. So walking or using a bicycle to get to where you need to, and do not produce harmful emissions. Carpooling or using public transportation also prevents climate change. Another way is to use cleaner energy. Rather than using natural gas or coal, we need to switch to cleaner and renewable energy. Such as hydro or wind energy as they are renewable energy. A way to prevent climate change that is even easier to do at home is to reduce your food waste. This helps because the agriculture industry is a large contributor to climate change. If you reduce food waste and use the food in your house you will need to buy less from the supermarket, this means they will need to restock less. Some ways to prevent the increase in the Earth’s temperature will take more time, whereas others could start sooner. It is important to start using these methods as soon as possible to avoid further damage to our environment.
Climate change is very damaging to our ecosystems. It can cause more harm than good for the Earth and its environment. But it is not irreversible, there are many different methods to stop climate change and we need to start using them as soon as possible before humans cause irreparable damage to the ecosystems. We need to be better to preserve the Earth for future generations. This is the only planet we have got, so we need to protect it.
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Resources
Top 10 Solutions to Fight Climate Change. Green America. (n.d.). https://www.greenamerica.org/climate-change-100-reasons-hope/top-10-solutions-reverse-climate-change.
Dunbar, B. (2014, May 14). What Is Climate Change? NASA. https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa-knows/what-is-climate-change-k4.html.
NASA. (2020, December 23). The Effects of Climate Change. NASA. https://climate.nasa.gov/effects/.