Climate Change Explained


    In this day and age, climate change is all the rage. We hear about wildfires, heat waves, polar bears losing their sea ice, coral bleaching, approaching doom... Once upon a time it was easy to just look away and go about our daily lives, but the media is making that harder as the effects of climate change worsen. Is global warming the same thing as climate change? Is it already too late to make any difference? What even is climate change? These are all excellent questions that I hope to touch on in this post.
    Let's start by clarifying some terms. Weather is day-to-day changes in factors such as temperature and precipitation. Climate is the long-term weather patterns of an area. Climate change refers to any long-term changes in Earth's climate. Global warming is specifically talking about the heating of our planet. Although the terms global warming and climate change are often used interchangeably, global warming is only part of climate change. 
    Our planet's climate has always changed. Natural causes include volcanic eruptions, fluctuations in solar radiation, tectonic shifts, and changes in our orbit. These factors are still at play today, however, they don't explain the speed at which our planet is warming. The Earth is warming faster than any point in recorded history: about 10 times faster than the dramatic warming that takes place after an ice age. The speed of warming is predicted to accelerate to twice that within the next century. If natural causes are unable to drive climate change to such speeds, you may be wondering what is. The simple answer: we are.
    As we burn fossil fuels (such as coal, oil, and natural gas), greenhouse gases are released. In fact, burning fossil fuels accounts for over 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Now, the term "greenhouse gases," may sound very cryptic. When I was younger, I thought greenhouse gases were gases produced in a greenhouse, and I was confused about how that could possibly be bad for the environment. In reality, greenhouse gases are gases that trap heat in our atmosphere. We call this entire process the "greenhouse effect ". Actual greenhouses used for growing plants have glass walls that do much the same thing as these gases; trap heat inside the greenhouse. Earth is our greenhouse, and the gases are the glass. Without the greenhouse effect, our planet would be very cold. Greenhouse gases are what keeps our planet liveable. However, humans have disturbed the natural cycle, which has allowed for an overrun greenhouse effect.
    As global temperatures rise from this runaway greenhouse gas effect, glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising, there are more severe droughts and storms, and heatwaves and wildfires are occurring more frequently, and more. Climate change isn't a problem of the future, and it's not just the polar bears: we are feeling its effects right now. 2023 was the hottest year since 1850. A change I've noticed is that ticks have extended their range to where I live. Even if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide today, we have already set climate change in motion and we would not be free from all of its effects. That being said, the actions we take today will determine how harsh those effects are. There's still time to save our planet, but we have to act now.


We'll explore ways to join the fight against climate change in a future post, so stay tuned!

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