Climate change endagers our health! How? By affecting our food and water sources, the air we breath, the weather we experience, and our interactions with the built and natural environments. As the climate continues to change, the risks of human health continue to grow.
The big answer is yes! There are may actions everyone can take to reduce carbon footprint and act on climate change. Simple actions such as turning off the lights, recycling, using public transport, riding a bike, walking, eating more vegetables, planting trees and many more, can make a big difference when it comes to fighting climate change.
Climate scientists have concluded that humans are responsible for the climate change that has occured since the 1950s. Human activities-such as burning fossil fuel for energy, cultivating crops, raising livestock, and clearing forests-are releasing greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. These greenhouse gasses are being emitted faster than forest and the oceans can remove them, causing them to build up in the atmosphere.
Even though the planet is warming, some areas may be experiencing extra cold or snowy winters. This cold spells are due to variability in local weather patterns, which sometimes lead to colder than average years ate the local or regional level. In fact, a warmer climate traps more water vapor in the air, which may lead to extra snowy winters in some areas. As long as it is still cold enough to snow, a warming climate can lead to bigger snowstorms.
If we do not take further action to stop climate impacts we're already experiencing, the planet is likely to become very hot. And this type of warming could lead to catastrophic melting of the ice sheets in Greenland and Antartica, causing sea level rise that would flood most major global coastal cities. The wildlife we love, and their habitat will be destroyed, leading to mass species extinction.
A fossil fuel is a hydrocarbon-containing material formed underground from the remains of dead plants and animals that humans extract and burn as fuel. The main fossil fuels are coal, petroleum and natural gas, which humans extract through mining and drilling.
“Weather” refers to the more local changes in the climate we see around us, on short timescales from minutes to hours, to days to weeks. Examples are familiar - rain, snow, clouds, winds, thunderstorms, sleet, and hail. “Climate” refers to longer-term averages (which may be regional or global) and can be thought of as the weather averaged over several decades.
Warming ocean temperatures are melting polar ice, shifting ocean currents and fish migrations, and leading to coral bleaching and die off. Because of oceans' important role in regulating Earth's climate by absorbing greenhouse gas emissions, they're taking a direct hit from climate change.
Ozone depletion and climate change are linked in a number of ways, but ozone depletion is not a major cause of climate change. Atmospheric ozone has two effects on the temperature balance of the Earth. It absorbs solar ultraviolet radiation, which heats the stratosphere.
The good news is no! Climate change is not an impossible problem, cause we now know what causes it and what to do to stop it. It will take courage, ambition and details beyond lofty anouncements. Reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050 is an ambitious goal. We don't have a lot of time, but if we act now, and act together, we can substantialy reduce the rate of global warming, and prevent the worst impacts of climate change from coming to pass.