By Isabelle Huang The fate of Earth is in our hands. How many times have you heard topics relating to melting glaciers, dying cloud forests, and rising sea levels mentioned in the past years? Our Earth is experiencing challenges and changes. What is happening? The answer is global warming. Over the past century, the Earth’s temperature has been rapidly rising and is affecting animals, environments, ecosystems, and even humans. The rapid rise of temperatures is altering the climate patterns faster than ever which could lead to new and unpredictable climate changes in the future. So how can we fix this problem?
Before discussing solutions, let’s get a better understanding of climate change. As you might already know, humans have caused climate change and global warming by releasing greenhouse gases. These gases are released when humans burn fossil fuels (coal, oil, or natural gas), trapping heat into the atmosphere causing the temperature to rise. This is called the greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect kept the Earth warm by trapping heat in the atmosphere while still letting light in, similar to the walls of a greenhouse. However, humans have started releasing more greenhouse gases which caused more heat to be trapped in the atmosphere. For thousands of years, emissions of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere have been balanced out by greenhouse gases that are naturally absorbed. However, since we started emitting more greenhouse gases, the natural cycle was thrown out of balance. This causes the climate to change in unexpected ways. Not only can climate change cause sea levels to rise, but the weather can also become more extreme. This means more major storms, more rain followed by longer droughts, a loss of water supply, and changes in plants and animals’ habitats. Now that we know more about the consequences of climate change and how it works, what can we do to help slow down climate change? Since we are releasing increased greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, we can help make a difference by lowering the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by doing the following:
Climate change is a global problem, and we must do our best to minimize the harmful effects. Every little thing counts! Whether you plant a tree, or just remember to turn off the lights when you leave a room can make a big difference. Let’s all take an active role in saving our beautiful Earth, a place we called HOME! Comments are closed.
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About UsCreated by the Archives
October 2022
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