Human activities from pollution to overpopulation, are driving up the earth temperature and changing the world around us.
The main causes are a phenomenon known as ‘the greenhouse effect’, gasses in the atmosphere such as water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and chlorofluorocarbons let the suns light in, but keep some of the heat from escaping, like the glass walls of a greenhouse. The more greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, the more heat gets trapped strengthening the greenhouse effect and increasing the earth temperature.
Human activities like the burning of fossil fuels have increased the amount of co2 in the atmosphere by more than a 3rd since the industrial revolution. The rapid increase in greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere has warmed the planet at an alarming rate. While the earth’s climate has fluctuated in the past, atmospheric carbon dioxide hasn’t reached today’s levels in Thousands of years.
Climate change has consequences for our oceans, our weather, for our food sources, and for our health.