The earth’s climate is changing. In the past these changes were slow, happening over thousands of years. Today, however, our actions have sped up climate change and this is creating problems.
Here are some of the problems we may face:
- Rising Sea Levels – coastal regions will suffer flooding.
- Severe Weather – here in the UK we would experience more extreme weather, droughts in some areas and flooding in others. Summers are likely to become hotter, uncomfortably so, and winter much colder, causing problems for the elderly.
- Loss of Biodiversity – many species of plants and animals will not be able to adapt to their changed ecosystems.
How have we contributed?
Every time we all turn on a light switch or use the car, we are contributing to the carbon dioxide emissions that are causing the climate change problem.
Look at our ‘what we can do’ factsheet, so that, together, we can tackle climate change.
The science bit!
The earth is heating up – but how? There is a layer around the earth that acts like a greenhouse. We need this layer to trap heat so that the earth is habitable but because of all the fossil fuels we burn the levels of dangerous gases going up into the atmosphere are higher than they should be, including carbon dioxide. This is released when we burn oil, gas and coal and increases the effectiveness of the ‘blanket’, keeping more warmth in than we need.