The Dangers of Climate Change by Michelle Huber

Climate change is when our earth goes through long term shifts in temperature and weather patterns. Sometimes this can be natural due to changes in the sun’s activity or really big volcanic eruptions. Since the 1800s this has not been natural mainly because of the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas. Burning these fuels creates greenhouse emissions, causing the heat from our sun to become trapped in our atmosphere making the earth hotter. The main gases causing climate change are carbon dioxide and methane. These gases can come from cars, agriculture, buildings, transportation, etc.

Scientists have shown that humans are the main cause of climate change over the past 200 years. The average temperature of the earth is 1.2 degrees celsius warmer than it was in the 1800s. This last decade was the warmest on record and it’s just going to keep getting hotter. Many people assume that is it, but the warming of earth is just the start. This can cause intense droughts, fires, rising sea levels, floods, melting of the glaciers, and extreme weather conditions.

 Climate change will impact us in very negative ways, a rise in temperature will cause longer and stronger heat waves, increasing the amount of heat related death. This also affects the air we breathe as warming temperatures can make the air quality poor. Wildfires are expected to get worse, creating smoke and polluting our air. Food can become unsafe as harmful bacteria grows on it from the heat exposure.

Everyone needs to take action on our climate but the countries and people who are causing the most damage need to act first. Switching energy sources from fossil fuels to something more sustainable such as solar or wind can help us drastically but we have to work fast. 30 percent of fossil fuels needs to be cut out by 2030 to help us avoid serious issues. It will be difficult to reverse the damage but if we don’t do something about it now it will be impossible.

Earth is our home and the only home we have and it needs to be taken care of.