• Question: how important is climate change

    Asked by anon-217525 to Savannah, Philippe, Lucy, Joanna, Harrison, Edoardo on 13 Jun 2019.
    • Photo: Savannah Clawson

      Savannah Clawson answered on 13 Jun 2019:

      Climate change is a super important topic because it is a real threat to the future of our planet, or rather, the future of life on our planet. Yes, climate change is a very natural process and temperatures have fluctuated lots throughout history (we know this from experimental evidence such as the amount of greenhouse gases found trapped inside layers of ice). However, the rate at which climate change is happening now has never been seen before in any recorded history. This is what is scary. All of the evidence points to human activity as making the problem worse and if we don’t make big changes soon, our planet might not be able to recover and species could face mass extinction, including humans if we really don’t do anything about it.
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      Sadly, a lot of powerful people in powerful positions are still denying the existence of a problem. It is up to us to put pressure on the powerful people that can really make a difference – like big companies and the government. Obviously, we can all make small changes in our lives to help the problem too like trying to use less energy. For example, by turning lights off when you do not need to use them and using less hot water in your home. We still have time to fix the problem of climate change if we all work together 🙂

    • Photo: Harrison Prosper

      Harrison Prosper answered on 14 Jun 2019:

      It is not climate change that is important, it is “rapid” climate change that is important. We have access to a single habitable planet. Therefore, it seems utterly foolish not to take rapid climate change seriously. Climate change is natural. But natural changes occur on timescales measured in tens of thousands of years or longer, unless something catastrophic occurs such as an asteroid crashes into the planet. However, we have seen significant changes over a timescale of less than a century! This is a very big deal if we do nothing about it. No doubt wealthy countries such as the United States will be able to cope with a much warmer planet and much more extreme weather. But, a warmer planet would be catastrophic for the Middle East and rising sea levels will flood entire countries, such as Bangladesh, and the disease burden of the planet could rise significantly. I do not think it is moral to condemn hundreds of millions of people to early death just because we, who use hugely more energy than anyone else, can’t be bothered to make changes to the way we live that could avoid such a dreadful possibility.

    • Photo: Lucy Budge

      Lucy Budge answered on 14 Jun 2019:

      As the others have said – the rate of climate change is really worrying, especially as the evidence points to it being mainly due to human activity. There is so much we can do to help individually – but we really need the people in power (politicians and businesses) to take action! Savannah and Harrison have already added lots of detail so I won’t repeat it all.

    • Photo: Philippe Gambron

      Philippe Gambron answered on 14 Jun 2019:

      Yes, really. We are burning fossil fuels. These are remnants of dead animals or forests that accumulated during billions of years. This produces carbon dioxyde that traps heat. The heat coming from the Sun consists mostly of light whereas, when it bounces back on the Earth is leaves as-infrared. Infra-red is light that is too low-pitched for our eyes to see. This so because the Earth is colder than the Sun. So the heat of the Sun can easily reach us but then it is trapped by the carbon dioxyde (CO2) in the atmosphere. By pumping more and more carbon dioxyde in the atmosphere, the heat is going to be more and more trapped. The problem is not only that it is going to be hotter it is we are going to trigger irreversible mechanisms that are going to make the problem even worse. For example, if it is hotter, there will be less snow but snow reflects heat so it will be even hotter. Heat will also kill plants, mostly through droughts, but plants reduce carbon dioxyde levels (through photosynthesis, they consume it to produce oxygen). It could make the permafrost melt. It contains lots of dead plant which are going to rot and emit methane (the gas used by cookers) which traps heats even more than carbon dioxyde. All this is having lots of consequences. The extra CO2 gets dissolved in the ocean and makes it acidic which kills the coral reef. The ice caps are melting and the ocean water is expanding. This will make days longer. More mass will be at the equator and, as a consequence, Earth’s rotation will slow down exactly like a spinning ice skater slowns down by spreading the arms. The solution is to live and organise the world differently. We must consume less, burn less fossil fuels, drive less, fly less, eat less meat. It will be possible to still live correctly without ruining the Earth. The economy must also be run by taking these aspects into account rather than trying to pursue profit at any costs.

    • Photo: Edoardo Vescovi

      Edoardo Vescovi answered on 14 Jun 2019: last edited 14 Jun 2019 1:36 pm

      Climate change is important because it affects the whole world. It breaks its delicate equilibrium and pushes it to another, likely less bright than today is. We live in a global community where a small change in the environment has big consequences. Even focusing on us only, higher temperature could mean drought and less cropland. History teaches that usually this can create conflicts, reduce trade and change our life negatively. Without taking actions at large scale, our grandchildren may well live in a “wilder” world with little healthcare and forced to grow their own food.

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