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Have you ever thought about how much the weather impacts life on earth?
Weather patterns affect everything, from the food that you eat, to how animals behave, to how the oceans stay healthy.
The problem is that human activity is causing weather patterns on Earth to change. Human activities, such as burning fossil fuels to create energy to power our homes, cars and factories, are releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which are trapping heat and causing the Earth to warm. This has knock on effects on weather patterns, like having more heatwaves, droughts, floods, fires and storms, impacting life on earth.
So what can we do to help?
There are two parts to dealing with climate change. Firstly we need to learn to cope with climate change, for example by rebuilding homes to withstand storms or planting crops that can survive hotter climates. Secondly, we need to change the way we live and work so that there are no more greenhouse emissions. This involves changing the way we get around, use electricity or even the foods that we eat!
There are lots of ways that anyone, including you, can make a difference to combat climate change. For example, you could: walk or cycle instead of driving or protest for climate with Fridays for Future.
Everyone can take action to make real change. What will you do?
There are lots of charities that need your help to slow climate change.
For example, The Climate Coalition and Friends of the Earth campaign for people in power to make a change while Cool Earth works with rainforest communities to stop deforestation and its impact on climate change.
See how you can support them in their amazing work.
See how you can support them in their amazing work.
Have you ever snuggled up under a warm fluffy blanket on a winter’s night? The cosy warmth you get from a blanket happens, not because the blanket is warm, but because your body’s heat is trapped by the blanket, preventing it from leaving. That’s why it takes a little while to start feeling warm because the heat must build up under the blanket.
Greenhouses work in the same way. In a greenhouse, the sun’s light energy goes in through the glass, but the heat energy can’t leave through the glass again. This makes greenhouses nice and warm, helping plants grow in places that would otherwise be too cold.
Earth also has a type of ‘blanket’ around it – a layer of gases called greenhouse gases in the air. The greenhouse gases work like a greenhouse’s glass – the sunlight enters through them but can’t leave. Believe it or not, greenhouse gases are very important to Earth! They trap some of the Sun’s heat on the Earth’s surface and without them, Earth would be much too cold to allow anything to stay alive.
The greenhouse gases are in a delicate balance though. If the levels get too low, too much heat escapes out into space. If the levels get too high, they act like a super thick blanket, trapping too much heat on the Earth’s surface.
Greenhouse gases have been building up too much over the last two centuries and now the Earth is warming. This is called global warming, or climate change. Climate change will cause Earth’s weather patterns to change. This might not sound like a big deal, but weather patterns affect everything – from what you can eat, to how animals behave, to how the oceans stay healthy. Since everything on Earth is connected, a problem in one part of Earth’s natural systems has a domino effect on everything else.
Climate change is creating some massive problems and it is one of the biggest problems facing humanity right now. When you start feeling too hot under a blanket, you can simply kick it off. Unfortunately, we can’t just kick the layer of greenhouse gases off our planet.
Since the industrial revolution, human activity has caused the Earth to warm by about 1°C. This doesn’t sound like so much, but keep in mind that it only takes an average drop of 6°C to plunge Earth into an ice age! So, a difference of a few degrees either up or down can change life as we know it here on Earth completely.
If human behaviour carries on with no changes, we are headed for an increase of between 3-5°C by 2100. Even if we do everything we can now, the warming can still only be limited to 1.5-2°C by the end of the century, which will have severe effects on some parts of the planet.
For many years, there was a perfect natural balance of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, keeping Earth at just the right temperature.
But, since the industrial revolution, human activities have been releasing more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
This is because, since this time, people have been digging up fossil fuels from the ground and burning them to make energy.
The problem is, when fossil fuels are burnt, they release greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane.
Greenhouse gases are also released when animals (like cows and pigs) fart or when rubbish decomposes in landfill.
Greenhouse gases are making Earth warmer and warmer all the time.
You might be wondering what the problem is – everyone likes sunny countries anyway, right?
Climate change increases the number of heatwaves, droughts, floods, fires, storms and air pollution.
The warming of the planet has effects that you wouldn’t expect, like some regions getting hotter for a while, ice caps melting and some regions getting more rain. All of these changing weather patterns are creating problems for humans, wildlife and the planet as a whole.
Take a look at a couple of the effects of climate change below.
The effects of climate change pose threats to the health of people on our planet.
For example,
Extreme weather events and changing climate make it hard for farmers to grow food.
All of this means that farmers could struggle to earn money and could become poorer. Some people could experience food shortages and hunger. When less food is available, it becomes more expensive.
Click here to read about the effects of the droughts in Ethiopia in 2015 (Africa) on farmer Hamid Heramo and his family.In the rainy season of 2015, 35-year-old Hamid Heramo planted crops to harvest. Hamid had been harvesting crops for many years and used to sell them to earn money to look after his family. This time, Hamid had noticed that each year there had been more and more droughts so he planted lots of different crops, in the hope that some would survive the dry weather. He planted pepper, maize, teff, sorghum, haricot beans and lots of other delicious things. After planting his crops, every morning Hamid would look up to the sky, hoping to see rain clouds. But day after day, there was no rain and the sun became stronger and stronger. As months went by without rain, Hamid’s crops began to die. Hamid started to get more and more worried. He felt a big responsibility to feed his children, but without his crops, it was simply impossible. Hamid started to feel anxious and depressed, so much so that he ended up having to go to hospital for treatment. Thankfully, with a bit of help, Hamid was able to learn about new agricultural methods to manage water and soil and was given some improved seeds that could withstand droughts. But sadly not everyone affected by droughts can receive the help that Hamid received.
Extreme weather events can have devastating effects on people’s homes and livelihoods.
For example:
Healthy ecosystems are needed for humans to be happy and healthy on Earth. Because of climate change, some species die out and then nature can’t do its job so well.
For example,
About one out of every eight species could become extinct because of climate change.
The effects of climate change are worse for people who are poor.
Poor people struggle more when food and water prices go up because of shortages.
Countries that are not well-off feel the effects of climate change more because they depend more on the food they grow. To make matters worse, most of these countries are in places that are hot already so they really can’t cope with getting a little bit hotter. Plus, these countries don’t have lots of money to spend on coping with problems that climate change creates.
Climate change could force 100 million people into poverty in the next 30 years.
