Climate Change: THe FActs
“It may sound frightening but the scientific evidence is that if we have not taken dramatic action within the next decade, we could face irreversible damage to the natural world and the collapse of our societies.”
SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH
Click the image below to calculate YOUR carbon footprint!
What is climate change?
Climate change is the defining issue of our time. It’s leading to:
1. Weather patterns becoming more erratic.
2. Food production being threatened.
3. Ecosystems going extinct.
4. Rising sea levels, increasing the chances of catastrophic flooding.
The impacts of climate change are global in scope and unprecedented in scale. Without drastic action today, adapting to these impacts in the future will be more difficult and costly. (1)
What is driving climate change?
Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane occur naturally in the atmosphere. They help retain some of the sun’s warmth which makes the Earth habitable. However, after centuries of industrialisation, deforestation and large-scale agriculture, greenhouse gases have risen to record levels and is resulting in global warming. (2)
Some statistics
– From 1880 to 2012, the average global temperature has increased by 0.85°C (see graph above).
– The 20 warmest years on record have been in the past 22 years, with 2015-2018 making up the top four.
– If this trend continues, temperatures may rise by 3-5 °C by 2100 according to the World Meteorological Organization (3)
How urgent is the problem?
There is alarming evidence that important tipping points, leading to irreversible changes in ecosystems and the climate may already have been reached or passed. Ecosystems as diverse as the Amazon rainforest and the Arctic may be approaching thresholds of dramatic change through warming and drying. Mountain glaciers are in alarming retreat and the downstream effects of reduced water supply will have repercussions that transcend generations (4). Check out the video below to see what Earth could look like in the next 100 years if we don’t act on climate change.
The Climate Emergency References
(1, 2 & 4) United Nations: Climate Change
https://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/climate-change/
(3) Met Office: Global Average Temperature Records
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/climate/science/global-temperature-records