Climate change is NOT a joke

Do you know the difference between Climate Change and Global Warming? Let's start by defining them. According to the NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), Global Warming "is the upward temperature trend across the entire Earth since the early 20th century […] due to the increase in fossil fuel emissions since the industrial revolution", On the other hand, climate change is the "range of global phenomena created predominantly by burning fossil fuels, which add heat-trapping gases to Earth's atmosphere."

Now that we have the two definitions we can say that the Earth's climate has changed throughout history. Just in the last 650,000 years, there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat, with the abrupt end of the last ice age about 7,000 years ago marking the beginning of a new climate era.

Images from climate change, retrieved from NASA website

A lot of climate scientists agree the main cause of the current global warming trend is the human expansion of the "greenhouse effect; the greenhouse effect is a natural process that warms the Earth's atmosphere. When the Sun's energy reaches the Earth's surface, some of this energy is reflected back to space and the rest is absorbed and re-radiated by greenhouse gases, these gases are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, water vapor, and nitrous oxide.

Nowadays we have been living the consequences of this climate change, and we can actually see the evidence: global temperature rise, shrinking ice sheets, sea level rise, extreme events, and some others.

A neighberhood in California after the deadly wildfires, retrieved from BBC

Some of the long-term effects of global climate change in the United States are listed on the Fourth National Climate Assessment Reports. The National Climate Assessment (NCA) assesses the science of climate change and variability and its impacts across the United States, now and throughout this century.

In this second volume, they dig into topics such as communities, economy, interconnected impacts, and actions to reduce risks, water, health, indigenous peoples, ecosystems and ecosystem services, agriculture, infrastructure, oceans & coasts, and tourism and recreation. You can check it here

Climate change is real, it is something that is affecting us and in a long-term, it may change the world we know, we need to start thinking about our future. Climate change is not a joke, is not something we shouldn't consider important. What are you going to do to help our planet? Share your plans or the activities you do on the daily bases with us, tweet them at @CurrentEvents01

-AP

Retrived from:

Global Climate Change: Effects. (2018, July 16). Retrieved November 25, 2018, from https://climate.nasa.gov/effects/Greenhouse effect. (n.d.). Retrieved November 25, 2018, from http://www.environment.gov.au/climate-change/climate-science-data/climate-science/greenhouse-effectUsgcrp. (1970, January 01). Fourth National Climate Assessment: Executive Summary. Retrieved November 25, 2018, from https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/Usgcrp. (2018, November 21). Fourth National Climate Assessment: Executive Summary. Retrieved November 25, 2018, from https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/What's in a name? Weather, global warming and climate change. (2016, January 20). Retrieved November 25, 2018, from https://climate.nasa.gov/resources/global-warming/