essay about changes in environment

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Climate change essay

Introduction

Climate change is one of the most pressing global challenges of our time. It is a phenomenon driven primarily by human activities, such as burning fossil fuels, deforestation, and industrial processes, that release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Understanding the background of climate change and why it is crucial to address is essential for comprehending the urgency of this issue. In this essay, we will explore the causes, impacts, and solutions to this critical issue while delving into why climate change is of paramount importance.

Background of Climate Change

The background of climate change dates back to the late 19th century when scientists first began to observe an increase in global temperatures. However, it wasn't until the latter half of the 20th century that comprehensive research and data collection revealed the alarming rate at which our planet was warming. The primary driver of this phenomenon is the emission of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O), resulting from human activities.

Why Climate Change Is Important

• Environmental Impact: Climate change poses a significant threat to ecosystems and biodiversity. Rising temperatures disrupt habitats, leading to species migration or, in some cases, extinction. Ecosystems such as coral reefs and polar regions are particularly vulnerable, with profound implications for the balance of life on Earth.
• Human Well-being: The impacts of climate change extend to human health and well-being. Increased temperatures can lead to more frequent and severe heatwaves, putting vulnerable populations at risk. Changing weather patterns can disrupt food production, leading to food shortages and price spikes. Additionally, extreme weather events like hurricanes and floods can result in devastating economic losses and displacement of communities.
• Economic Consequences: Climate change has direct economic implications. The costs of responding to climate-related disasters, adapting to changing conditions, and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions are substantial. However, the economic benefits of transitioning to a green, sustainable economy are also considerable, including job creation and reduced healthcare costs associated with air pollution.
• Global Cooperation: Climate change is a global issue that requires international cooperation. It transcends national borders, as emissions from one country can impact the climate worldwide. Initiatives like the Paris Agreement signify the recognition that addressing climate change necessitates collaboration among nations. Failure to do so not only hinders global progress but also jeopardizes the future of our planet.

Solutions to Climate Change

Addressing climate change requires global cooperation and concerted efforts from individuals, communities, governments, and businesses. Here are some key solutions:

• Transition to Renewable Energy: Moving away from fossil fuels and adopting renewable energy sources like solar, wind, and hydropower is essential. Investments in clean energy technologies and infrastructure are critical for reducing emissions.
• Energy Efficiency: Improving energy efficiency in industries, buildings, and transportation can significantly reduce energy consumption and emissions. This includes adopting energy-efficient technologies and promoting public transportation.
• Reforestation and Forest Conservation: Protecting existing forests and reforesting areas can help capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Initiatives like the Bonn Challenge exemplify how nations can collaborate to combat deforestation and restore ecosystems.
• Sustainable Agriculture: Agriculture contributes significantly to global emissions, but sustainable practices can mitigate its environmental impact. Techniques such as no-till farming and regenerative agriculture reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector.
• International Agreements: Commitment to international agreements like the Paris Agreement is crucial for coordinating global efforts to combat climate change. Countries like China, the United States, and the European Union play pivotal roles in shaping international climate policy through their participation in such agreements.
• Climate Education: Raising awareness and educating the public about climate change is essential for fostering a collective sense of responsibility. Projects like the Climate Reality Leadership Corps educate and inspire individuals to advocate for climate policies and sustainability in their communities.

The background of climate change, driven by human activities and characterized by rising temperatures and greenhouse gas emissions, highlights the urgency of the issue. Climate change is important because it affects the environment, human well-being, the economy, and requires global cooperation. By understanding the significance of this challenge, we can work collectively to implement solutions, mitigate its impacts, and build a more sustainable and resilient future for all. The time to act is now, as the consequences of inaction are too severe to ignore.

Example: Climate change essay 300 words

Climate change is a global crisis that demands our immediate attention. The evidence is overwhelming: rising temperatures, melting ice caps, and extreme weather events are all indicators of a planet in peril. The primary driver of this crisis is human activity, particularly the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.

To combat climate change, we must reduce our carbon footprint. Transitioning to renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power is essential. We also need to adopt energy-efficient technologies, promote sustainable agriculture, and protect our forests and oceans. Individual actions matter, too, from conserving energy at home to reducing waste.

Climate change knows no borders, and international cooperation is critical. The Paris Agreement is a significant step forward, with countries pledging to limit global warming. However, more action is needed to meet the ambitious targets.

In conclusion, climate change is the defining challenge of our time. It threatens our environment, economies, and way of life. But by taking collective action and making sustainable choices, we can address this crisis and secure a better future for generations to come.

Example: Climate change essay 500 words

Climate change is not a distant threat; it is a current crisis affecting the planet. The evidence is clear: global temperatures are rising, sea levels are creeping upward, and extreme weather events are becoming more frequent. Human activities, particularly the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation, are driving this crisis.

To address climate change, we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Transitioning to renewable energy sources like solar and wind power is a crucial step. Energy efficiency improvements in industries, buildings, and transportation can significantly reduce emissions. Sustainable farming practices and the protection of our forests and oceans are vital for carbon sequestration.

International cooperation is essential. The Paris Agreement, signed by nearly every country, sets targets to limit global warming. However, we must do more to meet these goals and avoid catastrophic consequences.

Individual actions matter as well. Conserving energy, reducing waste, and supporting sustainable businesses can contribute to the solution. Climate education and advocacy are powerful tools in raising awareness and driving change.

In conclusion, climate change is an urgent and multifaceted crisis that affects every aspect of our lives. It requires a coordinated effort from individuals, governments, and businesses worldwide. By taking immediate and decisive action, we can mitigate its impacts and build a sustainable future.

Example: Climate change essay 1000 words

Climate change is the defining challenge of our era, posing a threat to the very existence of our planet and all life it sustains. The evidence is undeniable: temperatures are rising, ice caps are melting, and extreme weather events are occurring with increasing frequency. These changes are not the result of natural variability but are primarily driven by human activities.

The burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, industrial processes, and unsustainable agricultural practices release vast amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, trapping heat and leading to global warming. The consequences are dire, with far-reaching impacts on ecosystems, economies, and human well-being.

To address climate change, we must take immediate and comprehensive action. Here are key strategies:

• Transition to Renewable Energy: Shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources like solar, wind, and hydropower is essential. Investments in clean energy technologies and infrastructure are critical for reducing emissions.
• Sustainable Agriculture: Sustainable farming practices, such as no-till farming and regenerative agriculture, can reduce emissions from the agricultural sector while enhancing soil health and carbon sequestration.
• Forest Conservation and Reforestation: Protecting existing forests and reforesting degraded areas are crucial for capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The Bonn Challenge and similar initiatives demonstrate the potential of global reforestation efforts.
• International Agreements: Commitment to international agreements like the Paris Agreement is vital for coordinating global efforts to combat climate change. Countries must honor their commitments and work together to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius.
• Climate Education and Advocacy: Raising public awareness and educating individuals about climate change is essential. Projects like the Climate Reality Leadership Corps empower individuals to become climate advocates and drive change in their communities.

In conclusion, climate change is an urgent and complex issue that requires a multifaceted response. It demands action at every level, from individuals making sustainable choices in their daily lives to governments implementing policies that prioritize the environment. The consequences of inaction are too severe to ignore, and the time to act is now to secure a sustainable and prosperous future for all.

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Climate Change Essay

500+ words essay on climate change.

Climate change is a major global challenge today, and the world is becoming more vulnerable to this change. Climate change refers to the changes in Earth’s climate condition. It describes the changes in the atmosphere which have taken place over a period ranging from decades to millions of years. A recent report from the United Nations predicted that the average global temperature could increase by 6˚ Celsius at the end of the century. Climate change has an adverse effect on the environment and ecosystem. With the help of this essay, students will get to know the causes and effects of climate change and possible solutions. Also, they will be able to write essays on similar topics and can boost their writing skills.

What Causes Climate Change?

The Earth’s climate has always changed and evolved. Some of these changes have been due to natural causes such as volcanic eruptions, floods, forest fires etc., but quite a few of them are due to human activities. Human activities such as deforestation, burning fossil fuels, farming livestock etc., generate an enormous amount of greenhouse gases. This results in the greenhouse effect and global warming which are the major causes of climate change.

Effects of Climate Change

If the current situation of climate change continues in a similar manner, then it will impact all forms of life on the earth. The earth’s temperature will rise, the monsoon patterns will change, sea levels will rise, and storms, volcanic eruptions and natural disasters will occur frequently. The biological and ecological balance of the earth will get disturbed. The environment will get polluted and humans will not be able to get fresh air to breathe and fresh water to drink. Life on earth will come to an end.

Steps to be Taken to Reduce Climate Change

The Government of India has taken many measures to improve the dire situation of Climate Change. The Ministry of Environment and Forests is the nodal agency for climate change issues in India. It has initiated several climate-friendly measures, particularly in the area of renewable energy. India took several steps and policy initiatives to create awareness about climate change and help capacity building for adaptation measures. It has initiated a “Green India” programme under which various trees are planted to make the forest land more green and fertile.

We need to follow the path of sustainable development to effectively address the concerns of climate change. We need to minimise the use of fossil fuels, which is the major cause of global warming. We must adopt alternative sources of energy, such as hydropower, solar and wind energy to make a progressive transition to clean energy. Mahatma Gandhi said that “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not any man’s greed”. With this view, we must remodel our outlook and achieve the goal of sustainable development. By adopting clean technologies, equitable distribution of resources and addressing the issues of equity and justice, we can make our developmental process more harmonious with nature.

We hope students liked this essay on Climate Change and gathered useful information on this topic so that they can write essays in their own words. To get more study material related to the CBSE, ICSE, State Board and Competitive exams, keep visiting the BYJU’S website.

Frequently Asked Questions on climate change Essay

What are the reasons for climate change.

1. Deforestation 2. Excessive usage of fossil fuels 3. Water, Soil pollution 4. Plastic and other non-biodegradable waste 5. Wildlife and nature extinction

How can we save this climate change situation?

1. Avoid over usage of natural resources 2. Do not use or buy items made from animals 3. Avoid plastic usage and pollution

Are there any natural causes for climate change?

Yes, some of the natural causes for climate change are: 1. Solar variations 2. Volcanic eruption and tsunamis 3. Earth’s orbital changes

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• ENVIRONMENT

How global warming is disrupting life on Earth

The signs of global warming are everywhere, and are more complex than just climbing temperatures.

Our planet is getting hotter. Since the Industrial Revolution—an event that spurred the use of fossil fuels in everything from power plants to transportation—Earth has warmed by 1 degree Celsius, about 2 degrees Fahrenheit.  

That may sound insignificant, but 2023 was the hottest year on record , and all 10 of the hottest years on record have occurred in the past decade.  

Global warming and climate change are often used interchangeably as synonyms, but scientists prefer to use “climate change” when describing the complex shifts now affecting our planet’s weather and climate systems.  

Climate change encompasses not only rising average temperatures but also natural disasters, shifting wildlife habitats, rising seas , and a range of other impacts. All of these changes are emerging as humans continue to add heat-trapping greenhouse gases , like carbon dioxide and methane, to the atmosphere.

What causes global warming?

When fossil fuel emissions are pumped into the atmosphere, they change the chemistry of our atmosphere, allowing sunlight to reach the Earth but preventing heat from being released into space. This keeps Earth warm, like a greenhouse, and this warming is known as the greenhouse effect .  

Carbon dioxide is the most commonly found greenhouse gas and about 75 percent of all the climate warming pollution in the atmosphere. This gas is a product of producing and burning oil, gas, and coal. About a quarter of Carbon dioxide also results from land cleared for timber or agriculture.  

Methane is another common greenhouse gas. Although it makes up only about 16 percent of emissions, it's roughly 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide and dissipates more quickly. That means methane can cause a large spark in warming, but ending methane pollution can also quickly limit the amount of atmospheric warming. Sources of this gas include agriculture (mostly livestock), leaks from oil and gas production, and waste from landfills.  

What are the effects of global warming?  

One of the most concerning impacts of global warming is the effect warmer temperatures will have on Earth's polar regions and mountain glaciers. The Arctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the planet. This warming reduces critical ice habitat and it disrupts the flow of the jet stream, creating more unpredictable weather patterns around the globe.  

( Learn more about the jet stream. )

A warmer planet doesn't just raise temperatures. Precipitation is becoming more extreme as the planet heats. For every degree your thermometer rises, the air holds about seven percent more moisture. This increase in moisture in the atmosphere can produce flash floods, more destructive hurricanes, and even paradoxically, stronger snow storms.  

The world's leading scientists regularly gather to review the latest research on how the planet is changing. The results of this review is synthesized in regularly published reports known as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports.  

A recent report outlines how disruptive a global rise in temperature can be:

• Coral reefs are now a highly endangered ecosystem. When corals face environmental stress, such as high heat, they expel their colorful algae and turn a ghostly white, an effect known as coral bleaching . In this weakened state, they more easily die.  
• Trees are increasingly dying from drought , and this mass mortality is reshaping forest ecosystems.
• Rising temperatures and changing precipitation patterns are making wildfires more common and more widespread. Research shows they're even moving into the eastern U.S. where fires have historically been less common.
• Hurricanes are growing more destructive and dumping more rain, an effect that will result in more damage. Some scientists say we even need to be preparing for Cat 6 storms . (The current ranking system ends at Cat 5.)

How can we limit global warming?  

Limiting the rising in global warming is theoretically achievable, but politically, socially, and economically difficult.  

Those same sources of greenhouse gas emissions must be limited to reduce warming. For example, oil and gas used to generate electricity or power industrial manufacturing will need to be replaced by net zero emission technology like wind and solar power. Transportation, another major source of emissions, will need to integrate more electric vehicles, public transportation, and innovative urban design, such as safe bike lanes and walkable cities.  

( Learn more about solutions to limit global warming. )

One global warming solution that was once considered far fetched is now being taken more seriously: geoengineering. This type of technology relies on manipulating the Earth's atmosphere to physically block the warming rays of the sun or by sucking carbon dioxide straight out of the sky.

Restoring nature may also help limit warming. Trees, oceans, wetlands, and other ecosystems help absorb excess carbon—but when they're lost, so too is their potential to fight climate change.  

Ultimately, we'll need to adapt to warming temperatures, building homes to withstand sea level rise for example, or more efficiently cooling homes during heat waves.  

Related Topics

• CLIMATE CHANGE
• ENVIRONMENT AND CONSERVATION
• POLAR REGIONS

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Essay on Environmental Sustainability

Students are often asked to write an essay on Environmental Sustainability in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Environmental Sustainability

Understanding environmental sustainability.

Environmental sustainability is about making decisions that do not harm the environment. It’s about preserving nature for future generations.

Importance of Environmental Sustainability

Our survival depends on the environment. If we don’t sustain it, we risk losing resources like water and air. It’s crucial for our health and economy.

Ways to Achieve Sustainability

We can achieve sustainability by reducing waste, recycling, and using renewable energy. It’s about changing our lifestyles to protect the environment.

Environmental sustainability is crucial for our future. We all need to play our part to ensure our planet remains healthy.

250 Words Essay on Environmental Sustainability

Introduction to environmental sustainability.

Environmental sustainability is an integral aspect of our existence, intertwined with the notion of preserving the natural world for future generations. It encapsulates the concept of stewardship, wherein we are responsible for managing the Earth’s resources responsibly and efficiently.

The Imperative of Sustainable Practices

The current environmental crisis, characterized by climate change, deforestation, and biodiversity loss, underscores the urgency of sustainable practices. These practices aim to minimize the environmental footprint by reducing waste, conserving energy, and promoting recycling. They are not merely an ethical obligation, but a necessity for human survival.

Role of Innovation in Sustainability

Innovation plays a pivotal role in environmental sustainability. Technological advancements like renewable energy, green architecture, and waste management systems pave the way for a sustainable future. They provide practical solutions to environmental problems, enabling us to balance economic growth with ecological preservation.

Individual Responsibility and Collective Action

Environmental sustainability demands individual responsibility and collective action. Each of us can contribute by adopting sustainable lifestyles, such as minimizing waste, conserving water, and reducing energy consumption. Collective action, on the other hand, involves policy changes, corporate responsibility, and international cooperation.

In conclusion, environmental sustainability is a multidimensional concept, involving the careful management of natural resources, innovative technologies, and concerted human effort. As stewards of the Earth, we must strive to ensure the sustainability of our planet for future generations.

500 Words Essay on Environmental Sustainability

The importance of environmental sustainability.

The significance of environmental sustainability cannot be overstated. As the world’s population continues to grow, so does the demand for resources. This increased demand, coupled with unsustainable practices, has led to environmental degradation, loss of biodiversity, and climate change. By practicing environmental sustainability, we can help ensure that future generations inherit a planet that is as rich and diverse as the one we enjoy today.

Principles of Environmental Sustainability

Environmental sustainability is underpinned by several key principles. First, we must recognize the finite nature of our planet’s resources and strive to use them sparingly. Second, we must work towards reducing waste and promoting recycling. Third, we must strive to reduce our carbon footprint and promote renewable energy. Lastly, we must value and protect our biodiversity, recognizing the intrinsic worth of all living things.

Challenges to Environmental Sustainability

Role of individuals and institutions in promoting environmental sustainability.

Individuals and institutions have a crucial role to play in promoting environmental sustainability. Individuals can make a difference by making sustainable choices in their daily lives, such as reducing waste, recycling, and choosing renewable energy. Institutions, on the other hand, can implement sustainable practices in their operations and advocate for environmental sustainability at the policy level.

In conclusion, environmental sustainability is not just a buzzword; it is a necessity for our survival and the survival of future generations. It requires a collective effort from individuals, institutions, and governments alike. By understanding the importance of environmental sustainability and the principles that underpin it, we can all play a part in preserving our planet for future generations.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

Happy studying!

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Introductory essay

Written by the educators who created Climate Change, a brief look at the key facts, tough questions and big ideas in their field. Begin this TED Study with a fascinating read that gives context and clarity to the material.

The greenhouse effect has been detected, and it is changing our climate now. James Hansen, June 24, 1988

The drought that crippled much of the U.S. and Canada in 1988-89 was the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history prior to Hurricane Katrina. It spawned dust storms in the Midwest and forest fires in Yellowstone National Park. That summer, thousands died during an intense heat wave.

It was against this backdrop, on a 101-degree day in the nation's capital, that NASA scientist James Hansen delivered his landmark testimony to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The next day, The New York Times ran a headline that read "Global Warming Has Begun, Expert Warns." Coverage of Hansen's testimony by the Times and other national and global media organizations transformed climate change from a relatively obscure scientific topic to one that people began to discuss over dinner, in the pub, at school and at work.

It remained newsworthy over the rest of that pivotal year. Days after Hansen's testimony, the World Meteorological Association (WMO) hosted a conference called "Our Changing Atmosphere," one of the earliest international climate change gatherings. 300 scientists and policy makers representing 46 countries attended. Participants called upon countries to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent or more by 2005, and by the end of the year the WMO and the United Nations Environment Program had established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously became one of the first world leaders to talk about climate change in a speech delivered that September to the Royal Society. "For generations, we have assumed that the efforts of mankind would leave the fundamental equilibrium of the world's systems and atmosphere stable," remarked Thatcher. "But it is possible that… we have unwittingly begun a massive experiment with the system of this planet itself." In this speech and others she gave during the remainder of her tenure, Thatcher advocated for expanded climate research and for policies that would safeguard the environment and promote sustainable development.

As global public awareness of the issue grew in the 1980s and beyond, the science and its significance were vigorously debated. Is there credible evidence that climate change is real? If it's real, when and how will we feel its effects? If it's real, what should be done, and who should do it? (Thatcher herself reversed position many years later, calling climate change "the doomsters' favorite subject" predicated on science that is "extremely obscure" and leading to "worldwide, supra-national socialism.")

Climate change is still hotly contested and the debate is often shrill, with skeptics branded as "climate deniers" and activists derisively labeled "warmists." Tensions are palpable, as when nearly 800 NGO representatives walked out of the 2013 international climate negotiations in Poland.

How has climate change become so politicized? It requires us to tackle thorny ethical and economic dilemmas, like how the least developed nations will cope with the effects of climate change and who should help them. It highlights serious structural issues like how to reckon with entrenched carbon-based industry interests and the connected yet complex resistances to decarbonization efforts. It calls for global governmental collaboration on an unprecedented scale. Atmospheric chemist Rachel Pike comments, "It goes, of course, to the top of our sky, but it goes to the bottom of the ocean, to every corner of the globe. It's every nation, every people. It's political, it's economic, it requires debate; it's scientific, it's engineering. It's the biggest problem you could ever imagine." It's no surprise, then, that climate change prompts a range of individual psychological and collective societal responses—avoidance, fatalism, denial, paralysis and wishful thinking, to name a few.

It's also not surprising that the scientific evidence is contested, given that the indicators of climate change -- like changing precipitation patterns over decadal time scales -- may be difficult for ordinary citizens to detect, and given what's at stake once we acknowledge that those indicators are correct. Initially -- and even today, despite the fact that we've reached the gold standard for scientific certainty -- some have questioned the quantity and quality of the evidence, feeding the public's perception that the science is half-baked. In reality, by the time Hansen delivered his congressional testimony in 1988, he'd been researching the relationship between atmospheric components and temperature since the 1960s, building upon a line of scientific inquiry stretching back at least a century.

A crash course on climate science

During the previous century, French physicist Joseph Fourier (1821) and Irish physicist John Tyndall (1861) described the Earth's natural "greenhouse effect" whereby water vapor and other gases in the atmosphere regulate the planet's surface temperatures. By the end of the 1800s, Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius had made the prediction that industrialized coal-burning would intensify the natural greenhouse effect. Remarkably, when Arrhenius calculated the quantitative effects on temperature his results were relatively close to what's predicted by modern climate change models.

In the 1930s, British engineer and citizen scientist Guy Callendar demonstrated that global temperatures were rising, using data from more than 140 weather stations around the world. Callendar argued that rising CO2 levels were to blame, but his hypothesis failed to gain widespread acceptance in the scientific community. Two decades later, American researcher Gilbert Plass analyzed the infrared absorption of various gases and created the early computational models suggesting that a 3- to 4-degree rise in temperature would result from doubling the concentration of atmospheric CO2. For the scientists aware of Plass's work, Dave Keeling's findings a few years later were undoubtedly unsettling: the American geochemist provided the first unequivocal proof that atmospheric CO2 levels were increasing, based on analysis of atmospheric samples he collected at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii.

Many scientists assumed that the world's oceans would absorb the extra atmospheric CO2 that human industry was producing, until American oceanographer Roger Revelle and chemist Hans Suess demonstrated otherwise. The authors of a 1957 National Academy of Sciences climatology report quoted Revelle: "In consuming our fossil fuels at a prodigious rate, our civilization is conducting a grandiose scientific experiment."

Revelle's subsequent testimony before a Congressional committee helped put climate change on the radar of elected officials. In 1965, a presidential advisory panel warned that the greenhouse effect was a "real concern," and the U.S. government's engagement deepened when Nixon established the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 1970. Political and scientific interest in climate change grew during the ‘70s, culminating in the First World Climate Conference sponsored by the WMO in 1979. The Second World Climate Conference a decade later paved the way for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992, where the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was launched and the groundwork laid for subsequent international climate change negotiations.

The challenge of communicating climate change

The task of translating climate research for policymakers and the general public has been hampered by multiple definitions of climate change within and outside of the scientific community. As Roger Pielke Jr. argued in his 2005 article " Misdefining climate change: Consequences for science and action ," definitions used by the UNFCCC, IPCC and others profoundly influence public opinion and the range of probable policy choices. Additionally, the conflation of "climate change," "global warming" and "the greenhouse effect" in news coverage has fueled public confusion about how to diagnose and treat the problem. For our purposes here, "climate change" is any change in climate over time due to natural variability or as a result of human activity. This is consistent with the IPCC's use of the term.

Rachel Pike's comment that it's the "biggest problem you could ever imagine" reminds us that climate change is a dense and multifaceted issue. There are facets of climate science and policy where convergent agreement dominates, while in other areas, contentious disagreement has generated worthwhile debate and discussion. The media's conflation of these diverse dimensions into one sweeping issue has contributed to confusion and created a breeding ground for manipulation from outlier viewpoints to inadvertently or deliberately skew public opinion.

It's important that we critically assess who ‘speaks for climate change' and understand their agendas. To the extent that their claims are flatly reported, or that in the name of fairness and balance speakers are frequently placed on equal footing irrespective of their expertise, individuals and organizations have become empowered to speak with authority through mass media. This skews how citizens and policy makers understand climate change issues, the stakes involved and the spectrum of possible actions to take. Cognizant of this, in 2013 the L.A. Times announced it would no longer print letters from climate change detractors. L.A. Times letters editor Paul Thornton wrote, "Simply put, I do my best to keep errors of fact off the letters page; when one does run, a correction is published. Saying "there's no sign humans have caused climate change" is not stating an opinion, it's asserting a factual inaccuracy."

About this TED Studies collection

While poorly communicated information can hamper the ability to make important decisions related to climate change causes and consequences, accurate and engaging information accessed through these TED Talks gives you power: power to understand, power to share your understanding with others, and power to take action.

Here we'll consider the environment as our planet's renewable and non-renewable natural resources, and a support system for the quantity, quality and sustainability of human activities. We'll see science as a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge, sorting through the unceasing flow of human experience. We'll explore policy as guides for decision making about human management of environment, articulating the principles, intentions, and mandates about who gets what, when and how. And we'll contemplate values as systems of conduct and broad preferences (individual to societal) concerning the morality of outcomes.

We begin with three modules that center our considerations on the climate science. First, through science journalist Lee Hotz's TED Talk, we explore the evidence that the climate is changing. Next, photographer James Balog contributes additional compelling, visible, measurable documentation of certain climate change effects. Balog's talk also highlights critical elements of the certainty/uncertainty debate that has dogged the issue. Third, through the TED Talk by climate scientist James Hansen, we explore the convergent agreement in the scientific community that humans contribute to contemporary climate change.

We continue with three modules exploring the politics of taking action through mitigation, adaptation and cross-cutting market-based, risk-reduction regulatory measures. We start with a TED Talk from former United States Vice President Al Gore, who calls for various ways to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere (mitigation). Next, we turn to the TED Talk by environmental lawyer Vicki Arroyo, who suggests ways in which human communities can reduce their vulnerability to climate change and increase resilience (adaptation). Then we consider cross-cutting, often market-based risk reduction efforts by way of a TED Talk from journalist Naomi Klein. Her talk opens a space where we can critically evaluate climate risk reduction endeavors such as the market-based cap and trade proposals that are considered an essential tool by some, and merely a shell game by others.

We finish with two modules that focus our attention on important values and ethics questions. First, former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown challenges us to build a stronger global society by cutting carbon emissions in a way that is beneficial and equitable to all nations. Finally we turn to sustainabily strategist Johan Rockström's TED Talk about how nine ‘planetary boundaries' (which include climate change) can usefully guide ecosystem and environmental protection for future generations.

Let's begin with a look at the scientific evidence that's being unearthed at" the South Pole; science journalist Lee Hotz takes us there via his TED Talk "Inside an Antarctic time machine."

Inside an Antarctic time machine

Relevant talks.

New thinking on the climate crisis

Gordon Brown

Global ethic vs. national interest.

James Balog

Time-lapse proof of extreme ice loss.

James Hansen

Why i must speak out about climate change.

Johan Rockström

Let the environment guide our development.

Naomi Klein

Addicted to risk.

Vicki Arroyo

Let's prepare for our new climate.

Home — Essay Samples — Environment — Environment Problems — Climate Change

Essays on Climate Change

Climate change: essay topics for college students.

Welcome to our resource page designed for college students seeking inspiration for their climate change essays. The choice of topic is a crucial first step in the writing process, reflecting your personal interests and creativity. This page aims to guide you through selecting a compelling essay topic that not only captivates your interest but also challenges you to think critically and analytically.

Depending on your assignment requirements or personal preference, essays can be categorized into several types. Below, you will find a variety of climate change essay topics categorized by essay type. Each topic is accompanied by an introductory paragraph example, highlighting a clear thesis statement, and a conclusion paragraph example that summarizes the essay's main points and reiterates the thesis.

Argumentative Essays

• Topic: The Effectiveness of International Agreements in Combating Climate Change
• Thesis Statement: International agreements, though crucial, are not sufficiently effective in combating climate change without enforceable commitments.

Conclusion Example: In summarizing, international agreements provide a framework for climate action but lack the enforcement necessary for real change. To combat climate change effectively, these agreements must be accompanied by binding commitments that ensure countries adhere to their promises, underscoring the need for a more robust global enforcement mechanism.

Compare and Contrast Essays

• Topic: Renewable Energy Sources vs. Fossil Fuels: A Comparative Analysis
• Thesis Statement: Renewable energy sources, despite higher initial costs, are more environmentally sustainable and cost-effective in the long run compared to fossil fuels.

Conclusion Example: Through this comparative analysis, it is clear that renewable energy sources offer a more sustainable and cost-effective solution to powering our world than fossil fuels. Embracing renewables not only mitigates the impact of climate change but also secures a sustainable energy future.

Descriptive Essays

• Topic: The Impact of Climate Change on Coral Reefs
• Thesis Statement: Climate change poses a severe threat to coral reefs, leading to bleaching events, habitat loss, and a decline in marine biodiversity.

Conclusion Example: The devastation of coral reefs is a stark reminder of the broader impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems. Protecting these vital habitats requires immediate action to mitigate the effects of climate change and preserve marine biodiversity for future generations.

Persuasive Essays

• Topic: The Role of Individual Actions in Mitigating Climate Change
• Thesis Statement: Individual actions, when collectively embraced, can drive significant environmental change and are essential in the fight against climate change.

Conclusion Example: In conclusion, the cumulative effect of individual actions can make a substantial difference in addressing climate change. By adopting more sustainable lifestyles, individuals can contribute to a larger movement towards environmental stewardship and climate action.

Narrative Essays

• Topic: A Personal Journey Towards Sustainable Living
• Thesis Statement: Through personal commitment to sustainable living, individuals can contribute meaningfully to mitigating climate change while discovering the intrinsic rewards of a simpler, more purposeful lifestyle.

Conclusion Example: This journey towards sustainable living has not only contributed to climate action but has also offered a deeper appreciation for the importance of individual choices. As more people embark on similar journeys, the collective impact on our planet can be transformative.

We encourage you to select a topic that resonates with your personal interests and academic goals. Dive deep into your chosen subject, employ critical thinking, and let your creativity flow as you explore different perspectives and solutions to climate change. Remember, the best essays are not only informative but also engaging and thought-provoking.

Writing on these topics will not only enhance your understanding of climate change and its implications but also develop your skills in research, critical thinking, persuasive writing, and narrative storytelling. Each essay type offers a unique opportunity to explore different facets of the climate crisis, encouraging you to engage with the material in a meaningful way.

Hooks for Climate Change Essay

Climate change is not just an environmental issue; it is a pressing global crisis that affects every aspect of our lives. From melting polar ice caps to rising sea levels, the signs of climate change are everywhere, and they are impossible to ignore.

• Imagine a world where natural disasters are a daily occurrence. This is not a dystopian future; it is the reality we face if we do not address climate change now.
• Have you ever wondered why the summers seem hotter and the winters milder? The answer lies in the alarming acceleration of climate change.
• Picture your favorite coastal city submerged under water. This scenario is closer than you think due to the rapid rise in sea levels.
• What if I told you that climate change could lead to the extinction of over one million species by 2050? The clock is ticking for our planet's biodiversity.
• Every time you turn on a light or drive your car, you contribute to a global problem. Understanding the personal impact of climate change is the first step towards meaningful action.

Climate Change Outline Essay Examples

Example 1: causes and effects of climate change, introduction.

Introduce the topic of climate change, its significance, and provide a thesis statement outlining the main points.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

• Deforestation

Industrial Activities

Urbanization

Rising Sea Levels

Extreme Weather Events

Loss of Biodiversity

Impact on Human Health

Renewable Energy Sources

Afforestation and Reforestation

Policy and Legislation

Public Awareness and Education

Summarize the main points, restate the significance of addressing climate change, and provide a call to action for individuals and policymakers.

Example 2: The Impact of Climate Change on Global Ecosystems

Introduce the importance of ecosystems and how they are threatened by climate change. Provide a thesis statement outlining the main areas of focus.

Coral Bleaching

Ocean Acidification

Disruption of Marine Food Chains

Forest Degradation

Changes in Wildlife Migration Patterns

Alteration of Plant Growth Cycles

Glacial Melt and Reduced Snowpack

Changes in Water Quality

Disruption of Aquatic Species Habitats

Summarize the impacts of climate change on different ecosystems, emphasize the interconnectedness of these systems, and highlight the need for comprehensive conservation efforts.

Example 3: The Role of Policy in Combating Climate Change

Introduce the role of policy in addressing climate change, and provide a thesis statement highlighting the importance of governmental and international efforts.

Renewable Energy Incentives

Carbon Pricing

Regulations on Emissions

Paris Agreement

Kyoto Protocol

UN Climate Change Conferences (COP)

Economic and Political Barriers

Technological Innovations

Public and Private Sector Collaboration

Summarize the role of policy in combating climate change, discuss the need for robust and enforceable policies, and call for increased global cooperation and commitment.

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The Causes and Effects of Climate Change: a Comprehensive Analysis

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Mother Nature and Climate Change: We Must Take Action

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Climate change refers to long-term changes in the Earth's climate, including rising temperatures, shifting weather patterns, and more severe natural disasters.

The historical context of climate change spans centuries. The Industrial Revolution in the 18th century marked increased fossil fuel use, releasing significant greenhouse gases. By the late 19th century, scientists like Svante Arrhenius linked carbon dioxide to Earth's temperature. Climate change gained attention in the mid-20th century, with the 1958 Keeling Curve showing rising CO2 levels. Key events include the 1988 establishment of the IPCC, the 1992 UNFCCC, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, and the 2015 Paris Agreement.

• Greenhouse gas emissions: The burning of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, and natural gas, releases carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) into the atmosphere, trapping heat and contributing to global warming.
• Industrial activities: Industrial processes, including manufacturing, construction, and chemical production, release CO2 and other greenhouse gases through energy consumption and the use of certain chemicals.
• Agricultural practices: Livestock farming produces methane through enteric fermentation and manure management, while the use of synthetic fertilizers releases nitrous oxide.
• Land use changes: Converting land for agriculture, urban development, or other purposes alters natural ecosystems and contributes to the release of CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
• Waste management: Improper handling and decomposition of organic waste in landfills produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
• Rising temperatures: Global warming leads to increased average temperatures worldwide, resulting in heatwaves, melting glaciers and polar ice, and rising sea levels.
• Extreme weather events: Climate change intensifies extreme weather events such as hurricanes, droughts, floods, and wildfires, leading to devastating impacts on ecosystems, communities, and infrastructure.
• Disruption of ecosystems: Changes in temperature and precipitation patterns disrupt ecosystems, affecting biodiversity, migration patterns, and the survival of plant and animal species.
• Health impacts: Climate change contributes to the spread of diseases, heat-related illnesses, and respiratory problems due to increased air pollution and the expansion of disease vectors.
• Water scarcity: Changing climate patterns can alter rainfall patterns, causing water scarcity in certain regions, affecting agriculture, drinking water supplies, and ecosystems that depend on water sources.

Transitioning to renewable energy sources like solar, wind, and hydropower, along with improving energy efficiency in industries and buildings, can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Promoting electric vehicles, public transportation, and biking infrastructure further cuts emissions. Forest conservation and reforestation help absorb carbon dioxide, while sustainable agriculture practices reduce emissions and improve soil health. Embracing a circular economy reduces waste, and strong climate policies alongside public awareness drive collective action against climate change.

• The levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Earth's atmosphere are currently higher than any recorded in the past 800,000 years. According to data from ice core samples, pre-industrial CO2 levels averaged around 280 parts per million (ppm), while current levels have exceeded 410 ppm.
• The Earth's average temperature has increased by about 1 degree Celsius since the late 19th century.
• The Arctic region is warming at a faster pace than any other part of the planet.
• Human activities, such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation, are major contributors to climate change.
• Climate change is also affecting wildlife, with many species facing extinction due to habitat loss.

Climate change is a critical issue that affects all aspects of our lives, from the environment to the economy. It poses a threat to biodiversity, food security, and human health. Addressing climate change requires global cooperation and immediate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate its impacts. By raising awareness and taking steps to combat climate change, we can protect the planet for future generations.

1. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2018). Global warming of 1.5°C. Retrieved from https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/ 2. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (n.d.). Climate change: How do we know? Retrieved from https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/ 3. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. (2015). Paris Agreement. Retrieved from https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement 4. World Health Organization. (2018). Climate change and health. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-change-and-health 5. Environmental Protection Agency. (2021). Climate change indicators: Atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. Retrieved from https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/greenhouse-gases 6. United Nations Environment Programme. (2020). Emissions gap report 2020. Retrieved from https://www.unep.org/emissions-gap-report-2020 7. Stern, N. (2007). The economics of climate change: The Stern Review. Cambridge University Press. 8. Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. (2019). Summary for policymakers of the global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services. Retrieved from https://ipbes.net/sites/default/files/2020-02/ipbes_global_assessment_report_summary_for_policymakers_en.pdf 9. World Meteorological Organization. (2021). State of the global climate 2020. Retrieved from https://library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?explnum_id=10739 10. Cook, J., Oreskes, N., Doran, P. T., Anderegg, W. R., Verheggen, B., Maibach, E. W., ... & Nuccitelli, D. (2016). Consensus on consensus: A synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming. Environmental Research Letters, 11(4), 048002. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002

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• Environment Essay

Essay on Understanding and Nurturing Our Environment

The environment is everything that surrounds us – the air we breathe, the water we drink, the soil beneath our feet, and the diverse flora and fauna that inhabit our planet. It's not just a backdrop to our lives; it's the very essence of our existence. In this essay, we'll explore the importance of our environment, the challenges it faces, and what we can do to ensure a sustainable and thriving world for generations to come.

Our environment is a complex and interconnected web of life. Every living organism, from the tiniest microbe to the largest mammal, plays a crucial role in maintaining the balance of ecosystems. This delicate balance ensures the survival of species, including humans. For instance, bees pollinate plants, which produce the oxygen we breathe. Nature is a masterpiece that has evolved over millions of years, and we are just one small part of this intricate tapestry.

Importance of Environment  

The environment is crucial for keeping living things healthy.

It helps balance ecosystems.

The environment provides everything necessary for humans, like food, shelter, and air.

It's also a source of natural beauty that is essential for our physical and mental health.

The Threats to Our Environment:

Unfortunately, our actions have disrupted this delicate balance. The rapid industrialization, deforestation, pollution, and over-exploitation of natural resources have led to severe environmental degradation. Climate change, driven by the increase in greenhouse gas emissions, is altering weather patterns, causing extreme events like floods, droughts, and storms. The loss of biodiversity is another alarming concern – species are disappearing at an unprecedented rate due to habitat destruction and pollution.

Impact of Human Activities on the Environment

Human activities like pollution, deforestation, and waste disposal are causing environmental problems like acid rain, climate change, and global warming. The environment has living (biotic) and non-living (abiotic) components. Biotic components include plants, animals, and microorganisms, while abiotic components include things like temperature, light, and soil.

In the living environment, there are producers (like plants), consumers (like animals), and decomposers (like bacteria). Producers use sunlight to make energy, forming the base of the food web. Consumers get their energy by eating other organisms, creating a chain of energy transfer. Decomposers break down waste and dead organisms, recycling nutrients in the soil.

The non-living environment includes climatic factors (like rain and temperature) and edaphic factors (like soil and minerals). Climatic factors affect the water cycle, while edaphic factors provide nutrients and a place for organisms to grow.

The environment includes everything from the air we breathe to the ecosystems we live in. It's crucial to keep it clean for a healthy life. All components of the environment are affected by its condition, so a clean environment is essential for a healthy ecosystem.

Sustainable Practices:

Adopting sustainable practices is a key step towards mitigating environmental degradation. This includes reducing our carbon footprint by using renewable energy, practicing responsible consumption, and minimizing waste. Conservation of natural resources, such as water and forests, is essential. Supporting local and global initiatives that aim to protect the environment, like reforestation projects and wildlife conservation efforts, can make a significant impact.

Education and Awareness:

Creating a sustainable future requires a collective effort, and education is a powerful tool in this regard. Raising awareness about environmental issues, the consequences of our actions, and the importance of conservation is crucial. Education empowers individuals to make informed choices and encourages sustainable practices at both personal and community levels.

Why is a Clean Environment Necessary?

To have a happy and thriving community and country, we really need a clean and safe environment. It's like the basic necessity for life on Earth. Let me break down why having a clean environment is so crucial.

First off, any living thing—whether it's plants, animals, or people—can't survive in a dirty environment. We all need a good and healthy place to live. When things get polluted, it messes up the balance of nature and can even cause diseases. If we keep using up our natural resources too quickly, life on Earth becomes a real struggle.

So, what's causing all this environmental trouble? Well, one big reason is that there are just so many people around, and we're using up a lot of stuff like land, food, water, air, and even fossil fuels and minerals. Cutting down a bunch of trees (we call it deforestation) is also a big problem because it messes up the whole ecosystem.

Then there's pollution—air, water, and soil pollution. It's like throwing a wrench into the gears of nature, making everything go wonky. And you've probably heard about things like the ozone layer getting thinner, global warming, weird weather, and glaciers melting. These are all signs that our environment is in trouble.

But don't worry, we can do things to make it better:

Plant more trees—they're like nature's superheroes, helping balance everything out.

Follow the 3 R's: Reuse stuff, reduce waste, and recycle. It's like giving our planet a high-five.

Ditch the plastic bags—they're not great for our landscapes.

Think about how many people there are and try to slow down the population growth.

By doing these things, we're basically giving our planet a little TLC (tender loving care), and that's how we can keep our environment clean and healthy for everyone.

Policy and Regulation:

Governments and institutions play a vital role in shaping environmental policies and regulations. Strong and enforceable laws are essential to curb activities that harm the environment. This includes regulations on emissions, waste disposal, and protection of natural habitats. International cooperation is also crucial to address global environmental challenges, as issues like climate change know no borders.

The Role of Technology:

Technology can be a double-edged sword in environmental conservation. While some technological advancements contribute to environmental degradation, others offer solutions. Innovative technologies in renewable energy, waste management, and sustainable agriculture can significantly reduce our impact on the environment. Embracing and investing in eco-friendly technologies is a step towards a greener and more sustainable future.

Conclusion:

Our environment is not just a collection of trees, rivers, and animals; it's the foundation of our existence. Understanding the interconnectedness of all living things and recognizing our responsibility as stewards of the Earth is essential. By adopting sustainable practices, fostering education and awareness, implementing effective policies, and embracing eco-friendly technologies, we can work towards healing our planet. The choices we make today will determine the world we leave for future generations – a world that can either flourish in its natural beauty or struggle under the weight of environmental degradation. It's our collective responsibility to ensure that it's the former.

FAQs on Environment Essay

1. What is the Environment?

The environment constitutes the entire ecosystem that includes plants, animals and microorganisms, sunlight, air, rain, temperature, humidity, and other climatic factors. It is basically the surroundings where we live. The environment regulates the life of all living beings on Earth.

2. What are the Three Kinds of Environments?

Biotic Environment: It includes all biotic factors or living forms like plants, animals, and microorganisms.

Abiotic Environment: It includes non-living factors like temperature, light, rainfall, soil, minerals, etc. It comprises the atmosphere, lithosphere, and hydrosphere.

Built Environment: It includes buildings, streets, houses, industries, etc. 

3. What are the Major Factors that Lead to the Degradation of the Environment?

The factors that lead to the degradation of the environment are:

The rapid increase in the population.

Growth of industrialization and urbanization.

Deforestation is making the soil infertile (soil that provides nutrients and home to millions of organisms).

Over-consumption of natural resources.

Ozone depletion, global warming, and the greenhouse effect.

4. How do we Save Our Environment?

We must save our environment by maintaining a balanced and healthy ecosystem. We should plant more trees. We should reduce our consumption and reuse and recycle stuff. We should check on the increase in population. We should scarcely use our natural and precious resources. Industries and factories should take precautionary measures before dumping their wastes into the water bodies.

5. How can we protect Mother Earth?

Ways to save Mother Earth include planting more and more trees, using renewable sources of energy, reducing the wastage of water, saving electricity, reducing the use of plastic, conservation of non-renewable resources, conserving the different flora and faunas, taking steps to reduce pollution, etc.

6. What are some ways that humans impact their environment?

Humans have influenced the physical environment in many ways like overpopulation, pollution, burning fossil fuels, and deforestation. Changes like these have generated climate change, soil erosion, poor air quality, and undrinkable water. These negative impacts can affect human behavior and can prompt mass migrations or battles over clean water.  

7. Why is the environment of social importance?

Human beings are social animals by nature. They spend a good amount of time in social environments. Their responsibility towards the environment is certainly important because these social environments might support human beings in both personal development goals as well as career development goals.

What Are the Effects of Climate Change?

A rapidly warming planet poses an existential threat to all life on earth. Just how bad it gets depends on how quickly we act.

An area flooded by Super Typhoon Noru in the Bulacan Province of the Philippines, September 26, 2022

Rouelle Umali/Xinhua via Getty Images

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Climate change is our planet’s greatest existential threat . If we don’t limit greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, the consequences of rising global temperatures include massive crop and fishery collapse, the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of species, and entire communities becoming uninhabitable. While these outcomes may still be avoidable, climate change is already causing suffering and death. From raging wildfires and supercharged storms, its compounding effects can be felt today, outside our own windows.

Understanding these impacts can help us prepare for what’s here, what’s avoidable, and what’s yet to come, and to better prepare and protect all communities. Even though everyone is or will be affected by climate change, those living in the world’s poorest countries—which have contributed least to the problem—are the most climate-vulnerable. They have the fewest financial resources to respond to crises or adapt, and they’re closely dependent on a healthy, thriving natural world for food and income. Similarly, in the United States, it is most often low-income communities and communities of color that are on the frontlines of climate impacts. And because climate change and rising inequality are interconnected crises, decision makers must take action to combat both—and all of us must fight for climate justice. Here’s what you need to know about what we’re up against.

Effects of climate change on weather

Effects of climate change on the environment, effects of climate change on agriculture, effects of climate change on animals, effects of climate change on humans, future effects of climate change.

As global temperatures climb, widespread shifts in weather systems occur, making events like droughts , hurricanes , and floods more intense and unpredictable. Extreme weather events that may have hit just once in our grandparents’ lifetimes are becoming more common in ours. However, not every place will experience the same effects: Climate change may cause severe drought in one region while making floods more likely in another.

Already, the planet has warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius (1.9 degrees Fahrenheit) since the preindustrial era began 250 years ago, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) . And scientists warn it could reach a worst-case scenario of 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100 if we fail to tackle the causes of climate change —namely, the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas) .

Tokyo during a record-breaking heat wave, August 13, 2020

The Yomiuri Shimbun via AP Images

Higher average temperatures

This change in global average temperature—seemingly small but consequential and climbing—means that, each summer, we are likely to experience increasingly sweltering heat waves. Even local news meteorologists are starting to connect strings of record-breaking days to new long-term trends, which are especially problematic in regions where infrastructure and housing have not been built with intensifying heat in mind. And heat waves aren’t just uncomfortable—they’re the leading cause of weather-related fatalities in the United States.

Longer-lasting droughts

Hotter temperatures increase the rate at which water evaporates from the air, leading to more severe and pervasive droughts . Already, climate change has pushed the American West into a severe “megadrought”—the driest 22-year stretch recorded in at least 1,200 years—shrinking drinking water supplies, withering crops , and making forests more susceptible to insect infestations. Drought can also create a positive feedback loop in which drier soil and less plant cover cause even faster evaporation.

More intense wildfires

This drier, hotter climate also creates conditions that fuel more vicious wildfire seasons—with fires that spread faster and burn longer—putting millions of additional lives and homes at risk. The number of large wildfires doubled between 1984 and 2015 in the western United States. And in California alone, the annual area burned by wildfires increased 500 percent between 1972 and 2018.

Evacuation after Hurricane Harvey in Houston, August 28, 2017

David J. Phillip/AP Photo

Stronger storms

Warmer air also holds more moisture, making tropical cyclones wetter, stronger, and more capable of rapidly intensifying. In the latest report from the IPCC , scientists found that daily rainfall during extreme precipitation events would increase by about 7 percent for each degree Celsius of global warming, increasing the dangers of flooding . The frequency of severe Category 4 and 5 hurricanes is also expected to increase. In 2017, Hurricane Harvey, a devastating Category 4 storm, dumped a record 275 trillion pounds of rain and resulted in dozens of deaths in the Houston area.

From the poles to the tropics, climate change is disrupting ecosystems. Even a seemingly slight shift in temperature can cause dramatic changes that ripple through food webs and the environment.

The lake at Jökulsárlón, a glacial lagoon in Iceland, which has grown because of continued glacial melting

Eskinder Debebe/UN Photo

Melting sea ice

The effects of climate change are most apparent in the world’s coldest regions—the poles. The Arctic is heating up twice as fast as anywhere else on earth, leading to the rapid melting of glaciers and polar ice sheets, where a massive amount of water is stored. As sea ice melts, darker ocean waters that absorb more sunlight become exposed, creating a positive feedback loop that speeds up the melting process. In just 15 years, the Arctic could be entirely ice-free in the summer.

Sea level rise

Scientists predict that melting sea ice and glaciers, as well as the fact that warmer water expands in volume, could cause sea levels to rise as much as 6.6 feet by the end of the century, should we fail to curb emissions. The extent (and pace) of this change would devastate low-lying regions, including island nations and densely populated coastal cities like New York City and Mumbai.

But sea level rise at far lower levels is still costly, dangerous, and disruptive. According to the 2022 Sea Level Rise Technical Report from the National Ocean Service, the United States will see a foot of sea level rise by 2050, which will regularly damage infrastructure, like roads, sewage treatment plants, and even power plants . Beaches that families have grown up visiting may be gone by the end of the century. Sea level rise also harms the environment, as encroaching seawater can both erode coastal ecosystems and invade freshwater inland aquifers, which we rely on for agriculture and drinking water. Saltwater incursion is already reshaping life in nations like Bangladesh , where one-quarter of the lands lie less than 7 feet above sea level.

A waterlogged road, caused by rainstorm and upstream flood discharge, in the Shaoguan, Guangdong Province of China, June 21, 2022

Stringer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

In addition to coastal flooding caused by sea level rise, climate change influences the factors that result in inland and urban flooding: snowmelt and heavy rain. As global warming continues to both exacerbate sea level rise and extreme weather, our nation’s floodplains are expected to grow by approximately 45 percent by 2100. In 2022, deadly flooding in Pakistan—which inundated as much as a third of the country—resulted from torrential rains mixed with melting glaciers and snow.

Warmer ocean waters and marine heat waves

Oceans are taking the brunt of our climate crisis. Covering more than 70 percent of the planet’s surface, oceans absorb 93 percent of all the heat that’s trapped by greenhouse gases and up to 30 percent of all the carbon dioxide emitted from burning fossil fuels.

Temperature-sensitive fish and other marine life are already changing migration patterns toward cooler and deeper waters to survive, sending food webs and important commercial fisheries into disarray. And the frequency of marine heat waves has increased by more than a third . These spikes have led to mass die-offs of plankton and marine mammals.

To make matters worse, the elevated absorption of carbon dioxide by the ocean leads to its gradual acidification , which alters the fundamental chemical makeup of the water and threatens marine life that has evolved to live in a narrow pH band. Animals like corals, oysters, and mussels will likely feel these effects first, as acidification disrupts the calcification process required to build their shells.

Ecosystem stressors

Land-based ecosystems—from old-growth forests to savannahs to tropical rainforests—are faring no better. Climate change is likely to increase outbreaks of pests, invasive species, and pathogen infections in forests. It’s changing the kinds of vegetation that can thrive in a given region and disrupting the life cycles of wildlife, all of which is changing the composition of ecosystems and making them less resilient to stressors. While ecosystems have the capacity to adapt, many are reaching the hard limits of that natural capacity . More repercussions will follow as temperatures rise.

Climate change appears to be triggering a series of cascading ecological changes that we can neither fully predict nor, once they have enough momentum, fully stop. This ecosystem destabilization may be most apparent when it comes to keystone species that have an outsize- role in holding up an ecosystem’s structure.

Coffee plants destroyed by frost due to extremely low temperatures near Caconde in the São Paulo state of Brazil, August 25, 2021

Jonne Roriz/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Less predictable growing seasons

In a warming world, farming crops is more unpredictable—and livestock, which are sensitive to extreme weather, become harder to raise. Climate change shifts precipitation patterns, causing unpredictable floods and longer-lasting droughts. More frequent and severe hurricanes can devastate an entire season’s worth of crops. Meanwhile, the dynamics of pests, pathogens, and invasive species—all of which are costly for farmers to manage—are also expected to become harder to predict. This is bad news, given that most of the world’s farms are small and family-run. One bad drought or flood could decimate an entire season’s crop or herd. For example, in June 2022, a triple-digit heat wave in Kansas wiped out thousands of cows. While the regenerative agriculture movement is empowering rural communities to make their lands more resilient to climate change, unfortunately, not all communities can equitably access the support services that can help them embrace these more sustainable farming tactics.

Reduced soil health

Healthy soil has good moisture and mineral content and is teeming with bugs, bacteria, fungi, and microbes that in turn contribute to healthy crops. But climate change, particularly extreme heat and changes in precipitation, can degrade soil quality. These impacts are exacerbated in areas where industrial, chemical-dependent monoculture farming has made soil and crops less able to withstand environmental changes.

Food shortages

Ultimately, impacts to our agricultural systems pose a direct threat to the global food supply. And food shortages and price hikes driven by climate change will not affect everyone equally: Wealthier people will continue to have more options for accessing food, while potentially billions of others will be plummeted into food insecurity—adding to the billions that already have moderate or severe difficulty getting enough to eat.

The poison dart frog’s survival is currently threatened by habitat loss and climate change.

Chris Mattison/Minden Pictures

It’s about far more than just the polar bears: Half of all animal species in the world’s most biodiverse places, like the Amazon rainforest and the Galapagos Islands, are at risk of extinction from climate change. And climate change is threatening species that are already suffering from the biodiversity crisis, which is driven primarily by changes in land and ocean use (like converting wild places to farmland) and direct exploitation of species (like overfishing and wildlife trade). With species already in rough shape—more than 500,000 species have insufficient habitat for long-term survival—unchecked climate change is poised to push millions over the edge.

Climate change rapidly and fundamentally alters (or in some cases, destroys) the habitat that wildlife have incrementally adapted to over millennia. This is especially harmful for species’ habitats that are currently under threat from other causes. Ice-dependent mammals like walruses and penguins, for example, won’t fare well as ice sheets shrink. Rapid shifts in ocean temperatures stress the algae that nourishes coral reefs, causing reefs to starve—an increasingly common phenomenon known as coral bleaching . Disappearing wetlands in the Midwest’s Prairie Pothole Region means the loss of watering holes and breeding grounds for millions of migratory birds. (Many species are now struggling to survive, as more than 85 percent of wetlands have been lost since 1700). And sea level rise will inundate or erode away many coastal habitats, where hundreds of species of birds, invertebrates, and other marine species live.

Many species’ behaviors—mating, feeding, migration—are closely tied to subtle seasonal shifts, as in temperature , precipitation level, and foliage. In some cases, changes to the environment are happening quicker than species are able to adapt. When the types and quantity of plant life change across a region, or when certain species bloom or hatch earlier or later than in the past, it impacts food and water supplies and reverberates up food chains.

Wildfire smoke–filled air in Multnomah County, Oregon, September 16, 2020

Motoya Nakamura/Multnomah County Communications, CC BY NC-ND 4.0

Ultimately, the way climate change impacts weather, the environment, animals, and agriculture affects humanity as well. But there’s more. Around the world, our ways of life—from how we get our food to the industries around which our economies are based—have all developed in the context of relatively stable climates. As global warming shakes this foundation, it promises to alter the very fabric of society. At worst, this could lead to widespread famine, disease, war, displacement , injury, and death. For many around the world, this grim forecast is already their reality. In this way, climate change poses an existential threat to all human life.

Human health

Climate change worsens air quality . It increases exposure to hazardous wildfire smoke and ozone smog triggered by warmer conditions, both of which harm our health, particularly for those with pre-existing illnesses like asthma or heart disease.

Insect-borne diseases like malaria and Zika become more prevalent in a warming world as their carriers are able to exist in more regions or thrive for longer seasons. In the past 30 years, the incidence of Lyme disease from ticks has nearly doubled in the United States, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Thousands of people face injury, illness , and death every year from more frequent or more intense extreme weather events. At a 2-degree Celsius rise in global average temperature, an estimated one billion people will face heat stress risk. In the summer of 2022 alone, thousands died in record-shattering heat waves across Europe. Weeks later, dozens were killed by record-breaking urban flooding in the United States and South Korea—and more than 1,500 people perished in the flooding in Pakistan , where resulting stagnant water and unsanitary conditions threaten even more.

The effects of climate change—and the looming threat of what’s yet to come—take a significant toll on mental health too. One 2021 study on climate anxiety, published in the journal Nature , surveyed 10,000 young people from 10 different countries. Forty-five percent of respondents said that their feelings about climate change, varying from anxiety to powerlessness to anger, impacted their daily lives.

A patient with dengue fever, a mosquito-borne disease, in Karachi, Pakistan, where the spread of diseases worsened due to flooding, September 2022

Fareed Khan/AP Photo

Worsening inequity

The climate crisis exacerbates existing inequities. Though wealthy nations, such as the United States, have emitted the lion’s share of historical greenhouse gas emissions, it’s developing countries that may lack the resources to adapt and will now bear the brunt of the climate crisis. In some cases, low-lying island nations—like many in the Pacific —may cease to exist before developed economies make meaningful reductions to their carbon emissions.

Even within wealthier nations, disparities will continue to grow between those rich enough to shield themselves from the realities of climate change and those who cannot. Those with ample resources will not be displaced from their homes by wars over food or water—at least not right away. They will have homes with cool air during heat waves and be able to easily evacuate when a hurricane is headed their way. They will be able to buy increasingly expensive food and access treatment for respiratory illness caused by wildfire smoke. Billions of others can’t—and are paying the highest price for climate pollution they did not produce.

Hurricane Katrina, for example, displaced more than one million people around the Gulf Coast. But in New Orleans , where redlining practices promoted racial and economic segregation, the city’s more affluent areas tended to be located on higher ground—and those residents were able to return and rebuild much faster than others.

Displacement

Climate change will drive displacement due to impacts like food and water scarcities, sea level rise, and economic instability. It’s already happening. The United Nations Global Compact on Refugees recognizes that “climate, environmental degradation and disasters increasingly interact with the drivers of refugee movements.” Again, communities with the fewest resources—including those facing political instability and poverty—will feel the effects first and most devastatingly.

A flood-damaged home in Queens, New York, December 1, 2021

K.C. Wilsey/FEMA

Economic impacts

According to the 2018 National Climate Assessment, unless action is taken, climate change will cost the U.S. economy as much as $500 billion per year by the end of the century. And that doesn’t even include its enormous impacts on human health . Entire local industries—from commercial fishing to tourism to husbandry—are at risk of collapsing, along with the economic support they provide.

Recovering from the destruction wrought by extreme weather like hurricanes, flash floods, and wildfires is also getting more expensive every year. In 2021, the price tag of weather disasters in the United States totaled $145 billion —the third-costliest year on record, including a number of billion-dollar weather events.

The first wave of impacts can already be felt in our communities and seen on the nightly news. The World Health Organization says that in the near future, between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause an additional 250,000 deaths per year from things like malnutrition, insect-borne diseases, and heat stress. And the World Bank estimates that climate change could displace more than 140 million people within their home countries in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America by 2050.

But the degree to which the climate crisis upends our lives depends on whether global leaders decide to chart a different course. If we fail to curb greenhouse gas emissions, scientists predict a catastrophic 4.3 degrees Celsius , (or around 8 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming by the end of the century. What would a world that warm look like? Wars over water. Crowded hospitals to contend with spreading disease. Collapsed fisheries. Dead coral reefs. Even more lethal heat waves. These are just some of the impacts predicted by climate scientists .

Solar panel installation at a floating photovoltaic plant on a lake in Haltern am See, Germany, April 2022

Martin Meissner/AP Photo

Climate mitigation, or our ability to reverse climate change and undo its widespread effects, hinges on the successful enactment of policies that yield deep cuts to carbon pollution, end our dependence on dangerous fossil fuels and the deadly air pollution they generate, and prioritize the people and ecosystems on the frontlines. And these actions must be taken quickly in order to ensure a healthier present day and future. In one of its latest reports, the IPCC presented its most optimistic emissions scenario, in which the world only briefly surpasses 1.5 degrees of warming but sequestration measures cause it to dip back below by 2100. Climate adaptation , a term that refers to coping with climate impacts, is no longer optional ; it’s necessary, particularly for the world’s most vulnerable populations.

By following the urgent warnings of the IPCC and limiting warming, we may be able to avoid passing some of the critical thresholds that, once crossed, can lead to potentially irreversible, catastrophic impacts for the planet, including more warming. These thresholds are known as climate tipping points and refer to when a natural system "tips" into an entirely different state. One example would be Arctic permafrost, which stores carbon like a freezer: As the permafrost melts from warming temperatures, it releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Importantly, climate action is not a binary pass-fail test. Every fraction of a degree of warming that we prevent will reduce human suffering and death, and keep more of the planet’s natural systems intact. The good news is that a wide range of solutions exist to sharply reduce emissions, slow the pace of warming, and protect communities on the frontlines of climate impacts. Climate leaders the world over—those on major political stages as well as grassroots community activists—are offering up alternative models to systems that prioritize polluters over people. Many of these solutions are rooted in ancestral and Indigenous understandings of the natural world and have existed for millennia. Some solutions require major investments into clean, renewable energy and sustainable technologies. To be successful, climate solutions must also address intersecting crises—like poverty, racism, and gender inequality —that compound and drive the causes and impacts of the climate crisis. A combination of human ingenuity and immense political will can help us get there.

This NRDC.org story is available for online republication by news media outlets or nonprofits under these conditions: The writer(s) must be credited with a byline; you must note prominently that the story was originally published by NRDC.org and link to the original; the story cannot be edited (beyond simple things such as grammar); you can’t resell the story in any form or grant republishing rights to other outlets; you can’t republish our material wholesale or automatically—you need to select stories individually; you can’t republish the photos or graphics on our site without specific permission; you should drop us a note to let us know when you’ve used one of our stories.

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Essay on Environment: Examples & Tips

• Updated on  
• May 30, 2022

In the 21st century, the Environmental crisis is one of the biggest issues. The world has been potentially impacted by the resulting hindrance in the environmental balance, due to the rising in industrialization and urbanization. This led to several natural calamities which creates an everlasting severe impact on the environment for years. To familiarize students with the importance environment, the subject ‘Environmental Studies’ is part of the curriculum in primary, secondary as well as higher school education. To test the knowledge of the students related to Environment, a question related to the topic in the form of essay or article writing is included in the exam. This blog aims to focus on providing details to students on the way, they can draft a well-written essay on Environment.

This Blog Includes:

Overview on environment, tips on writing an effective essay, format (150 words), sample essay on environment, environment essay (100 words), essay on environment (200-250 words), environment essay (300 words), world environment day.

To begin the essay on Environment, students must know what it is all about. Biotic (plants, animals, and microorganisms) and abiotic (non-living physical factors) components in our surroundings fall under the terminology of the environment. Everything that surrounds us is a part of the environment and facilitates our existence on the planet.

Before writing an effective essay on Environment, another thing students need to ensure is to get familiarised with the structure of essay writing. The major tips which students need to keep in mind, while drafting the essay are:

• Research on the given topic thoroughly : The students must research the topic given in the essay, for example: while drafting an essay on the environment, students must mention the recent events, so to provide the reader with a view into their understanding of this concept.
• Jot down the important points: When the students research the topic, students must note down the points which need to be included in the essay.
• Quote down the important examples: Students must quote the important examples in the introductory paragraphs and the subsequent paragraphs as well.
• Revise the Essay: The student after finishing writing students must revise the content to locate any grammatical errors as well as other mistakes.

Essay on Environment: Format & Samples

Now that you are aware of the key elements of drafting an essay on Environment, take a look at the format of essay writing first:

Introduction

The student must begin the essay by, detailing an overview of the topic in a very simple way in around 30-40 words. In the introduction of the essay on Environment, the student can make it interesting by recent instances or adding questions.

Body of Content

The content after the introduction can be explained in around 80 words, on a given topic in detail. This part must contain maximum detail in this part of the Essay. For the Environment essay, students can describe ways the environment is hampered and different ways to prevent and protect it.

In the essay on Environment, students can focus on summing the essay in 30-40 words, by writing its aim, types, and purposes briefly. This section must swaddle up all the details which are explained in the body of the content.

Below is a sample of an Essay on Environment to give you an idea of the way to write one:

The natural surroundings that enable life to thrive, nurture, and destroy on our planet called earth are referred to as an environment. The natural environment is vital to the survival of life on Earth, allowing humans, animals, and other living things to thrive and evolve naturally. However, our ecosystem is being harmed as a result of certain wicked and selfish human actions. It is the most essential issue, and everyone should understand how to safeguard our environment and maintain the natural balance on this planet for life to continue to exist.

Nature provides an environment that nourishes life on the planet. The environment encompasses everything humans need to live, including water, air, sunshine, land, plants, animals, forests, and other natural resources. Our surroundings play a critical role in enabling the existence of healthy life on the planet. However, due to man-made technical advancements in the current period, our environment is deteriorating day by day. As a result, environmental contamination has risen to the top of our priority list.

Environmental pollution has a detrimental impact on our everyday lives in a variety of ways, including socially, physically, economically, emotionally, and cognitively. Contamination of the environment causes a variety of ailments that can last a person’s entire life. It is not a problem of a neighborhood or a city; it is a global issue that cannot be handled by a single person’s efforts. It has the potential to end life in a day if it is not appropriately handled. Every ordinary citizen should participate in the government’s environmental protection effort.

Between June 5 and June 16, World Environment Day is commemorated to raise awareness about the environment and to educate people about its importance. On this day, awareness initiatives are held in a variety of locations.

The environment is made up of plants, animals, birds, reptiles, insects, water bodies, fish, humans, trees, microbes, and many other things. Furthermore, they all contribute to the ecosystem.

The physical, social, and cultural environments are the three categories of environments. Besides, various scientists have defined different types and numbers of environments.

1. Do not leave rubbish in public areas. 2. Minimize the use of plastic 3. Items should be reduced, reused, and recycled. 4. Prevent water and soil contamination

Hope the blog has given you an idea of how to write an essay on the Environment. If you are planning to study abroad and want help in writing your essays, then let Leverage Edu be your helping hand. Our experts will assist you in writing an excellent SOP for your study abroad consultant application. 

Sonal is a creative, enthusiastic writer and editor who has worked extensively for the Study Abroad domain. She splits her time between shooting fun insta reels and learning new tools for content marketing. If she is missing from her desk, you can find her with a group of people cracking silly jokes or petting neighbourhood dogs.

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• climate change

How We Can Move Away From the Climate Brink

I t will take momentous shifts to ensure a reasonably safe climate future. How can we find the wherewithal and endurance to transform our energy, food, and transportation systems; our buildings, infrastructure, and manufacturing; our economies, governments, and cultures, if we can’t envision the outcome of our efforts? Before we fully commit our brains and brawn, before we go all-in, it’s reasonable to want some indication of what success looks like—some sense of what all this change will mean for our lives. 

I get it. For decades, what scientists, writers, filmmakers, and artists have projected for us is the apocalypse, in great detail. We can easily picture the climate-change-fueled fires, floods, droughts, and storms, and the immense suffering, all of which are now well underway. But when it comes to better outcomes, we’ve largely been left hanging. That is a problem. 

Because what if we get it right? I ask this question because I, too, need to know what it all adds up to. Because my imagination often fails me and I find myself grasping for a futurism that doesn’t feel naive. 

Humans have evolved to not leap into a void—that’s dangerous! So we need something firm to aim for. Something with love and joy in it. And we need the gumption that emerges from an effervescent sense of possibility.

If we get it right, the world is a lot more green, more full of life. Damaged ecosystems are on the mend. Cycles of water, carbon, and nitrogen are rebalanced. Beavers are admired for helping landscapes absorb water and diminish wildfires. Insects, a precious foundation of our food web, are rebuilding their numbers and doing their many jobs. Soils are accumulating instead of eroding; full of roots and bugs and microbes, they can resist droughts and deluges. We are fostering intact forests, plains, and watersheds—working at landscape scale, regardless of geopolitical borders. Half of nature, of each ecosystem, is protected from plunder in perpetuity.

The success of the Land Back movement means Indigenous peoples are once again stewarding their ancestral lands, often in collaboration with local and national governments. The spewing of pollution and poisons, the proliferation of extinctions have ended. Regenerative organic farms are thriving; subsidies for toxic megafarms are done. We have replaced tenuous monocultures with resilient polycultures. Composting and mulching and cover crops are the new/old convention. Lawns are a thing of the past and golf courses are rewilded, replaced with Climate Victory Gardens and diverse native flora. Pollinators buzz. Life is luscious.

Read more: Be Tenacious on Behalf of Life on Earth

If we get it right , the combustion phase of humanity is over. We no longer burn things to make energy (except some hydrogen); we have electrified. Gen Z brought down the fossil fuel industry, ruthlessly calling out oil and gas corporations, mocking the destructive absurdity of their ways, and refusing, en masse, to work for them. The air is cleaner. The water is cleaner. Asthma and cancer are more rare again. Communities of color are no longer overburdened with pollution.

There are no more oil spills. Turning forests into “biomass” pellets for energy is an absurd “remember when. . . .” Renewable energy projects can no longer be blocked by wealthy property owners. Wind farms and solar arrays and transmission infrastructure are aesthetically pleasing additions to our landscape. Even though energy is renewable, we conserve it—to minimize both the amount of metals mined and the amount of nature that is disrupted with panels and turbines. Batteries and solar panels are recycled and newly mined materials are justly sourced. We have figured out fusion.

If we get it right, we have re-localized and we eat well . We no longer eat Washington State apples in New York State and New York apples in Washington. Our food is fresh and flavorful, ample and accessible to all. We don’t fight the seasons, but rather enjoy what the time and place offer. Our regionalized supply chains are more resilient to global shocks. We look back in horror at the age of shipping bottles of water from Fiji and France to stores all over the world. (But fear not, we are hydrated!)

We’ve grown beyond “reduce, reuse, recycle” and now think first of refuse, repair, and repurpose. Every neighborhood has a repair shop. We value materials, from food scraps to metals to fabrics. Biodegradable is the norm, and composting is ubiquitous. Landfills aren’t needed. Trash is out and circularity is in. Homemaking (preparing food, mending things, caretaking, and so on) is esteemed. Many people have moved nearby to their loved ones, relocating to more climate-safe places, regathering diasporas. Living is intergenerational, people with disabilities are cared for, and elders are cherished.

If we get it right, our homes are comfortable. Green roofs support biodiversity and keep us cool in heat waves. Heat pumps and solar panels and induction stoves are the norm. We shake our heads remembering how we once spewed fossil gas into our kitchens, ruining indoor air quality to cook. Buildings are all well-insulated, and are not overheated in winter and overcooled in summer. Construction materials are more locally and regionally sourced. We have found replacements for high-energy concrete and steel. Instead of demolishing, we retrofit or deconstruct—materials are salvaged for reuse, like taking LEGOs apart for the next project. We’ve got good insulation dialed. Energy bills are much lower; energy conservation is much higher. The future is not drafty.

If we get it right, there is no traffic in cities, because there are so few cars in cities. Thanks to extensive, elegant, and free public transit systems, and with much of what we need within walking or biking distance, personal vehicles are rarely needed. Many parking lots have been removed, replaced by community gardens, gathering places, and bicycle parking. Glorious systems of bike lanes have many people pedaling. Electric hydrofoil ferries are common. Maybe trolleys are a thing again. 

From semi-trucks to vintage sports cars, we figured out vehicle conversion, conserving their metal husks as we move beyond combustion engines. Wildlife corridors bridge roadways and railways. High-speed trains are the preferred mode for long journeys. Travelers arrive with a sense of place, having traversed ecosystems at eye level, at a pace that allows for digesting the geography. Air travel is both pollution-free and less common—our ample vacation days (and airships!) make it easy to abandon planes. Locomotion happens with fewer decibels. Stealthily silent electric motorcycles are the midlife-crisis transport of choice. There is a sailboat renaissance.

Read More: These Black Icons Have a Novel Idea to Save the Ocean

If we get it right, coastlines are greener too. Mangroves and wetlands and seagrasses and dune grasses have been replanted. So have oyster reefs—billions of oysters are thriving in harbors and bays, filtering seawater and lessening wave impacts. These salty ecosystems are soaking up carbon and protecting us from storms. Where this green infrastructure alone is not enough, we supplement with gray infrastructure (seawalls and such), but sparingly because we have helped coastal communities move in and up, out of harm’s way. 

We show respect for the rising seas and have ceased trying to hold back the entire ocean, ceased the foolhardy rebuilding after each storm. Flood insurance premiums accurately reflect risks. No new buildings are constructed in flood zones. Coastlines are for working waterfronts and recreation. When coastal parks flood, there’s a delayed soccer game, not destroyed homes. Hurricanes are less deadly, even though our changed climate means they are more intense. And on a clear day, if you squint at the horizon, miles in the distance you just might glimpse offshore wind turbines. Woosh.

If we get it right , the tyranny of the minority is over; the climate-concerned majority rules. Our democracies are robust and truly representative. Every vote is equal and counted and easily cast. Politicians have been wrested from the stranglehold of the fossil fuel industry and big ag. They caught up with popular opinion that we must do more, and faster, on climate. Subsidies for fossil fuels are long gone. The filibuster has been abolished. 

Climate-science deniers are unelectable, perceived as laughably unfit for office. Because some places are no longer habitable (too hot, too stormy, too wet, too dry), policies reflect the humanitarian necessity for people to migrate. Governments ensure that people have all the basics covered (food, housing, education, healthcare, childcare, and eldercare), so that we can roll with the climate punches. 

In tandem with investing in community services, incarceration has plummeted, freeing time, labor, budgets, and human potential. Ditto for hyper-militarization, with all its high-cost energy-intensiveness. There are no more petrostates enabling petro-dictators—decentralizing energy production decentralized political power. The gulf in pay between executives and workers has narrowed—all jobs pay a thriving wage. As both climate and technological change remade our world, we instituted a universal basic income.

If we get it right, there are fewer desk jobs. We are out in the world, remaking society together and (re)figuring out how to live within nature instead of on top of it. Through climate corps programs, governments around the world employ hundreds of millions for efforts like managing fire risks, deploying clean energy, and restoring coastal wetlands. Access to healthcare is universal, not tied to a job, freeing people to relocate away from areas prone to extreme weather and toward necessary and meaningful work. Green jobs are the status quo. The trades—like carpentry, plumbing, electrical, welding—are revered. Our biceps are buff. Vocational training is easily accessible, enabling people to build skills for the shifting job market and economy. A single income can support a family, allowing time for the work of adapting to all the changes that are already here and those that are rushing toward us. Everyone has a role to play, contributing to a society powered by wind and sun and waves, and an ever-accelerating resurgence of nature. Electricians do very well on dating apps.

If we get it right, the pace of life is more humane. Time that had been spent dealing with health- and flood-insurance paperwork, advocating for renewable energy, being stuck in traffic, and otherwise butting up against outdated and broken systems, is now used to grow food, prepare for extreme weather events, and care for each other. All streets, not just those in wealthier areas, are lined with trees (including fruit and nut trees), providing shade and beauty and photosynthesis (and snacks). Rain gardens and bioswales line streets, ready to absorb and divert storm waters.

We linger outside, in parks and on sidewalks, with friends and neighbors. We have time to make meals at home or consume them at a cafe. “To-go” is uncommon, instead we meet eyes as we chew. We know plastic recycling is mostly bullshit and have abandoned disposables—instead we (gasp!) wash the dishes. No longer frenzied with meaningless to-dos, we find ease amidst the generational work of making our planet livable. As we spend more time outside, our appreciation for nature grows with immersion, inspiring ever more creative adaptations to our changed climate. Biophilia and biomimicry flourish in a virtuous cycle with the thriving of biodiversity. We are unrushed, chill even.

If we get it right, culture has caught up with our climate reality. Hollywood and celebrities are all-in—climate is the context, the cachet is in solutions, and implementation is sexy. The obsession with endless economic growth is considered wildly out of touch. Corporations are beholden to the limits of nature, not to maximizing quarterly profits for shareholders. Our healthy retirement accounts invest in the just transition, not fossil fuel extraction. The big money is in zeroing out and drawing down carbon pollution.

Mainstream media brims with actionable climate information. Social media is greener, too—an enticing scroll of ecological and electrification projects, luring more and more people into this important work. We share snazzy retrofitting hacks and extreme weather prep tips. We help our neighbors. Influencers get canceled for hawking shit we don’t need. Consumerism is so uncool. A victorious campaign for clothing durability requirements ended fast fashion. Fabrics are no longer made from fossil fuels. Artificial intelligence is reined in, and its computing power helps to optimize energy efficiency, maintain electricity grids, and generally advance climate solutions—and to free us from administrative tasks. Design is planet-centric, not human-centered.

If we get it right, even with all these changes, the world and our homes are still familiar. It’s the invisible systems that undergird our lives—our energy, food, and transit systems; our methods of engineering, manufacturing, and building; and the policies that organize it all—that have been overhauled. Re-greening the world and re-rooting in communities feels good. There is more collaboration, more knowing and being known, more sweetness. We lean into trial and error, into replication more than scaling. The world is a mashup of traditional and high-tech, old ways made new. The extractive, fossil-fuel economy is out; the renewable, regenerative economy is in. 

Humanity has backed off, made more room for other species, learned to share this magnificent planet. Our surroundings are verdant. Spring is not silent; it’s cacophonous. We are putting the pieces back together, adapting to the climate-changed world with eyes and hearts open wide. 

We embrace possibility, continually moving away from the brink and toward answers to the grand question: What if we get it right?

Excerpted from WHAT IF WE GET IT RIGHT? copyright © 2024 by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson. Used by permission of One World, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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The Effects of Climate Change

The effects of human-caused global warming are happening now, are irreversible for people alive today, and will worsen as long as humans add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

• We already see effects scientists predicted, such as the loss of sea ice, melting glaciers and ice sheets, sea level rise, and more intense heat waves.
• Scientists predict global temperature increases from human-made greenhouse gases will continue. Severe weather damage will also increase and intensify.

Earth Will Continue to Warm and the Effects Will Be Profound

Global climate change is not a future problem. Changes to Earth’s climate driven by increased human emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases are already having widespread effects on the environment: glaciers and ice sheets are shrinking, river and lake ice is breaking up earlier, plant and animal geographic ranges are shifting, and plants and trees are blooming sooner.

Effects that scientists had long predicted would result from global climate change are now occurring, such as sea ice loss, accelerated sea level rise, and longer, more intense heat waves.

The magnitude and rate of climate change and associated risks depend strongly on near-term mitigation and adaptation actions, and projected adverse impacts and related losses and damages escalate with every increment of global warming.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Some changes (such as droughts, wildfires, and extreme rainfall) are happening faster than scientists previously assessed. In fact, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — the United Nations body established to assess the science related to climate change — modern humans have never before seen the observed changes in our global climate, and some of these changes are irreversible over the next hundreds to thousands of years.

Scientists have high confidence that global temperatures will continue to rise for many decades, mainly due to greenhouse gases produced by human activities.

The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment report, published in 2021, found that human emissions of heat-trapping gases have already warmed the climate by nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 degrees Celsius) since 1850-1900. 1 The global average temperature is expected to reach or exceed 1.5 degrees C (about 3 degrees F) within the next few decades. These changes will affect all regions of Earth.

The severity of effects caused by climate change will depend on the path of future human activities. More greenhouse gas emissions will lead to more climate extremes and widespread damaging effects across our planet. However, those future effects depend on the total amount of carbon dioxide we emit. So, if we can reduce emissions, we may avoid some of the worst effects.

The scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human wellbeing and the health of the planet. Any further delay in concerted global action will miss the brief, rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future.

Here are some of the expected effects of global climate change on the United States, according to the Third and Fourth National Climate Assessment Reports:

Future effects of global climate change in the United States:

U.S. Sea Level Likely to Rise 1 to 6.6 Feet by 2100

Global sea level has risen about 8 inches (0.2 meters) since reliable record-keeping began in 1880. By 2100, scientists project that it will rise at least another foot (0.3 meters), but possibly as high as 6.6 feet (2 meters) in a high-emissions scenario. Sea level is rising because of added water from melting land ice and the expansion of seawater as it warms. Image credit: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0

Climate Changes Will Continue Through This Century and Beyond

Global climate is projected to continue warming over this century and beyond. Image credit: Khagani Hasanov, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

Hurricanes Will Become Stronger and More Intense

Scientists project that hurricane-associated storm intensity and rainfall rates will increase as the climate continues to warm. Image credit: NASA

More Droughts and Heat Waves

Droughts in the Southwest and heat waves (periods of abnormally hot weather lasting days to weeks) are projected to become more intense, and cold waves less intense and less frequent. Image credit: NOAA

Longer Wildfire Season

Warming temperatures have extended and intensified wildfire season in the West, where long-term drought in the region has heightened the risk of fires. Scientists estimate that human-caused climate change has already doubled the area of forest burned in recent decades. By around 2050, the amount of land consumed by wildfires in Western states is projected to further increase by two to six times. Even in traditionally rainy regions like the Southeast, wildfires are projected to increase by about 30%.

Changes in Precipitation Patterns

Climate change is having an uneven effect on precipitation (rain and snow) in the United States, with some locations experiencing increased precipitation and flooding, while others suffer from drought. On average, more winter and spring precipitation is projected for the northern United States, and less for the Southwest, over this century. Image credit: Marvin Nauman/FEMA

Frost-Free Season (and Growing Season) will Lengthen

The length of the frost-free season, and the corresponding growing season, has been increasing since the 1980s, with the largest increases occurring in the western United States. Across the United States, the growing season is projected to continue to lengthen, which will affect ecosystems and agriculture.

Global Temperatures Will Continue to Rise

Summer of 2023 was Earth's hottest summer on record, 0.41 degrees Fahrenheit (F) (0.23 degrees Celsius (C)) warmer than any other summer in NASA’s record and 2.1 degrees F (1.2 C) warmer than the average summer between 1951 and 1980. Image credit: NASA

Arctic Is Very Likely to Become Ice-Free

Sea ice cover in the Arctic Ocean is expected to continue decreasing, and the Arctic Ocean will very likely become essentially ice-free in late summer if current projections hold. This change is expected to occur before mid-century.

U.S. Regional Effects

Climate change is bringing different types of challenges to each region of the country. Some of the current and future impacts are summarized below. These findings are from the Third 3 and Fourth 4 National Climate Assessment Reports, released by the U.S. Global Change Research Program .

• Northeast. Heat waves, heavy downpours, and sea level rise pose increasing challenges to many aspects of life in the Northeast. Infrastructure, agriculture, fisheries, and ecosystems will be increasingly compromised. Farmers can explore new crop options, but these adaptations are not cost- or risk-free. Moreover, adaptive capacity , which varies throughout the region, could be overwhelmed by a changing climate. Many states and cities are beginning to incorporate climate change into their planning.
• Northwest. Changes in the timing of peak flows in rivers and streams are reducing water supplies and worsening competing demands for water. Sea level rise, erosion, flooding, risks to infrastructure, and increasing ocean acidity pose major threats. Increasing wildfire incidence and severity, heat waves, insect outbreaks, and tree diseases are causing widespread forest die-off.
• Southeast. Sea level rise poses widespread and continuing threats to the region’s economy and environment. Extreme heat will affect health, energy, agriculture, and more. Decreased water availability will have economic and environmental impacts.
• Midwest. Extreme heat, heavy downpours, and flooding will affect infrastructure, health, agriculture, forestry, transportation, air and water quality, and more. Climate change will also worsen a range of risks to the Great Lakes.
• Southwest. Climate change has caused increased heat, drought, and insect outbreaks. In turn, these changes have made wildfires more numerous and severe. The warming climate has also caused a decline in water supplies, reduced agricultural yields, and triggered heat-related health impacts in cities. In coastal areas, flooding and erosion are additional concerns.

1. IPCC 2021, Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis , the Working Group I contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

2. IPCC, 2013: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Stocker, T.F., D. Qin, G.-K. Plattner, M. Tignor, S.K. Allen, J. Boschung, A. Nauels, Y. Xia, V. Bex and P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.

3. USGCRP 2014, Third Climate Assessment .

4. USGCRP 2017, Fourth Climate Assessment .

Related Resources

A Degree of Difference

So, the Earth's average temperature has increased about 2 degrees Fahrenheit during the 20th century. What's the big deal?

What’s the difference between climate change and global warming?

“Global warming” refers to the long-term warming of the planet. “Climate change” encompasses global warming, but refers to the broader range of changes that are happening to our planet, including rising sea levels; shrinking mountain glaciers; accelerating ice melt in Greenland, Antarctica and the Arctic; and shifts in flower/plant blooming times.

Is it too late to prevent climate change?

Humans have caused major climate changes to happen already, and we have set in motion more changes still. However, if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, the rise in global temperatures would begin to flatten within a few years. Temperatures would then plateau but remain well-elevated for many, many centuries.

Discover More Topics From NASA

Explore Earth Science

Earth Science in Action

Earth Science Data

Facts About Earth

Human Impacts on the Environment

Humans impact the physical environment in many ways: overpopulation, pollution, burning fossil fuels, and deforestation. Changes like these have triggered climate change, soil erosion, poor air quality, and undrinkable water. These negative impacts can affect human behavior and can prompt mass migrations or battles over clean water.

Help your students understand the impact humans have on the physical environment with these classroom resources.

Earth Science, Geology, Geography, Physical Geography

Climate Change: Evidence and Causes: Update 2020 (2020)

Chapter: conclusion, c onclusion.

This document explains that there are well-understood physical mechanisms by which changes in the amounts of greenhouse gases cause climate changes. It discusses the evidence that the concentrations of these gases in the atmosphere have increased and are still increasing rapidly, that climate change is occurring, and that most of the recent change is almost certainly due to emissions of greenhouse gases caused by human activities. Further climate change is inevitable; if emissions of greenhouse gases continue unabated, future changes will substantially exceed those that have occurred so far. There remains a range of estimates of the magnitude and regional expression of future change, but increases in the extremes of climate that can adversely affect natural ecosystems and human activities and infrastructure are expected.

Citizens and governments can choose among several options (or a mixture of those options) in response to this information: they can change their pattern of energy production and usage in order to limit emissions of greenhouse gases and hence the magnitude of climate changes; they can wait for changes to occur and accept the losses, damage, and suffering that arise; they can adapt to actual and expected changes as much as possible; or they can seek as yet unproven “geoengineering” solutions to counteract some of the climate changes that would otherwise occur. Each of these options has risks, attractions and costs, and what is actually done may be a mixture of these different options. Different nations and communities will vary in their vulnerability and their capacity to adapt. There is an important debate to be had about choices among these options, to decide what is best for each group or nation, and most importantly for the global population as a whole. The options have to be discussed at a global scale because in many cases those communities that are most vulnerable control few of the emissions, either past or future. Our description of the science of climate change, with both its facts and its uncertainties, is offered as a basis to inform that policy debate.

A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The following individuals served as the primary writing team for the 2014 and 2020 editions of this document:

• Eric Wolff FRS, (UK lead), University of Cambridge
• Inez Fung (NAS, US lead), University of California, Berkeley
• Brian Hoskins FRS, Grantham Institute for Climate Change
• John F.B. Mitchell FRS, UK Met Office
• Tim Palmer FRS, University of Oxford
• Benjamin Santer (NAS), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
• John Shepherd FRS, University of Southampton
• Keith Shine FRS, University of Reading.
• Susan Solomon (NAS), Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Kevin Trenberth, National Center for Atmospheric Research
• John Walsh, University of Alaska, Fairbanks
• Don Wuebbles, University of Illinois

Staff support for the 2020 revision was provided by Richard Walker, Amanda Purcell, Nancy Huddleston, and Michael Hudson. We offer special thanks to Rebecca Lindsey and NOAA Climate.gov for providing data and figure updates.

The following individuals served as reviewers of the 2014 document in accordance with procedures approved by the Royal Society and the National Academy of Sciences:

• Richard Alley (NAS), Department of Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University
• Alec Broers FRS, Former President of the Royal Academy of Engineering
• Harry Elderfield FRS, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge
• Joanna Haigh FRS, Professor of Atmospheric Physics, Imperial College London
• Isaac Held (NAS), NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory
• John Kutzbach (NAS), Center for Climatic Research, University of Wisconsin
• Jerry Meehl, Senior Scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research
• John Pendry FRS, Imperial College London
• John Pyle FRS, Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge
• Gavin Schmidt, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
• Emily Shuckburgh, British Antarctic Survey
• Gabrielle Walker, Journalist
• Andrew Watson FRS, University of East Anglia

The Support for the 2014 Edition was provided by NAS Endowment Funds. We offer sincere thanks to the Ralph J. and Carol M. Cicerone Endowment for NAS Missions for supporting the production of this 2020 Edition.

F OR FURTHER READING

For more detailed discussion of the topics addressed in this document (including references to the underlying original research), see:

• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2019: Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate [ https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc ]
• National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), 2019: Negative Emissions Technologies and Reliable Sequestration: A Research Agenda [ https://www.nap.edu/catalog/25259 ]
• Royal Society, 2018: Greenhouse gas removal [ https://raeng.org.uk/greenhousegasremoval ]
• U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), 2018: Fourth National Climate Assessment Volume II: Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States [ https://nca2018.globalchange.gov ]
• IPCC, 2018: Global Warming of 1.5°C [ https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15 ]
• USGCRP, 2017: Fourth National Climate Assessment Volume I: Climate Science Special Reports [ https://science2017.globalchange.gov ]
• NASEM, 2016: Attribution of Extreme Weather Events in the Context of Climate Change [ https://www.nap.edu/catalog/21852 ]
• IPCC, 2013: Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) Working Group 1. Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis [ https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1 ]
• NRC, 2013: Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change: Anticipating Surprises [ https://www.nap.edu/catalog/18373 ]
• NRC, 2011: Climate Stabilization Targets: Emissions, Concentrations, and Impacts Over Decades to Millennia [ https://www.nap.edu/catalog/12877 ]
• Royal Society 2010: Climate Change: A Summary of the Science [ https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/publications/2010/climate-change-summary-science ]
• NRC, 2010: America’s Climate Choices: Advancing the Science of Climate Change [ https://www.nap.edu/catalog/12782 ]

Much of the original data underlying the scientific findings discussed here are available at:

• https://data.ucar.edu/
• https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu
• https://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu
• https://ess-dive.lbl.gov/
• https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/
• https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
• http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu
• http://hahana.soest.hawaii.edu/hot/

Climate change is one of the defining issues of our time. It is now more certain than ever, based on many lines of evidence, that humans are changing Earth's climate. The Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences, with their similar missions to promote the use of science to benefit society and to inform critical policy debates, produced the original Climate Change: Evidence and Causes in 2014. It was written and reviewed by a UK-US team of leading climate scientists. This new edition, prepared by the same author team, has been updated with the most recent climate data and scientific analyses, all of which reinforce our understanding of human-caused climate change.

Scientific information is a vital component for society to make informed decisions about how to reduce the magnitude of climate change and how to adapt to its impacts. This booklet serves as a key reference document for decision makers, policy makers, educators, and others seeking authoritative answers about the current state of climate-change science.

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You Asked, We Answered: Some Burning Climate Questions

Reporters from the Climate Desk gathered reader questions and are here to help explain some frequent puzzlers.

What’s one thing you want to know about climate change? We asked, and hundreds of you responded.

The topic, like the planet, is vast. Overwhelming. Complex. But there’s no more important time to understand what is happening and what can be done about it.

Why are extreme cold weather events happening if the planet is warming?

I understand that scientists believe that some extreme cold weather events are due to climate change, but I don’t quite understand how, especially if Earth is getting warmer overall. Could you explain this? — Gabriel Gutierrez, West Lafayette, Ind.

By Maggie Astor

The connection between climate change and extreme cold weather involves the polar jet stream in the Northern Hemisphere, strong winds that blow around the globe from west to east at an altitude of 5 to 9 miles. The jet stream naturally shifts north and south, and when it shifts south, it brings frigid Arctic air with it.

A separate wind system, called the polar vortex , forms a ring around the North Pole. When the vortex is temporarily disrupted — sometimes stretched or elongated, and other times broken into pieces — the jet stream tends to take one of those southward shifts. And research “suggests these disruptions to the vortex are happening more often in connection with a rapidly warming, melting Arctic, which we know is a clear symptom of climate change,” said Jennifer A. Francis, a senior scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center.

In other words, as climate change makes the Arctic warmer, the polar vortex is being more frequently disrupted in ways that allow Arctic air to escape south. And while temperatures are increasing on average, Arctic air is still frigid much of the time. Certainly frigid enough to cause extreme cold snaps in places like, say, Texas that are not accustomed to or prepared for them.

Where the extreme cold occurs depends on the nature of the disruption to the polar vortex. One type of disruption brings Arctic air into Europe and Asia. Another type brings Arctic air into the United States, and “that’s the type of polar vortex disruption that’s increasing the fastest,” said Judah L. Cohen, the director of seasonal forecasting at Atmospheric and Environmental Research, a private organization that works with government agencies.

It is important to note that these atmospheric patterns are extremely complicated, and while studies have shown a clear correlation between the climate-change-fueled warming of the Arctic and these extreme cold events, there is some disagreement among scientists about whether the warming of the Arctic is directly causing the extreme cold events. Research on that question is ongoing.

How will climate change affect biodiversity?

What impact will climate change have on biodiversity? How are they interlinked? How do the roles of developing versus developed countries differ, for example the United States and India? — A reader in India

By Catrin Einhorn

Warmer oceans are killing corals . Rising sea levels threaten the beaches that sea turtles need for nesting, and hotter temperatures are causing more females to be born. Changing seasons are increasingly out of step with the conditions species have evolved to depend on.

And then there are the polar bears , long a symbol of what could be lost in a warming world.

Climate change is already affecting plants and animals in ways that scientists are racing to understand. One study predicted sudden die offs , with large segments of ecosystems collapsing in waves. This has already started in coral reefs, scientists say, and could start in tropical forests by the 2040s.

Keeping global warming under 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the upper limit outlined by the Paris Agreement, would reduce the number of species exposed to dangerous climate change by 60 percent, the study found.

Despite these grim predictions, climate change isn’t yet the biggest driver of biodiversity loss. On land, the largest factor is the ways in which people have reshaped the terrain itself, creating farms and ranches, towns and cities, roads and mines from what was once habitat for myriad species. At sea, the main cause of biodiversity loss is overfishing. Also at play: pollution, introduced species that outcompete native ones, and hunting. A sobering report in 2019 by the leading international authority on biodiversity found that around a million species were at risk of extinction, many within decades.

While climate change will increasingly drive species loss, that’s not the only way in which the two are interlinked. Last year the same biodiversity panel joined with its climate change counterpart to issue a paper declaring that neither crisis could be addressed effectively on its own. For example, intact ecosystems like peatlands and forests both nurture biodiversity and sequester carbon; destroy them, and they turn into emitters of greenhouse gasses as well as lost habitat.

What to do? The science is clear that the world must transition away from fossil fuels far more quickly than is happening. Deforestation must stop . Consuming less meat and dairy would free up farmland for restoration , providing habitat for species and stashing away carbon. Ultimately, many experts say, we need a transformation from an extraction-based economy to a circular one. Like nature’s cycle, our waste — old clothes, old smartphones, old furniture — must be designed to provide the building blocks of what comes next.

Countries around the world are working on a new United Nations biodiversity agreement , which is expected to be approved later this year. One sticking point: How much money wealthy countries are willing to give poorer ones to protect intact natural areas, since wealthy countries have already largely exploited theirs.

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What’s the status of U.S. climate legislation and emissions?

Where is the trimmed back version of climate legislation at? Joe Manchin reportedly said he would support such a bill. What do you know about the bill and will it pass with just Democrats? — Richard Buttny, Virgil, N.Y.

What is the current stated U.S. goal regarding reducing greenhouse gases and climate change, and how likely is it that we will achieve that goal? What do we need to do today to make progress toward achieving that goal? — Kathy Gray, Oak Ridge, Tenn.

By Lisa Friedman

Richard, as to the last part of your question, honestly, at this point your guess is as good as ours.

But here is what we know so far. Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, the most powerful man in Congress because his support in an evenly divided Senate is key, effectively killed President Biden’s Build Back Better climate and social spending legislation when he ended months of negotiations last year, saying he could not support the package .

A few weeks ago amid talks of revived discussions, Mr. Manchin was blunt. “There is no Build Back Better legislation,” he told reporters. Mr. Manchin also has not committed to passing a smaller version of the original $1 trillion spending plan. He has, however, voiced support for an “all of the above” energy package that increases oil and gas development.

Democrats hope that billions of dollars in tax incentives for wind, solar, geothermal and electric vehicle charging stations can also make its way into such a package. But relations between the White House and Mr. Manchin are rocky and it is unclear whether such a bill could pass before lawmakers leave town for an August recess.

To your emissions question, Kathy, Mr. Biden has pledged to cut United States emissions 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 . Energy experts say it is a challenging but realistic goal, and critical for helping the world avert the worst impacts of climate change.

It’s not going to be easy. So far there are few regulations and even fewer laws that can help achieve that target. Mr. Biden’s centerpiece legislation, the Build Back Better Act, includes $550 billion in clean energy tax incentives that researchers said could get the country about halfway to its goal. But, as noted, that bill is stalled in the Senate . Even if it manages to win approval this year, the administration will still have to enact regulations on things like power plants and automobile emissions to meet the target.

Will our drinking water be safe?

A lot of coverage on climate change deals with rising sea levels and extreme weather — droughts, floods, etc. My question is more about how climate change will affect drinking water and access to safe clean water. Are we in danger within our current lifetime to see an impact to safe water within the U.S. due to climate change? — Jessica, Silver Spring, Md.

By Christopher Flavelle

Climate change threatens Americans’ access to clean drinking water in a number of ways. The most obvious is drought: Rising temperatures are reducing the snowpack that supplies drinking water for much of the West.

But drought is far from the only climate-related threat to America’s water. Along the coast, cities like Miami that draw drinking water from underground aquifers have to worry about rising seas pushing saltwater into those aquifers , a process called saltwater intrusion. And rising seas also push up groundwater levels, which can cause septic systems to stop working, pushing unfiltered human waste into that groundwater.

Even in cities far from the coast, worsening floods are overwhelming aging sewer systems , causing untreated storm water and sewage to reach rivers and streams more frequently . And some 2,500 chemical sites are in areas at risk of flooding, which could cause those chemicals to leach into the groundwater.

In some cases, protecting drinking water from the effects of climate change is possible, so long as governments can find enough money to upgrade infrastructure — building new systems to contain storm water, for example, or better protect chemicals from being released during a flood.

Far harder will be finding new supplies of water to make up for what’s lost as temperatures rise. Some communities are responding by pumping more water from the ground. But if those aquifers are depleted faster than rainwater can replenish them, they will eventually run dry, a concern with the Ogallala Aquifer that supports much of the High Plains.

Even with significant reductions in water use, climate change could reduce the number of people that some regions can support, and leave more areas dependent on importing water.

Can you solve drought by piping water across the country?

Why don’t we create a national acequia system to capture excess rain falling primarily in the Eastern United States and pipeline it to the drought in the West? — Carol P. Chamberland, Albuquerque, N.M

The idea of taking water from one community and giving it to another has some basis in American history. In 1913, Los Angeles opened an aqueduct to carry water from Owens Valley, 230 miles north of the city, to sustain its growth.

But the project, in addition to costing some $23 million at the time, greatly upset Owens Valley residents, who so resented losing their water that they took to dynamiting the aqueduct. Repeatedly .

Today, there are some enormous water projects in the United States, though building a pipeline that spanned a significant stretch of the country would be astronomically more difficult. The distance between Albuquerque, for example, and the Mississippi River — perhaps the closest hypothetical starting point for such a pipeline — is about 1,000 miles, crossing at least three states along the way. Moving that water all the way to Los Angeles would mean piping it at least 1,800 miles across five states.

So the engineering and permitting challenges alone would be daunting. And that’s assuming the local and state governments that would have to give up their water would be willing to do so.

China dealt with similar challenges to build a colossal network of waterways that is transferring water from the country’s humid south to its dry north. But of course, China’s system of government makes engineering feats of that scale somewhat more feasible to pull off.

For the United States, it would be easier to just build a series of desalination plants along the West coast, according to Greg Pierce, director of the Human Right to Water Solutions Lab at the University of California, Los Angeles. And before turning to desalination, which is itself energy-intensive and thus expensive, communities in the West should work harder at other steps, such as water conservation and recycling, he said.

“It’s not worth it,” Dr. Pierce said of the pipeline idea. “You’d have to exhaust eight other options first.”

Is the weather becoming more extreme than scientists predicted?

How can we have faith in climate modeling when extreme events are much worse than predicted? Given “unexpected” extreme events like the 2021 Pacific Northwest heat wave and extreme heat in Antarctica that appear to shock scientists, it’s difficult for me to trust the I.P.C.C.’s framing that we haven’t run out of time. — Kevin, Herndon, Va.

By Raymond Zhong

Climate scientists have said for a long time that global warming is causing the intensity and frequency of many types of extreme weather to increase. And that’s exactly what has been happening. But global climate models aren’t really designed to simulate extreme events in individual regions. The factors that shape individual heat waves, for instance, are very local. Large-scale computer models simply can’t handle that level of detail quite yet.

That said, sometimes there are events that seem so anomalous that they make scientists wonder if they reflect something totally new and unforeseen, a gap in our understanding of the climate. Some researchers put the 2021 Pacific Northwest heat wave in that category, and are working to figure out whether they need to re-evaluate some of their assumptions.

For its part, the I.P.C.C. has hardly failed to acknowledge what’s happening with extreme weather. But its mandate is to assess the whole range of climate research, which might make it lean toward the middle of the road in its summaries. A decade ago, when a group of researchers looked back at the panel’s assessments from the early 2000s, they found that it generally underestimated the actual changes in sea level rise, increases in surface temperatures, intensity of rainfall and more. They blamed the instinct of scientists to avoid making conclusions that seem “excessively dramatic,” perhaps out of fear of being called alarmist.

The panel’s latest report, from April , concluded that we haven’t run out of time to slow global warming, but only if nations and societies make some huge changes right away. That’s a big if.

How can I hear from climate scientists themselves?

Why are climate change scientists faceless, aloof, terrible communicators and absent from social media? — A reader in Dallas

Climate science may not yet have its Bill Nye or its Neil deGrasse Tyson, but plenty of climate scientists are passionate about communicating their work to the public. Lots of them are on Twitter. Here’s a (very small) cross-section of people to follow, in alphabetical order:

Alaa Al Khourdajie : Senior scientist in London with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the body of experts convened by the United Nations that puts out regular, authoritative surveys of climate research. Tweets on climate change economics and climate diplomacy.

Andrew Dessler : Professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University. Elucidator of energy and renewables, climate models and Texas.

Zeke Hausfather : Climate research lead at the payment processing company Stripe and scientist at Berkeley Earth, a nonprofit research group. A seemingly tireless chronicler, charter and commentator on all things climate.

David Ho : Climate scientist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and École Normale Supérieure in Paris. Talks oceans and carbon dioxide removal, with wry observations on transit, cycling and life in France, too.

Twila Moon : Deputy lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo. Covers glaciers, polar regions and giant ice sheets, and why we should all care about what happens to them.

Maisa Rojas : Climatologist at the University of Chile and Chile’s current environment minister. Follow along for slices of life at the intersection of science and government policy.

Sonia I. Seneviratne : Professor of land-climate dynamics at ETH Zurich in Switzerland. Tweets on extreme weather, greenhouse gas emissions and European energy policy.

Chandni Singh : Researcher on climate adaptation at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements in Bangalore. Posts about how countries and communities are coping with climate change, in both helpful ways and not so helpful ones.

Kim Wood : Geoscientist and meteorologist at Mississippi State University. A fount of neat weather maps and snarky GIFs.

What kind of trees are best to plant for the planet?

The world is trying to reforest the planet by planting nonnative trees like eucalyptus. Is this another disastrous plan? Shouldn’t they be planting native trees? — Katy Green, Nashville

Ecologists would say planting native trees is the best choice. We recently published an article on this very topic , examining how tree planting can resurrect or devastate ecosystems, depending on what species are planted and where.

To be sure, people need wood and other tree products for all kinds of reasons, and sometimes nonnative species make sense. But even when the professed goal is to help nature, the commercial benefits of certain trees, like Australian eucalyptus in Africa and South America or North American Sitka spruce in Europe, often win out.

A new standard is in development that would score tree planting projects on how well they’re doing with regard to biodiversity, with the aim of helping those with poor scores to improve.

The same ecological benefit of planting native species also holds true for people’s yards. Doug Tallamy, a professor of entomology at the University of Delaware, worked with the National Wildlife Federation to develop this tool to help people find native trees, shrubs and flowers that support the most caterpillars, which in turn feed baby birds .

Can we engineer solutions to atmospheric warming?

Why are we not investing in scalable solutions that can remove carbon or reduce solar radiation? — Hayes Morehouse, Hayward, Calif.

By Henry Fountain

As a group, these types of solutions are referred to as geoengineering, or intentional manipulation of the climate. Geoengineering generally falls into two categories: removing some of the carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere so Earth traps less heat, known as direct air capture, or reducing how much sunlight reaches Earth’s surface so that there is less heat to begin with, usually called solar radiation management.

There are a few companies developing direct air capture machines, and some have deployed them on a small scale. According to the International Energy Agency, these projects capture a total of about 10 thousand tons of CO2 a year, a tiny fraction of the roughly 35 billion tons of annual energy-related emissions. Removing enough CO2 to have a climate impact would take a long time and require many thousands of machines, all of which would need energy to operate.

The captured gas would also have to be securely stored to keep it from re-entering the atmosphere. Those hurdles make direct air capture a long shot, especially since, for now at least, there are few financial incentives to overcome them. No one wants to pay to remove carbon dioxide from the air and bury it underground.

Solar radiation management is a different story. The basics of how to do it are known: inject some kind of chemical (perhaps sulfur dioxide) into the upper atmosphere, where it would reflect more of the sun’s rays. Relatively speaking, it wouldn’t be all that expensive (a fleet of high-flying planes would probably suffice) although once started it would have to continue indefinitely.

The major hurdle to developing the technology has been grave concern among many scientists, policymakers and others about unintended consequences that might result, and about the lack of a structure to govern its deployment. To date, there have been almost no real-world studies of the technology .

How do we know how warm the planet was in the 1800s?

One key finding of climate science is that global temperatures have increased by 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 1800s. How can we possibly have reliable measures of global temperatures from back then, keeping in mind that oceans cover about 70 percent of the globe and that a large majority of land has never been populated by humans to any significant degree? — Robert, Madison, Wis.

The mercury thermometer was invented in the early 1700s, and by the mid- to late 19th century, local temperatures were being monitored continuously in many locations, predominantly in the United States, Europe and the British colonies. By 1900, there were hundreds of recording stations worldwide, but over half of the Southern Hemisphere still wasn’t covered. And the techniques could be primitive. To measure temperatures at the sea’s surface, for instance, the most common method before about 1940 was to toss a bucket overboard a ship, haul it back up with a rope and read the temperature of the water inside.

To turn these spotty local measurements into estimates of average temperatures globally, across both land and ocean, climate scientists have had to perform some highly delicate analysis . They’ve used statistical models to fill in the gaps in direct readings. They’ve taken into account when weather stations changed locations or were situated close to cities that were hot for reasons unrelated to larger temperature trends.

They have also used some clever techniques to try to correct for antiquated equipment and methods. Those bucket readings , for example, might be inaccurate because the water in the bucket cooled down as it was pulled aboard. So scientists have scoured various nations’ maritime archives to determine what materials their sailors’ buckets were made of — tin, wood, canvas, rubber — during different periods in history and adjusted the way they incorporate those temperature recordings into their computations.

Such analysis is fiendishly tricky. The numbers that emerge are uncertain estimates, not gospel truth. Scientists are working constantly to refine them. Today’s global temperature measurements are based on a much broader and more quality-controlled set of readings, including from ships and buoys in the oceans.

But having a historical baseline, even an imperfect one, is important. As Roy L. Jenne, a researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, wrote in a 1975 report on the institution’s collections of climate data: “Although they are not perfect, if they are used wisely they can help us find answers to a number of problems.”

Does producing batteries for electric cars damage the environment more than gas vehicles do?

Is the environmental damage collecting metals/producing batteries for electric cars more dangerous to the environment than gas powered vehicles? — Sandy Rogers, San Antonio, Texas

By Hiroko Tabuchi

There’s no question that mining the metals and minerals used in electric car batteries comes with sizable costs that are not just environmental but also human.

Much of the world’s cobalt, for example, is mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo , where corruption and worker exploitation has been widespread. Extracting the metals from their ores also requires a process called smelting, which can emit sulfur oxide and other harmful air pollution.

Beyond the minerals required for batteries, electric grids still need to become much cleaner before electric vehicles are emissions free.

Most electric vehicles sold today already produce significantly fewer planet-warming emissions than most cars fueled with gasoline, but a lot still depends on how much coal is being burned to generate the electricity they use.

Still, consider that batteries and other clean technology require relatively tiny amounts of these critical minerals, and that’s only to manufacture them. Once a battery is in use, there are no further minerals necessary to sustain it. That’s a very different picture from oil and gas, which must constantly be drilled from the ground, transported via pipelines and tankers, refined and combusted in our gasoline cars to keep those cars moving, said Jim Krane, a researcher at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy in Houston. In terms of environmental and other impacts, he said, “There’s just no comparison.”

How close are alternatives to fuel-powered aircraft?

As E. V.s are to gas-powered cars, are there greener alternatives to fuel-powered planes that are close to commercialization? — Rashmi Sarnaik, Boston

There are alternatives to fossil-fuel-powered aircraft in development, but whether they are close to commercialization depends on how you define “close.” It’s probably fair to say that the day when a significant amount of air travel is on low- or zero-emissions planes is still far-off.

There has been some work on using hydrogen , including burning it in modified jet engines. Airbus and the engine manufacturer CFM International expect to begin flight testing a hydrogen-fueled engine by the middle of the decade.

As with cars, though, most of the focus in aviation has been on electric power and batteries. The main problem with batteries is how little energy they supply relative to their weight. In cars that’s less of an obstacle (they don’t have to get off the ground, after all) but in aviation, batteries severely limit the size of the plane and how far it can fly.

One of the biggest battery-powered planes to fly so far was a modified Cessna Grand Caravan, test-flown by two companies, Magnix and Aerotec. Turboprop Grand Caravans can carry 10 or more people up to 1,200 miles. The companies said theirs could fly four or five people 100 miles or less.

The limitations of batteries, at least for now, have led some companies to work on other designs. Some use fuel cells, which work like batteries but can continuously supply electricity using hydrogen or other fuel. Others use hybrid systems — like hybrid cars, combining batteries and fossil-fuel-powered engines. In one approach, the engines provide some power and also keep the batteries charged. In another, the engines are used in takeoff and descent, when more power is needed, and the batteries for cruising, which requires less power. That keeps the number of batteries, and the weight, down.

Can countries meet the goals they set in the Paris agreement?

What countries, if any, have a realistic chance of meeting their Paris agreement pledges? — Michael Svetly, Philadelphia

According to Climate Action Tracker , a research group that analyzes climate goals and policies, very few. Ahead of United Nations talks in Glasgow last year, the organization found most major emitters of carbon dioxide, including the United States and China, are falling short of their pledge to stabilize global warming around 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit.

A few are doing better than most, including Costa Rica and the United Kingdom. Just one country was on track to meet its promises: Gambia, a small West African nation that has been bolstering its renewable energy use.

What will happen to N.Y.C.?

How is N.Y.C. planning for relocation or redevelopment, or both, of its many low-lying neighborhoods as floodwaters become too high to levee? — A reader in North Bergen, N.J.

New York City has yet to announce plans to fully relocate entire neighborhoods threatened by climate change, with all the steps that would entail: determining which homes to buy, getting agreement from homeowners, finding a new patch of land for the community, building new infrastructure, securing funding and so on.

Relocation projects on that scale, often described as “managed retreat,” remain extremely rare in the United States. What projects have been attempted so far have mostly been in rural areas or small towns , and their success has been mixed.

And the idea of pulling back from the water, while never easy, is especially fraught in New York City, which has some of the highest real estate values in the country. Those high values have been used to justify fantastically expensive projects to protect low-lying land in the city, rather than abandon it — like a $10 billion berm along the South Street Seaport , or a $119 billion sea wall in New York Harbor .

Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, the city’s most recent Comprehensive Waterfront Plan , issued in December, makes no mention of managed retreat. But the plan does include what it calls “housing mobility” — policies aimed at helping individual households move to safer areas, for example by giving people money to buy a new home on higher ground, as well as paying for moving and other costs. The city also says it is limiting the density of new development in high-risk areas.

Robert Freudenberg, a vice president of the Regional Plan Association, a nonprofit planning group in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, gave city officials credit for beginning to talk about the idea that some areas can’t be protected forever.

“It’s an extremely challenging topic,” Mr. Freudenberg said. But as flooding gets worse, he added, “we can’t not talk about it.”

As oceans rise, will the Great Lakes, too?

The oceans are predicted to rise and affect coastal areas and cities, however, does this rise also affect the coastal areas of the Great Lakes, as the lakes are connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the St. Lawrence River and one would have to assume they would eventually be impacted? — Terri Messinides, Madison, Wis.

The Great Lakes are not directly threatened by rising oceans because of their elevation: The lowest of them, Lake Ontario, is about 240 feet above sea level. The St. Lawrence River carries water from the lakes to the Atlantic Ocean, but because of the elevation change, rising waters in the Atlantic can’t travel in the other direction.

That said, climate change is causing increasingly frequent and intense storms in the Great Lakes region, and the effects, including higher water levels and more flooding, are in many respects the same as those caused by rising seas. It’s just a different manifestation of climate change.

When it comes to precipitation, the past five years, from April 2017 through March 2022, the last month for which complete data is available, have been the second-wettest on record for the Great Lakes Basin, according to records kept by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration . The water has risen accordingly. In 2019, water levels in the lakes hit 100-year highs , causing severe flooding and shoreline erosion.

At the same time, higher temperatures increase the rate of evaporation, which can lead to abnormally low water levels. People who live around the Great Lakes can expect to see both extremes — high water driven by severe rainfall, and low water driven by evaporation — happen more often as the climate continues to warm.

What is the environmental cost of cryptocurrency?

Can you tell us about the damage being done to our environment by crypto mining? I’ve heard the mining companies are trying to switch to renewable energy, yet at the same time reopening old coal power plants to provide the huge amounts of electricity they need. — Barry Engelman, Santa Monica, Calif.

Cryptomining, the enigmatic way in which virtual cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are created (and which is also behind technology like NFTs ), requires a whole lot of computing power, is highly energy-intensive and generates outsize emissions. We delved into that process, and its environmental impact in this article — but suffice to say the problem isn’t going away soon.

The way Bitcoin is set up, using a process called “proof of work,” means that as interest in cryptocurrencies grows and more people start mining, more energy is required to mine a single Bitcoin. Researchers at Cambridge University estimate that mining Bitcoin uses more electricity than midsize countries like Norway. In New York, an influx of Bitcoin miners has led to the reopening of mothballed power plants.

But you might wonder about the traditional financial system: doesn’t that use energy, too? Yes, of course. But Bitcoin, for all its hype, still makes up just a few percent of all the world’s money or its transactions. So even though one industry study estimated that Bitcoin consumes about a 10th of the energy required by the traditional banking system, that still means Bitcoin’s energy use is outsize.

To address its high emissions footprint, cryptomining has increasingly tapped into renewable forms of energy, like hydroelectric power. But figuring out exactly just how much renewable energy Bitcoin miners use can be tricky. For one, we don’t exactly know where many of these miners are. We do know a lot of crypto miners used to be in China, where they had access to large amounts of hydro power. But now that they’ve largely been kicked out, cryptomining’s global climate impact has likely gotten worse .

In the United States, cryptominers have started to tap an unconventional new energy source: drilled gas, collected at oil and gas wells. The miners argue that this gas would otherwise have been flared or vented into the atmosphere, so no excess emissions are created. The reality is not that clear cut: If the presence of those cryptominers disincentivizes oil and gas companies from piping away that gas to be used elsewhere, any savings effect is blunted.

Other efforts are afoot to make cryptomining less damaging for the environment, including an alternative way of cryptomining involving a process called “proof of stake,” that doesn’t require miners to use as much energy. But unless Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, switches over, that’s going to do little to dent miners’ energy use.

How much do volcanoes contribute to global warming?

What does the data look like for greenhouse gas emissions in the last 200 years if volcanic activity was subtracted out? — Haley Rowlands, Boston

Volcanic activity generates 130 million to 440 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, according to the United States Geological Survey . Human activity generates about 35 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year — 80 times as much as the high-end estimate for volcanic activity, and 270 times as much as the low-end estimate. And that’s carbon dioxide. Human activity also emits other greenhouse gases, like methane, in far greater quantities than volcanoes.

The largest volcanic eruption in the past century was the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines; if an explosion that size happened every day, NASA has calculated , it would still release only half as much carbon dioxide as daily human activity does. The annual emissions from cement production alone, one small component of planet-warming human activity, are greater than the annual emissions from every volcano in the world.

There is also no evidence that volcanic activity has increased over the past 200 years. While there have been more documented eruptions, researchers at the Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Program found that this was attributable not to an actual trend, but rather to “increases in populations living near volcanoes to observe eruptions and improvements in communication technologies to report those eruptions.”

All told, volcanic activity accounts for less than 1 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, which is not enough to contribute in any meaningful way to the increase we’ve seen over the past 200 years. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found in 2013 (see Page 56 of its report ) that the climatic effects of volcanic activity were “inconsequential” over the scale of a century.

Do carbon dioxide concentrations vary around the globe?

Why is the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii used as the global reference? It’s only one point on Earth. Do concentrations vary between different parts of the world? — Evan, Boston

At any given moment, levels of carbon dioxide in the air vary from place to place, depending on the amount of vegetation and human activity nearby. Which is why, as a location to monitor the average state of the atmosphere, at least over a large part of the Northern Hemisphere, a barren volcano in the middle of the Pacific has much to offer. It’s high above the ground and far enough from major sources of industrial pollution but still relatively accessible to researchers.

Today, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration studies global carbon dioxide levels by looking at readings from Mauna Loa Observatory and a variety of other sources. These include observatories in Alaska, American Samoa and the South Pole, tall towers across the United States, and samples collected by balloons, aircraft and volunteers around the world. ( Here’s a map of all those sites.)

NOAA also checks its measurements at Mauna Loa against others from the same location, including ones taken independently, using different methods, by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography . On average, the difference in their monthly estimates is tiny.

Could a ‘new ice age’ offset global warming?

Will increases in global temperature associated with climate change be mitigated by the coming of a new “ice age?” — Suzanne Smythe, Essex, Conn.

In a “mini ice age,” if it occurred, average worldwide temperatures would drop, thus offsetting the warming that has been caused by emissions of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels in the last century and a half.

It’s a nice thought: a natural phenomenon comes to our rescue. But it’s not happening, nor is it expected to.

The idea is linked to the natural variability in the amount of the sun’s energy that reaches Earth. The sun goes through regular cycles, lasting about 11 years, when activity swings from a minimum to a maximum. But there are also longer periods of reduced activity, called grand solar minimums. The last one began in the mid-17th century and lasted seven decades.

There is some debate among scientists whether we are entering a new grand minimum . But even if we are, and even if it lasted for a century, the reduction in the sun’s output would not have a significant effect on temperatures. NASA scientists, among others, have calculated that any cooling effect would be overwhelmed by the warming effect of all the greenhouse gases we have pumped, and continue to pump, into the atmosphere.

Challenges of Science and Technology

How it works

Nowadays, science and tech are super important in shaping our world and pushing things forward. But, even with all the good stuff they bring, there are a bunch of problems we need to tackle. This essay talks about the different issues that come with the growth of science and tech, like ethical problems, environmental worries, social and economic gaps, and the fast pace of change.

• 1 Ethical Dilemmas
• 2 Environmental Concerns
• 3 Socioeconomic Disparities
• 4 Rapid Pace of Change
• 5 Conclusion

Ethical Dilemmas

One big problem with science and tech is the ethical stuff that comes with new discoveries.

Things like genetic engineering, AI, and biotech raise lots of questions. Take CRISPR, for example. It lets scientists edit genes, which sounds cool, but what about “designer babies” or genetic discrimination? A report by the [National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-020-0500-9) says gene editing could wipe out genetic diseases, but it could also be misused. So, we need strict rules.

AI’s another tricky thing. It’s used in stuff like hiring and even in courts. But these algorithms can be biased, leading to unfair results. A study by [ProPublica](https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessments-in-criminal-sentencing) showed that some algorithms used in sentencing were biased against African Americans. This shows we need more transparency and accountability in AI.

Environmental Concerns

Tech advancements have done a number on the environment too. The rise of electronic devices has led to a massive increase in e-waste. The [Global E-waste Monitor 2020](https://globalewaste.org/) says the world made 53.6 million metric tonnes of e-waste in 2019, but only 17.4% got recycled. E-waste is dangerous because it has harmful stuff like lead and mercury.

Plus, industrial growth and urbanization, fueled by tech, have made pollution and climate change worse. The [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change](https://www.ipcc.ch/) reports that human activities have caused about 1.0°C of global warming since pre-industrial times. Tech can help with renewable energy and sustainable practices, but it also leads to more carbon emissions and resource use.

Socioeconomic Disparities

The digital divide is a major issue that highlights the economic and social gaps made worse by tech. Not everyone has the same access to the latest tech and the internet, especially in developing areas. The [International Telecommunication Union](https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/stat/default.aspx) (ITU) says that while 87% of people in developed countries use the internet, only 47% do in developing countries, and just 19% in the least developed countries. This divide limits educational and job opportunities, making the gap between the rich and poor wider.

Also, job automation due to tech advancements is a big worry. A report by the [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development](https://www.oecd.org/) (OECD) says 14% of jobs in OECD countries are at high risk of automation, with another 32% at risk of major changes. We need strong policies for retraining workers and social safety nets to deal with the impact of automation on jobs.

Rapid Pace of Change

The super-fast speed of tech change brings its own set of problems. New innovations come so quickly that regulations can’t keep up. This lag can cause issues, like with ride-sharing companies like Uber and Lyft. They’ve shaken up the taxi industry and brought up concerns about worker rights and safety.

Also, the quick turnover of tech means stuff gets outdated fast. This pushes people to upgrade often, adding to the e-waste problem. This cycle of buying new gadgets all the time isn’t great for the environment and goes against sustainable living.

To wrap it up, while science and tech drive progress, they bring big challenges too. Ethical issues, environmental problems, social and economic gaps, and the fast pace of change need everyone’s attention. We need to work together—policymakers, scientists, and society—to set ethical guidelines, promote sustainability, close the digital gap, and create flexible regulations. If we handle these challenges well, we can enjoy the benefits of science and tech without the downsides. The future of innovation depends on us navigating these issues responsibly and fairly.

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Essay: To fix climate anxiety (and also climate change), we first have to fix individualism

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How do you cope? I feel the sorrow, the quiet plea for guidance every time someone asks me this question. As an environmental reporter dedicated to helping people make sense of climate change, I know I should have answers. But the truth is, it took me until now to face my own grief.

My heart keeps breaking whenever I meet yet another child struggling with asthma amid orange, smoke-filled skies. I, too, am reeling from the whiplash of extreme drought and extreme rain , and I’m still haunted by the thought of a mother having to call each of her daughters to say goodbye as the homes around her cave to fire.

Each year, as I reflect on my own reporting on the floods that keep getting worse and the toxic pollution building up in all forms of life , I find myself questioning whether I could ever justify bringing my own children into this world. I agonize over the amount of plastic we can’t avoid using and mourn the monarch butterflies that have vanished. With each new heat record shattered, and each new report declaring a code red for humanity , I can’t help but feel like we’re just counting down the days to our own extinction.

In the face of sea level rise, can we reimagine California’s vanishing coastline?

“Climate anxiety” is the term we now use to describe these feelings, but I must confess, I was perplexed when I first heard these words a few years ago. Anger, frustration, helplessness, exhaustion — these are the emotions I come across more often when getting to know the communities bracing for, or recovering from, the devastation of what they’ve long considered home.

Then a college student asked me about climate anxiety. It came up again on social media, and again in personal essays and polls. This paralyzing dread was suddenly the talk of the town — but it has also, very noticeably, remained absent in some circles.

All this has led me to wonder: What, exactly, is climate anxiety? And how should we cope? At first blush, this anxiety seems rooted in a fear that we’ll never go back to normal, that the future we were once promised is now gone. But who this “normal” is even for (and what we’re actually afraid of losing) speaks to a much more complicated question:

Is this anxiety pointing to a deeper responsibility that we all must face — and ultimately, is this anxiety something we can transcend?

For Jade Sasser, whose research on climate emotions has been grounded by her own experiences as a Black woman, these questions sharpened into focus during a research-methods seminar that she was teaching early last year at UC Riverside.

The class — all female, many from low-income immigrant communities — had been a fairly quiet group all quarter, so Sasser was surprised when the room completely erupted after she broached what she thought would be an academic, somewhat dispassionate discussion about climate change and the future.

Every student was suddenly talking, even yelling, over one another. Thought after thought tumbled out as they shared that not only does the future feel bleak when it comes to the job market, the housing crisis and whether their generation will ever be able to “settle down with kids” — but all this is many times worse when you’re not white, not documented and not born into a college-educated family.

How can they feel hopeful about the future, they asked, when, on top of everything already stacked against them, they also have to worry about wildfires, extreme heat and air pollution getting out of control?

‘It’s almost shameful to want to have children’

‘Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question’ asks: With American society feeling more socially and politically polarized than ever, is it right to bring another person into the world?

“It was literally a collective meltdown unlike anything I had ever experienced,” said Sasser, whose podcast and book, “ Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question, ” were largely inspired by her students that day. “I understood in that moment that you cannot assume someone does not also experience anxiety simply because their way of talking about it may not be the same as yours.”

It doesn’t help, she added, that many people don’t realize what they’re feeling is climate anxiety because the way we talk about it tends to center the experiences of white and more privileged people — people who have been insulated from oppression and have rarely (until now) had to worry about the safety of their own future.

“For a lot of people, climate anxiety looks a certain way: It looks very scared, it looks very sad, and it looks like a person who is ready, willing and able to talk about it,” Sasser said. “But for those who are experiencing many compounding forms of vulnerability at the same time, you can’t just pick out one part of it and say, ‘Oh, this is what’s causing me to feel this way.’”

A brave first step is to acknowledge privilege — and to support, and perhaps even learn, from those who have had to be resilient long before climate change became so overwhelming.

“For me, this work is a matter of survival,” said Kevin J. Patel, who grew up in South L.A. and has been fighting for climate justice since he was 11. He was contemplative, nodding, when I shared what I learned from Sasser, and he gently added that one privilege many communities don’t have is the ability to turn it off. Not everyone can go on a vacation or take a day to recharge, he said. Even having the time to talk about your sadness can be a luxury.

Feeling climate anxiety? These books offer glimmers of hope — and much-needed wisdom

Patel learned at a young age that not all communities get the same level of care. Growing up with hazy air, in a neighborhood hemmed in by the 10 and 110 freeways, Patel almost collapsed one day in front of his sixth-grade class when his heart suddenly started pounding at more than 300 beats per minute.

His parents, farmers from Gujarat, India, rushed Patel to the emergency room and held his hand while everyone around him thought he was dying. After months of hospital visits and procedures, doctors determined that he had developed a severe heart condition in large part due to the smog.

‘For me, this work is a matter of survival.’

— Kevin J. Patel

As he learned to live with an irregular heartbeat, he found joy in his family’s tiny garden and marveled at all the ladybugs that gathered on the tulsi, a special type of basil. He taught his classmates that food came from the ground, not the grocery store, and together, they went on to form an environmental club.

Today, Patel speaks with the hardened wisdom of someone who has experienced much more than the typical 23-year-old. He’s constantly doing something — whether it’s supporting a neighbor, getting water bottle refill stations installed at his school, or turning the idea of a Los Angeles County Youth Climate Commission into reality. For years, he has guided other marginalized youth through OneUpAction , a grassroots environmental group that he built from the ground up.

Even if he doesn’t call it anxiety, he admits he sometimes has trouble focusing, and there’s a tenseness in his body that can be hard to shake off. But he’s usually able to turn it around by talking to his friends or elders, or by reciting his favorite proverb:

They tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds.

“It’s not about what I need, it’s about what my community needs,” he said. “There is joy in caring for one another. There is joy in coming together to fight for a future that we believe in.”

When talking about climate anxiety, it’s important to differentiate whether you’re assessing these emotions as a mental health condition, or as a cultural phenomenon.

Let’s start with mental health: Polls show climate anxiety is on the rise and that people all around the world are losing sleep over climate change. Organizations like the Climate-Aware Therapist Directory and the American Psychiatric Assn. have put together an increasing number of guides and resources to help more people understand how climate change has affected our emotional well-being.

Poll shows Californians’ climate anxiety is on the rise

Just knowing that climate change is getting worse can trigger serious psychological responses. And the shock and trauma are all the more great if you’ve already had to live through the kinds of disasters that keep the rest of us up at night.

It’s also important to note that social media has magnified our sense of doom. What you see on social media tends to be a particularly intense and cherry-picked version of reality, but studies show that’s exactly how the vast majority of young people are getting their information about climate change: online rather than in school.

But you can’t treat climate anxiety like other forms of anxiety, and here’s where the cultural politics come in: The only way to make climate anxiety go away is to make climate change go away, and given the fraught and deeply systemic underpinnings of climate change, we must also consider this context when it comes to our climate emotions. How we feel is just as much a product of the narratives that have shaped the way we perceive and respond to the world.

“Climate anxiety can’t be limited to just a clinical setting — we have to take it out of the therapy room and look at it through a lens of privilege, and power, and the economic, historical and social structures that are at the root of the problem,” said Sarah Jaquette Ray, whose book “ A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety ” is a call to arms to think more expansively about our despair. “Treating a person’s climate anxiety without challenging these systems only addresses the symptoms, not the causes... and if white or more privileged emotions get the most airtime, and if we don’t see how climate is intersecting with all these other problems, that can result in a greater silencing of the people most impacted.”

Ray, an environmental humanist who chairs the environmental studies program at Cal Poly Humboldt, also emphasized that our distress can actually be a catalyst for much-needed change. These emotions are meant to shake us out of complacency, to sound the alarm to the very real crisis before us. But if we don’t openly talk about climate anxiety as something that is not only normal but also expected, we run the risk of further individualizing the problem. We already have a tendency to shut down and feel alone in our sorrows, which traps us into thinking only about ourselves.

“One huge reason why climate anxiety feels so awful is this feeling of not being able to do anything about it,” Ray said. “But if you actually saw yourself as part of a collective, as interconnected with all these other movements doing meaningful things, you wouldn’t be feeling this despair and loneliness.”

The trick to fixing climate anxiety is to fix individualism, she said. Start small, tap into what you’re already good at, join something bigger than yourself.

And by fixing individualism, as many young activists like Patel have already figured out, we just might have a better shot at fixing climate change.

Let us consider, for a moment, how the words that we use can also limit the way we think about our vulnerability and despair.

Something as simple as the “climate” in “climate anxiety” and how we define “environment” can unintentionally reinforce who we center in the conversation.

“In Nigeria, what we call our environment — it’s not just trees and mountains — it’s also about our food, our jobs, the biodiversity that gives us the life support that we need to thrive every day. That’s what we call our environment; it’s about our people,” said Jennifer Uchendu, who founded SustyVibes , a youth-led sustainability group based in her home country, as well as the Eco-Anxiety in Africa Project , which seeks to validate the emotions and experiences of communities often overlooked in climate conversations. “So if people are being oppressed by the system, it is still linked to our idea of the environment.”

Many of Uchendu’s elders have expressed a lifetime of feeling frustrated and powerless, for example, but she said they didn’t immediately connect these feelings to climate change because “climate anxiety” sounded to them like a new and elite phenomenon.

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We hear so often today that climate change is the existential crisis of our time, but that dismisses the trauma and violence to all the people who have been fighting to survive for centuries. Colonization, greed and exploitation are inseparable from climate change, Uchendu said, but we miss these connections when we consider our emotions only through a Western lens.

For Jessa Calderon, a Chumash and Tongva songwriter, these disconnects are ever-present in the concrete-hardened rivers snaking through Los Angeles, and the sour taste of industrialization often singeing the air. In her darkest moments, her heart hurts wondering if her son, Honor, will grow up to know clean water.

Her voice cracked as she recalled a brown bear that had been struck dead on the freeway near the Cajon Pass. As she watched strangers gawk at the limp body and share videos online, she wished she had been able to put the bear to rest and sing him into the spirit world.

“If we don’t see them as our people, then we have no hope for ourselves as a people, because we’re showing that we care about nothing more than ourselves,” she said. “And if we care about nothing more than ourselves, then we’re going to continue to devastate each other and the land.”

It is not too late to turn your climate anxiety into climate empathy. Acknowledging the emotional toll on people beyond yourself can be an opportunity to listen and support one another. Embracing our feelings — and then finding others who also want to turn their fear into action — can be the missing spark to much-needed social and environmental healing.

There is also wisdom to be learned in the songs and traditions of past movements, when people banded together — for civil rights, for women’s suffrage — and found ways to keep hope alive against all odds. And the more we look to the young people still caring for their elders in Nigeria, and to our Indigenous neighbors who continue to sing and love and tend to every living being, the better we might also comprehend the resilience required of all of us in the warming years ahead.

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So how should we cope? For Patel, living with his irregular but unwavering heartbeat, he finds strength in the words of adrienne maree brown, who famously wrote in “ Emergent Strategy ” that in the same way our lives are shaped today by our ancestors, we ourselves are future ancestors. Calderon, who similarly taught her son to leave this Earth better with every passing generation, confided to me that on the days when the sorrow feels too great, she sneaks off to plant native manzanita seeds in neighborhoods stripped of plants and trees.

As I’m reminded of all the love we can still sow for the future, I think of Phoenix Armenta, a longtime climate justice organizer in Oakland who has inspired numerous people, including myself, to take heart in all the times we actually got it right. (Remember acid rain? It was a huge problem, but collective action inspired multiple countries to join forces in the 1980s, and we did what needed to be done.)

“Imagine what kind of world you actually want to live in and start working to make that happen,” said Armenta, who recently made the switch to government planning to help more communities find their voice and determine their own visions for the future.

To grieve the world as we know it is to miss out on opportunities to transform our world for the better. To believe we have nothing left to hope for is a self-fulfilling void. We must find the courage to care, to change, to reimagine the systems that got us into such a devastating crisis in the first place — and we must allow ourselves to dream.

“But it can’t just be my dream, or your dream. It has to be our collective dream,” Armenta said. “I’ve known for a very long time that I can’t save the world, but we can save the world together.”

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Rosanna Xia is an environment reporter for the Los Angeles Times, where she specializes in stories about the coast and ocean. She was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2020 for explanatory reporting, and her award-winning book, “ California Against the Sea ,” has been praised as a poetic and mind-expanding exploration of what we stand to lose in the face of rising water.

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• Published: 14 September 2024

Belief in divine (versus human) control of earth affects perceived threat of climate change

• John V. Kane 1 &
• Samuel L. Perry 2  

npj Climate Action volume  3 , Article number:  78 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Religious characteristics are predictive of Americans’ skepticism toward climate-related science and policy. Though attributable to a variety of interrelated factors, we propose specific religious beliefs help explain the dynamic in part. Specifically, we theorize that belief in divine (versus human) control over Earth’s climate likely engenders skepticism toward scientific claims that human behavior is leading Earth toward environmental crisis. Regression analyses with national survey data ( N  = 5321) demonstrate that believing “God would not allow humans to destroy the Earth” is associated with lower concern about climate change. Next, a pre-registered survey experiment ( N  = 3345) finds that manipulating belief in God’s—vis-à-vis humans’—control of Earth’s climate reduced the perceived severity of climate change and need for policy intervention. Our manipulation also reduced demand for climate-related information from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. These results establish an important causal link between a religious belief and climate change attitudes in the U.S. public.

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Introduction.

Given the size and global influence of the U.S., understanding the social bases for American citizens’ persistent skepticism toward climate science is of critical concern 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 . Beyond the central roles of partisan and ideological polarization, misinformation, and media echo chambers, religious characteristics are not only powerfully related to these factors, but may exercise their own unique influence on climate-change concern. Though numerous studies have identified links to particular religious identities (e.g., sectarian or evangelical Protestants 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 ), practices (e.g., church attendance 13 , 14 ), and broad theological orientations (e.g., belief in biblical literalism 9 , 15 , 16 ), less clear is the role of specific theological beliefs regarding God, humanity, and the Earth. Might beliefs concerning God’s, versus humanity’s, relative influence upon the Earth’s environment serve to shape Americans’ views on climate change?

Though limited, extant research suggests theology plays a critical, if often ignored, role in shaping environmental attitudes. A number of studies, for example, have found “premillennial” or “dispensational” eschatological beliefs are robust predictors of Americans opposing government action to protect the environment or curb global warming 17 . These authors argue such “End-Times” theological beliefs might lead Americans to question the importance of preserving what will ultimately be destroyed in God’s due time. Related studies have shown that belief in a God who is either authoritative or benevolent in his involvement, rather than a mystical cosmic force, reduces support for environmental sustainability policies 9 , 18 , while others show belief in the “sacredness” of the environment diminishes beliefs in environmental risks such as pollution 19 . Yet recent scholarship has challenged the notion that belief in an involved deity with specific plans for the Earth necessarily leads to environmental apathy. Different studies by Veldman and Pogue, for example, instead argue more characteristically evangelical theological beliefs mark conservative political communities for whom climate skepticism has become a dominant norm 20 , 21 .

Another prominent line of research follows White’s thesis that “Judeo-Christian” influences have led Westerners to believe God has granted human “dominion” over the world to use as they please 3 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 . This is contrasted with a related Judeo-Christian idea of environmental “stewardship” 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 . Such beliefs have been shown to carry important implications. To the extent citizens believe the God of the Bible has granted humanity “dominion” over Earth, they exhibit less concern about their impact on the Earth. Alternatively, to the extent they believe God has appointed them as “stewards” responsible for Earth’s care, they show more concern 30 . On the one hand, studies that have explicitly measured the “dominion” concept find it negatively associated with environmental concerns or support for interventions, while experimentally priming a “stewardship frame” inclined Christians toward climate change belief 29 . Yet within contemporary political landscape, the climate attitudes of the most conservative Americans (e.g., evangelical Protestants) may be too rooted in partisan identities and norms for such theological beliefs to matter. Indeed, as early as 2012, Djupe and Burge found “dominion” beliefs only seemed to matter for non-evangelicals’ environmental attitudes 22 .

Importantly, the evidence for a religion-environment link is most often in the form of cross-sectional correlations with conservative Christian affiliation, literalist orientation to the Bible, or other indirect measures 9 , 23 , 27 , 28 . Given the deeply interrelated nature of partisan identities, cultural norms, and theological beliefs, we aim to answer the recent call by Veldman and co-authors for experimental work to better understand how religious messaging shapes citizens’ attitudes 30 .

It is worth stressing that beliefs involving “dominion” and “stewardship” are ultimately normative in nature. That is, they are largely moral beliefs about how human beings should behave in relation to the Earth’s environment. Indeed, measures of these concepts often include such moral language. For example, Sherkat and Ellison measure stewardship belief by assessing agreement that “Human beings should respect nature because it was created by God 28 , while a component of “dominion” belief in Shin and Preston’s work is “Humans have the moral right to use nature as we choose” 29 .

The normative quality of these beliefs stands in marked contrast to the focus of the present study, which is the degree to which citizens believe that—in fact—God, or humanity, ultimately controls what will happen to Earth’s environment. Further, both dominion and stewardship beliefs could plausibly entail belief in divine control of Earth or human control.

We therefore propose that this more fundamental theological belief—one concerning the reality of divine, as opposed to human, control of Earth’s climate—is likely to have a powerful influence on attitudes about the Earth’s climate. Djupe and Burge document that, at the bivariate level, the more Americans agree God is in control of affairs on Earth, the less likely they are to attribute climate change to human activity. Extending this idea, we reason that if Americans believe the future of Earth’s climate is effectively “in God’s hands,” they should be skeptical of science claiming that human behavior is leading Earth toward environmental catastrophe. Such a belief should, therefore, correspond with less concern about climate change as an issue as well as weaker support for climate-related legislation. As a U.S. member of Congress stated at a town hall event while discussing climate change, “…I believe that there is a creator in God who is much bigger than us. And I’m confident that, if there’s a real problem, he can take care of it” 31 (see Supplementary Note 7 for additional examples).

It is also worth stressing that much of the aforementioned evidence linking religious belief and climate attitudes has been correlational in nature. Yet we believe it is important to investigate whether causal evidence exists. Particularly in the US case, religious identities and beliefs have become strongly correlated with partisan and ideological identities, e.g., via widespread socio-demographic sorting into the Democratic and Republican parties 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 . Because of this sorting, any association between religious beliefs and climate change attitudes, for example, could potentially be confounded by partisan/ideological identities 36 and/or exposure to different media frames and elite cues on the issue of climate change 37 .

Our general expectation is that those who believe more in divine (as opposed to human ) control of Earth’s climate will exhibit less concern about climate change and be less inclined to support policies aimed at combatting it. The following two sections test this expectation, first with nationally representative (observational) data and then with a pre-registered survey experiment. Our experiment, in particular, tests the following pre-registered hypotheses:

H1 (Threat Hypothesis) : Respondents in the “God in control” condition (compared to those in the “Humans in control” condition) will exhibit significantly less concern about climate change.

H2 (Policy Hypothesis) : Respondents in the “God in control” (versus “Humans in control”) condition will be significantly less supportive of policies (and politicians) aimed at combatting climate change.

Previous work also leads us to expect belief in God’s (versus humanity’s) control over Earth’s future could shape the extent to which people might seek out information about climate change. Studies have shown information-seeking behavior regarding climate change is driven in part by affective responses to risk or threat 38 . If persons are made to feel uneasy or vulnerable, they will more likely engage in behavior—such as information-gathering—to mitigate that feeling 39 . Conversely, persons who feel future events are comfortably under control should be less likely to seek out additional information. Thus we also formulated the following pre-registered hypothesis:

H3 (Information Hypothesis) : Respondents in the “God in control” (versus “Humans in control”) condition, will be significantly less willing to request climate change information.

Study 1: divine control and climate change attitudes in nationally representative data

Our first test of H1 and H2 uses 2023 data from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). The survey features a nationally representative sample of 5,540 adults living within the U.S. Our key independent variable is agreement with the statement that, “God would not allow humans to destroy the Earth,” with responses ranging from “Completely disagree” (1) to “Completely agree” (4). This statement, which nearly 30% of the sample agreed with, implies at least a tacit endorsement of the notion that God, not humans, will ultimately decide Earth’s environmental future.

Our dependent variables measure several distinct constructs: citizens’ concern about climate change, belief in humanity’s role in causing it, and/or support for legislation designed to mitigate climate change. In the case of concern about climate change, we use both a 4-point scale ranging from belief that climate change is (1) “not a problem at all” to (4) a “crisis”, as well as a dichotomized version of this measure to determine the probability that a respondent specifically believes climate change to be a “crisis.” For beliefs about climate change’s anthropogenic causes (a key indicator of climate change literacy 40 ), we use a dichotomous measure of whether respondents endorsed the notion that, “Climate change is caused mostly by human activity such as burning fossil fuels.” Lastly, we used support for six different climate-related government policies to construct an additive scale. The scale included items such as support for federal restrictions on CO 2 emissions, increased federal funding for renewable energy, and tax breaks for Americans who use renewable energy in their homes. The items had strong pairwise correlations ( r  > 0.50, p  < 0.001 in all cases) and a Cronbach’s α equal to 0.9.

Using OLS and logistic multiple regression, we also control for a variety of theoretically relevant, and potentially confounding, covariates. These covariates include standard demographic (race/ethnicity, age, education, gender, and income), political (party identification and ideology), and religious variables (religious identification and religiosity) (see Supplementary Note 1 and Supplementary Note 2 details). All variables, including our independent and dependent variables, were rescaled to range from 0 to 1 for interpretive ease.

Figure 1 below presents the results of our analyses. Across all four models, we observe a statistically significant decrease in each climate change outcome as citizens move from less to greater agreement that “God would not allow humans to destroy the Earth.” Specifically, moving across the entire 4-point scale of our independent variable, we observe a 6 percentage-point decline in the scale measuring concern about climate change ( p  < 0.001; see upper-left panel); a 7.4 percentage-point decrease in the probability of specifically identifying climate change as “a crisis” ( p  < 0.001; see upper-right panel); and, a nearly 10 percentage-point decrease in the probability of believing that humans are causing climate change ( p  < 0.001; see lower-left panel). Further, the lower-right panel demonstrates that belief in divine (versus human) control of the Earth also predicts significantly less support for legislation aimed at combatting climate change ( p  = 0.02), though the magnitude of this effect was substantively smaller in size (a 2.3 percentage-point decrease) compared to the other estimated effects. For example, the effect observed in the upper-left panel is larger than the effect of changing one full point on the seven-point party identification scale (see Supplemental Note 2 for details).

Panels ( a ) and ( d ) are OLS; ( b ) and ( c ) are logistic regression. CIs are 95%. All outcomes have been scaled to range from 0 to 1. All models control for race/ethnicity, gender, educational attainment, household income, age, party identification, ideological self-placement, religious identification, and religiosity. Panel ( a ) shows that greater agreement God is in control of Earth’s climate predicts lower climate concern. Panel ( b ) shows that greater agreement God is in control of Earth’s climate predicts lower probability of identifying climate change as a major concern or crisis. Panel ( c ) shows that greater agreement God is in control of Earth’s climate predicts lower belief that climate change is mostly caused by humans. Panel ( d ) shows that greater agreement God is in control of Earth’s climate predicts lower score on the combined policy scale, which measures support for various policies aimed at combatting climate change. Data from PRRI (2023). N  = 5300.

We further tested the robustness of these findings by re-estimating the models controlling for “dominion” and “stewardship” beliefs. (These variables exhibited only modest correlations with our independent variable ( r  = 0.39 and 0.29, respectively).) The results remain substantively unchanged (see Supplementary Note 2 for details). Collectively, these results provide strong initial support for the logic underlying both H1 and H2 . (Notably, the models indicate that, with all other variables at their means, the predicted values of each outcome are (albeit slightly) above their midpoint, regardless of belief in divine control of Earth.)

Study 2: an experimental test

To more directly test our hypotheses by isolating the effect of believing in “divine control,” we fielded a survey experiment via Lucid Theorem in February of 2024 ( N  = 3345). The survey featured nationally representative quotas for gender, race-ethnicity, age, and geographic region.

We randomly assigned 80% of respondents to read one of two (fictitious) news articles. The articles were purportedly from an “independent news site” so as to minimize the possibility that respondents infer a partisan bias. Each article discussed the conclusions of a group of religious scholars. In one version of the article, the scholars conclude that humans will ultimately decide the future of Earth’s environment and climate, while in the alternative version, the scholars conclude that God will decide. The verbatim text for each condition is featured in Table 1 , with shaded (unshaded) text indicative of manipulated (static) content. The decision to reference religious “scholars” was informed by existing research demonstrating the influential role that experts play in communicating controversial ideas to the public 41 , while reference to “a variety of major religions” was done to help ensure that the belief would not be perceived as applying to only one religion. The experimental vignette (ostensibly) featured text from a recent news article.

We again employ several outcome measures. The first outcome (Concern) closely resembles the PRRI question referenced above, and ranges from belief that climate change is “Not a problem at all” (1) to “A crisis” (4). As in the PRRI analysis, we also created a binary version of this measure given its ordinal nature, with 1 indicating a belief that climate change specifically represents a “crisis” or “A major problem but not a crisis” and 0 indicating any other response.

The third outcome (Action) is adapted from a Cooperative Election Study (CES) question, with responses ranging from belief that “Global climate change is not occurring; this is not a real issue” (1) to “Global climate change has been established as a serious problem and immediate action is necessary” (5). We then asked two policy-related outcomes, which gauged support for federal funding of renewable energy research (Renewables) and federal limits on carbon dioxide emissions (Emissions). Our fifth outcome (Candidate) gauges respondents’ support for a hypothetical political candidate who promises to make “stopping climate change” a top policy priority. Our final outcome (Information) is a binary measure of whether respondents requested that we provide them with a link to climate change information from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). All outcomes were rescaled to range from 0 to 1.

Before turning to the main results, we first demonstrate that our manipulation succeeded in significantly shaping beliefs about divine (vis-à-vis human) control of Earth. We employed two subjective manipulation checks 42 : one to gauge the degree to which respondents believe that “God ultimately controls what happens to the Earth’s climate,” and one—based upon the PRRI measure—to gauge the degree to which respondents believe that “God would not allow humans to have a big impact on the Earth’s climate.” Though conceptually related, the former places emphasis on God’s direct control over Earth, while the latter places emphasis on God’s control over humans’ impact on Earth. Both of these items featured 6-point agreement scales. The two items were positively correlated to a moderately strong degree ( r  = 0.60, p  < 0.001). Given the distinction in emphasis, however, we opted to analyze the two items separately in Fig. 2 .

Panel ( a ) shows that the experimental manipulation significantly increases agreement that God ultimately has control over the Earth’s environmental future. Panel ( b ) shows that the experimental manipulation significantly increases agreement that God would not allow humans to destroy the Earth. Both manipulation check items used 6-point agreement scales ranging from “Strongly disagree” (1) to “Strongly agree” (6). Red lines on bars in both panels indicate 95% confidence intervals. Data = Lucid Theorem. N  = 2685.

The figure reveals that changing from the Humans in Control to God in Control condition significantly increased agreement that, (1) “God ultimately controls what happens to the Earth’s climate,” and, echoing our predictor variable from the PRRI analysis above, (2) “God would not allow humans to have a big impact on Earth’s climate.” We also find that treatment assignment significantly correlates with responses to a factual manipulation check item, confirming that our key manipulation was perceived by respondents (see Supplementary Note 4 ).

Figure 3 displays the key findings from our experiment. We find that our manipulation (i.e., the change from “Humans” to “God” being in control of Earth’s climate) significantly affected respondents’ beliefs about climate change and desire for more information. In particular, the Concern, Crisis and Action outcomes were significantly reduced by approximately 4, 5 and 3 percentage points, respectively ( p  < 0.01 in all cases). The manipulation also decreased respondents’ demand for climate information from NOAA by 3 percentage points ( p  < 0.05). For comparison purposes, these effect sizes were comparable to shifting one point to the political right (i.e., more conservative) on our seven-point ideology scale (see Supplementary Note 5 for details).

All outcomes (displayed in vertical text on the left side of each panel) recoded to range from 0 to 1. Panels ( a ) and ( c ) estimated via OLS regression; panels ( b ) and ( d ) estimated via logistic regression. Panel ( a ) shows that the experimental manipulation significantly reduced climate change concern. Panel ( b ) shows that the experimental manipulation significantly reduced the probability that a respondent would identify climate change as a major problem or crisis. Panel ( c ) shows that the experimental manipulation significantly reduced agreement that climate change is a major problem that requires “immediate action.” Panel ( d ) shows that the experimental manipulation significantly reduced the probability that a respondent would voluntarily request to be given climate-related information from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) at the end of the survey. CIs are 90 and 95%. Data = Lucid Theorem. N  = 2685.

Each treatment effect shown in Fig. 3 was also re-estimated controlling for various demographic and political covariates. Substantively and statistically, the results are virtually identical to those reported in Fig. 3 (see Supplementary Note 5 for details). Further, using a (pre-treatment) measure of attentiveness 43 , we find these effects to be substantially stronger among those most likely have attended to the experiment (e.g., the effect on Information is estimated to be nearly 5 percentage points). This serves as important corroborating evidence that the treatment was indeed efficacious.

We did not find any statistically significant effects on the policy-related or Candidate outcomes, though effects were more consistent with H2 among those likely to have attended to the treatment (see Supplementary Note 5 for details). For example, among the most attentive, we estimate a −3.2 percentage-point effect on the Emissions outcome ( p  < 0.05), which is consistent with H2 (see Supplementary Note 5 for details). Nevertheless, these overall non-significant effects on policy/political outcomes echo the weaker policy-related effects found in our PRRI analyses above, as well as other experimental work demonstrating the challenge of experimentally changing climate-policy attitudes 44 , 45 .

Finally, per the pre-registration document (see Supplementary Note 8 ) we also explored heterogeneous treatment effects by analyzing whether religious and political variables significantly moderate the treatment effect. Because religious and political identities overlap so significantly, either theological beliefs or climate attitudes may be so fixed for certain communities that our manipulations really only mattered for theoretically unique subsets. For example, having stronger (versus weaker) ties to conservative Christianity could mean possessing already stronger beliefs about God’s control over Earth’s future, thereby reducing the potential effect of the treatment. Similarly, affiliating as a Republican (versus a Democrat) could mean more crystallized skepticism toward climate change (i.e., for politico-ideological reasons), which could also attenuate treatment effects. The specific moderators we examined were as follows: (1) Born-Again/Evangelical Christian versus not Born-Again/Evangelical Christian, (2) religiosity (an additive scale featuring measures from PRRI involving religious attendance and perceived place of religion in one’s life, as well as a third item measuring perceived importance of religion in one’s life ( α  = 0.88)), and (3) political party identification (Democrat or Republican).

We find mixed evidence of heterogeneous treatment effects. For example, treatment effects tend to be noticeably weaker for Born-Again/Evangelical Christians (compared to non-Born-Again/Evangelical Christians) and those higher in religiosity, though it is the reverse pattern for the information outcome and none of the interaction terms, themselves, was statistically significant at conventional levels. Importantly, the manipulation check results were also weaker for Born Again/Evangelicals compared to the rest of the sample. This pattern is consistent with experimental findings by Djupe and Burge, who found “dominion” and “stewardship” beliefs were only manipulated among non-evangelicals, perhaps suggesting evangelicals’ theological beliefs are more anchored and their environmental views, consequently, less open to change 22 . We further investigated whether the patterns in the PRRI data set hold for Born Again/Evangelicals. Here, we also find substantially weaker effects, though all were at least directionally consistent with H1 (see Supplementary Note 2 for details). Collectively, these results suggest that, while belief in divine control of Earth varies among Born Again/Evangelical Christians, it does not inform climate-related attitudes to the same degree as we observe for other religious groups.

For the analysis featuring party identification as a moderator, there was again no clear pattern that Republicans (compared to Democrats) exhibited smaller effects. See Supplementary Note 6 for further details on these analyses.

In sum, our experiment finds substantial empirical support for both H1 and H3 . This constitutes novel evidence that beliefs about climate change’s threat, the need to address it, and the desire for scientific information, can be causally affected by beliefs about whether God or humanity is ultimately in control of Earth’s future climate.

Our study contributes to the growing literature on citizens’ climate attitudes several important ways. First, we identify a way in which a specific religious belief—i.e., belief in divine (vis-à-vis human) control of the Earth’s environmental future—is consequential for citizens’ beliefs about climate change. We theorize that this belief, which is not restricted to one single religion or religious denomination, should logically shape the degree to which climate change is perceived as a threat: if God is not in control of Earth’s future, it would mean that humanity is relatively unprotected and, therefore, in greater potential danger. Second, we show with nationally representative survey data that this belief is consistently predictive of citizens’ beliefs and attitudes about climate change, even after adjusting for potentially confounding factors. Third, using a novel experiment, we go beyond existing correlational analyses to show that belief in divine, versus human, control over Earth’s environmental future is capable of causally affecting citizens’ beliefs about climate change’s importance, perceived need for addressing it, and desire for scientific information.

Our study therefore speaks to both the (1) degree, and (2) manner, that a specific religious belief can shape citizens’ attitudes toward climate change. Further, our theoretical approach potentially helps explain previous work documenting how “End Times” beliefs involving Earth’s ultimate destruction predict lower environmental concern 17 , 46 : At the heart of such beliefs might exist a more fundamental sense that God, not humanity, controls Earth’s future, thereby rendering it futile for humanity to change its behavior toward the natural environment.

Our findings come with important implications. Religious and political identities are strongly interrelated, which can render it empirically difficult to determine whether religious factors exert unique, causal effects on climate attitudes apart from partisan factors. Yet our study indicates fundamental religious beliefs are capable of cutting across partisan lines and shaping perceptions about climate change’s causes and severity, even if partisan factors exert greater influence overall. More broadly, to the extent that religious leaders can influence citizens’ beliefs, our experimental results imply that religious leaders may be able to increase citizens’ concern about climate change via stressing humanity’s critical role in shaping Earth’s environmental future, though perhaps somewhat less so for Born Again/Evangelical Christians specifically.

It is important to stress that our results speak to the importance of one particular religious belief, not religion writ large . Future studies would do well to examine how belief in divine control is communicated by religious leaders, both between and within particular religious denominations. Additionally, we believe these effects would likely generalize to other contexts (e.g., developing countries) given evidence linking beliefs about God’s will and perceived causes of anthropogenic climate change 47 .

Lastly, given the relatively weak effects on specific policy attitudes, future work could delve deeper into why manipulations that affect perceptions of climate change’s severity do not necessarily translate into changes in support for mitigation policies. For example, might citizens be unclear (and/or unconvinced) about how these policies can successfully combat climate change? Given our findings, and the rising threat of climate change, we believe this is remains a crucial next question to investigate.

PRRI analyses

The PRRI data set was fielded online from June 8 to June 28, 2023 (n = 5,540 total respondents). Details regarding the sample, methodology, and survey questions can be found at the following link: https://www.prri.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Topline-Climate-Change-V2.pdf .

The item we employ as our independent variable (level of agreement with the notion that “God would not allow humans to destroy the Earth”) was asked amid several other questions that explicitly dealt with environmental attitudes, providing some assurance that the question was interpreted to mean environmental destruction, specifically. We provide descriptive analyses of this and all other outcome measures in Supplementary Note 1 . The distribution of responses was as follows: Completely disagree (45%); Mostly disagree (27%); Mostly agree (17%); and Completely agree (10%).

As noted above, the first outcome measure ( Concern ) and second outcome measure ( Crisis ) are based upon the same survey question, the latter being a dichotomized version of the former. We reasoned that while the Concern measure likely functions (approximately) as a continuum of concern about climate change, some respondents may not have interpreted the scale as a continuum. The Crisis measure, therefore, relaxes the assumption that respondents interpreted the response options as a continuous scale, and instead treats all responses as indicative that climate change is (1) a crisis, or (0) not a crisis.

The item measuring belief in climate change’s anthropogenic causes featured two alternative response options. These two options were as follows: (1) climate change is due to “natural” causes, and (2) climate change is not happening. Both of these options were combined and coded as 0, while belief that climate change is caused by humans is coded as 1.

The policy scale outcome measure featured six items in total, though two items were asked of only half the sample. Therefore, for any given respondent, five items were used. Each item had four response options ranging from “Strongly Oppose” to “Strongly Favor” with <2% of respondents skipping or refusing to answer the items. The six items measured support for the following policies: (1) federal funding for renewable energy, (2) stricter limits on the amount of CO 2 released by industries, (3) taxing companies that produce fossil fuels, (4) stricter limits on CO 2 emissions from vehicles (asked of half the sample), (5) a program to phase out gas-powered cars and replace them with electric cars (asked of half the sample), and (6) tax breaks for individuals who use renewable energy for their home (see Supplementary Note 1 for verbatim wording). While items 4 and 5 had similar means and standard deviations (on the 4 pt. scale, m  = 2.27 (sd = 1.02) and m  = 2.61 (sd = 0.94)), we re-estimated the model featured in the bottom-right panel of Fig. 1 controlling for which of these two items a respondent answered. Both substantively and statistically, these results were virtually identical to the result shown in Fig. 1 .

Survey experiment

The survey experiment was fielded online via Lucid Theorem between March 9-March 12, 2024, to 3,345 total respondents. The pre-registration document details for the experiment can be found in Supplementary Note 8 . The sampling quotas in place were for the following variables: (1) Age (categories: 18–24; 25–34; 35–44; 45–64; 65–99), (2) Gender (categories: Male; Female), (3) Race/ethnicity (categories: White (Non-Hispanic); Black (Non-Hispanic); Hispanic; Other Ethnicity), and (4) Region (Midwest; West; Northeast; South). See Supplementary Note 3 for demographic statistics.

The survey obtained approval from New York University’s Institutional Review Board (IRB): (IRB-FY2024-8644). Informed consent was obtained from all participants (all 18 years of age or older) before they could continue the survey. Respondents who consented to participate were then asked for an attention check at the start of the survey. Those who successfully answered this question were permitted to continue the survey. A fee of $1.50 per complete response was paid by the authors to Lucid. All respondents were debriefed about the survey experiment at the conclusion of the survey.

The survey was programmed to maximize sample size in the two experimental conditions (“God in control” and “Humans in control”). However, 20% of the sample was randomly assigned to a “pure control” group that received no experimental vignette. This design choice enabled us to gain insight into each vignette’s relative contribution to the main effects reported here. See Supplementary Note 6 for details.

A randomization check was performed to ensure that the two main experimental conditions were balanced on key demographic, political, and religious covariates. Specifically, a logistic regression model tested whether assignment into the “God in control” (versus “Humans in control”) was significantly predicted by respondents’ gender identification, age, religious identification, family income, educational attainment, party identification, ideological self-placement, and religiosity (see coding details for the religiosity measure below). The overall model was not statistically significant at conventional levels ( χ 2 (25) p  = 0.16).

Supplementary Note 4 features the exact wording of all outcome measures. The Renewables and Emissions measures were adapted from the PRRI 2023 survey. As noted above, respondents were asked whether they wanted to be provided, at the end of the survey, with a link to factual information about global climate change from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA). If respondents indicated “Yes”, they were provided with the following link: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-temperature . The corresponding article (published in January of 2024 on Climate.gov) provides respondents with textual and visual information about rising global temperatures and predicted temperature increases for the future, as well as a list of references for additional information.

All reported p -values are based upon one-tailed hypothesis tests, given that our hypotheses were directional in nature.

Data availability

All replication data is publicly available through the Harvard Dataverse: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/AIWYIP .

Code availability

All replication code is publicly available through the Harvard Dataverse: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/AIWYIP .

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to express sincere thanks to Talbot Andrews, Paul Djupe, Ryan Burge, Philip Schwadel, and the two anonymous reviewers for invaluable suggestions and comments on how to improve the manuscript.

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Kane, J.V., Perry, S.L. Belief in divine (versus human) control of earth affects perceived threat of climate change. npj Clim. Action 3 , 78 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-024-00163-9

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Regreening Lesotho: Empowering Communities for Environmental Stewardship

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By: Reentseng Phephetho, Communications and Digital officer

Climate change is a growing global challenge and  is compounding land degradation . In Lesotho, a small, mountainous country landlocked country in southern Africa entirely surrounded by South Africa the impact of climate change is intensified by the country’s minimal forest cover, which stands at less than 2%. This environmental degradation has led to a cascade of issues, including reduced rainfall, soil erosion, loss of biodiversity, and declining agricultural productivity.

Lack of landscape restoration  in Lesotho has had profound consequences. With the majority of the landscape lacking adequate forest cover, water resources have suffered significantly. Reduced rainfall and increased runoff have led to soil erosion, which in turn diminishes water quality and availability. The erosion also strips the soil of its fertility, undermining agricultural productivity, including negative effect on livestock production and contributing to widespread land degradation.

The loss of vegetation and biodiversity further exacerbates these issues, as habitats are destroyed, and ecosystems disrupted. This creates a vicious cycle of environmental degradation, where the loss of plant life leads to more severe soil erosion and further diminishes the land’s ability to support agriculture and sustain life.

World Vision International Lesotho, through the Faith Partnerships for Environmental Stewardship and Climate Action (ESCA) Projec t recognized the urgent nee d for concerted effort in climate  action. This project aims  to   empower Faith Actors to contribute to household and community resilience, and child participation in, climate change adaptation and mitigation . It is in this context that the Regreening Communities Model was introduced, a strategy designed to enhance community resilience against the harsh impacts of climate change. The model is built on the premise that both individual and collective actions are essential to restoring landscapes and improving the resilience of households and communities.

What does World Vision’s Regreening Model look like? 

The World Vision’s Regreening Model is guided by the following key and simple steps done collectively with the community: 

• Mapping: Community consultation, awareness raising, and landscape mapping are the first steps. This involves engaging with the community to identify key areas for regreening and creating a shared understanding of the environmental issues at hand.
• Organize: The next step is to support or set up community collaboration structures. This ensures that there is a coordinated effort in addressing environmental challenges, with clear roles and responsibilities for all stakeholders.
• Plan: A regreening committee is then tasked with creating a regreening plan, which is validated with the community. This plan outlines specific actions and strategies for restoring the environment and is essential for guiding the community’s efforts.
• Monitor and Celebrate: As the regreening plan is implemented, it is crucial to monitor changes in the landscape, share successes, and celebrate the achievements of community champions. This helps to maintain momentum and encourages ongoing participation.

Regreen: Finally, the community implements and continually refines the regreening plan. This ongoing process ensures that the efforts remain relevant and effective, adapting to new challenges and opportunities as they arise.

Training and Community Engagement

To ensure the successful implementation of the Regreening Communities Model, World Vision International Lesotho recently conducted a training session for 35 participants, including faith leaders, area chiefs, and other stakeholders under the  facilitation of Mclarence Mandaza, the Environment Sustainability and Climate Action Lead for World Vision Southern Africa. This training was both theoretical and practical, with participants engaging in group exercises to apply the model in their own communities.

As part of the training, participants also visited areas within Mokhotlong district where regreening practices have been implemented. This field trip provided valuable insights into the practical challenges and successes of environmental restoration efforts, helping participants to better understand how to apply these lessons in their own communities.

Lessons learnt

One of the lessons that emerged from the field visit was the social cohesion that regreening initiatives brings in the community through traditional leaders, faith leaders and community members working in conservation works including managing competing priorities in shared natural resources such as pasture land and forests. The training also highlighted that regreening goes beyond tree planting and conservation, encompassing grass conservation for pastures and soil erosion control. 

A Collective Commitment to Environmental Stewardship

We are indeed grateful for this learning opportunity, and we understand better the work of faith leaders in leading the community to take care of God’s creation, the environment - Father Hlompho Hlaha

The response from participants has been overwhelmingly positive, with many expressing a renewed commitment to environmental stewardship. Father Hlompho Hlaha, a faith leader in Leribe and the ESCA champion who attended the training, remarked, "We are indeed grateful for this learning opportunity, and we understand better the work of faith leaders in leading the community to take care of God’s creation, the environment. I will definitely take these teachings and share them with the community I live in and be a leader in making sure that we regreen our environment."

Way forward towards regreening

World Vision’s Regreening Communities Model represents a significant step forward in the fight against climate change and environmental degradation. By empowering communities to take collective action, this initiative not only addresses the immediate challenges of climate change but also promotes long-term sustainable development.

As Mclarence Mandaza aptly stated, "Regreening is the whole community approach, every member has a role to play. Taking care of the environment is a collective effort towards fostering community resilience to climate change ." This model highlights the importance of community involvement and the vital role that each individual can play in  conserving the environment for  current livelihood needs of children and  future generations.

Regreening is the whole community approach, every member has a role to play. - Mclarence Mandaza 

The Regreening Communities Model presents a promising approach to addressing Lesotho's pressing environmental challenges. By combining community engagement, faith-based leadership, and practical conservation techniques, this initiative offers a holistic solution to the intertwined issues of deforestation, soil erosion, and climate change impacts. The model's emphasis on collective action and local empowerment ensures sustainable, long-term results. 

As Lesotho faces an uncertain environmental future, initiatives like World Vision's Regreening Communities Model are not just beneficial; they are essential. By restoring degraded landscapes, enhancing biodiversity, and improving agricultural productivity, this model paves the way for a more resilient and sustainable Lesotho, benefiting both current and future generations.

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If you are interested in applying to the IPSAR, we strongly recommend that you contact your regional IPSAR coordinator to obtain an Expression of Interest form, or to discuss your proposed project to verify its eligibility and alignment with program priorities. Although this does not guarantee that the project will receive funding, this process will typically help you improve your application.

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Project proposals are accepted through the Grants and Contributions Enterprise Management System (GCEMS) . Please contact your regional IPSAR coordinator if you require an accessible format for the application form or would like to apply using an alternate format.

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Eligible projects

To be eligible for funding through IPSAR, projects must meet the following criteria:

• Eligible lands - Projects must take place on eligible lands including reserves and lands set aside for the use and benefit of Indigenous Peoples under the Indian Act or under section 91 (24) of the Constitution Act of 1867 ; other lands directly controlled by Indigenous Peoples (e.g. Métis Settlement lands, and land claim/treaty settlement lands); lands where traditional food, social, and ceremonial activities (harvesting or other) are carried out by Indigenous Peoples
• Eligible species - Projects must support and promote the conservation, protection and recovery of target species and their habitats. Target species include Species At Risk Act (SARA) Schedule 1 species as listed in the SARA Public Registry (except those listed as extirpated); and/or COSEWIC species assessed by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada ( COSEWIC ) as endangered, threatened, or of special concern but have not been listed on Schedule 1 of SARA. IPSAR projects that target at least one species from the aforementioned categories may also include proposed actions that proactively prevent species, other than species at risk, from becoming a conservation concern
• Eligible activities - Project activities include one or more of the following: habitat protection and procurement; habitat improvements; species management; conservation planning; surveys, inventories and monitoring; project or program results evaluations; Indigenous knowledge gathering or use; outreach and communications; education and training

IPSAR Calls for Applications are competitive processes; applications must include all details of the project and expected results. As the demand for funding from IPSAR regularly exceeds the funds available, we do not guarantee that a project will be funded. If your application is successful, the Program may be able to reimburse you for project expenses incurred prior to the official notification but incurring these costs prior to funding decisions is at your own risk. 

Important: Please note that due to Government of Canada policy, we are prohibited to communicate with applicants regarding the status of their application until final departmental decisions have been reached. We will make every effort to provide you with the earliest possible notice; however, you should expect variation in the timing of notifications within IPSAR, and between ISPAR and other ECCC or Government of Canada funding programs. We will aim to have IPSAR funding decisions available by spring 2025.

For Accepted Applications

Once departmental approval in principle has been confirmed, all applicants (both successful and unsuccessful) will be notified in writing. If your project application is approved in principle, you will be contacted by an IPSAR Regional Coordinator to negotiate a funding agreement that outlines the terms and conditions of the funding. Federal Members of Parliament and/or their teams may be advised about the approval in principle of a project and may be provided with project and contact information.

For general questions, enquiries, and news about the IPSAR, including funding opportunities, please contact the National IPSAR Office or any of our regional coordinators. 

National IPSAR Office Email: [email protected]

New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island Atlantic IPSAR Regional Coordinator Email: [email protected]

Quebec Maxime Chénier Email: [email protected]

Ontario Danielle Aulenback Email: [email protected]

Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan Maggie Glasgow Email: [email protected]

British Columbia Gillian Booth Email: [email protected]

Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Yukon Sara Wong Email: [email protected]

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