Climate change

There is natural climate change and then there is man-made climate change – and the latter is where the world’s scientists have measured dramatic changes over the last decades. The world is on average around 1°C warmer now than before the industrialization.

Climate change can lead to stronger winds, rising seas and flooding. Here huge waves crashing over the front at Port William, Great Britain 2014. Photo: David Baird (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Climate change can lead to stronger winds, rising seas and flooding. Here huge waves crashing over the front at Port William, Great Britain 2014. Photo: David Baird (CC BY-SA 2.0)

When fossil fuels are burnt and the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere increases, we get global warming and climate change. Man-made climate change is also called anthropogenic climate change.

The likely effects of climate change include:

  • Worse conditions for food production in parts of the world
  • Rising seas and flooding depriving people of their land
  • Increased competition over scarce resources (water and energy for example) can lead to conflict
  • Animals and plants which can’t adapt to the effects of climate change will face extinction

For further reading (and all the scientific evidence you’ll ever need), see the website of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), where you also can find a nice summary of the latest findings.