The Big Issue: Climate Change
Is the planet really warming up?
Yes. The average surface air temperature on planet Earth has risen by almost one Centigrade in the last century and the evidence suggests that human activities are the dominant cause. Each year, the world's power stations, vehicles, homes and workplaces add around 26 billion metric tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This greenhouse gas, along with other such as methane, absorbs heat that would otherwise pass into space, hence warming the planet.
So, it will get a little hotter. So what?
Unfortunately, just a minor increase in global temperatures is likely to lead to catastrophic effects - not necessarily for all of us immediately - but everyone around the world will be in some way affected in the end.
Rising sea level, floods, droughts, heatwaves, powerful hurricanes… the symptoms of climate change threaten to displace millions of people from their homes, commit thousands of species to extinction and damage agriculture in the poorest countries. According to the World Health Organisation, around 150,000 people already die each year from causes linked to climate change.
I've heard that trees reduce climate change. Do they?
The link between trees and climate change is actually quite complicated, but one fact is unavoidable: cutting down existing forests without replanting them massively aggravates the problem. Around a quarter of global carbon emissions are accounted for by deforestation.
The information and figures come from The Rough Guide to Climate Change
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