Green term of the week: Climate Change
Today is Blog Action Day. Blogs all over the web, whether their regular topic is the environment or not, will all be tackling the same subject today – climate change. As I go throughout my day and read what other bloggers are writing, I’m going to keep adding links at the bottom of this post to other posts that strike me. What I thought I’d do, is try to define climate change for those who are fuzzy on the term.
What is climate change?
A few years ago, we kept hearing all about global warming. One of the problems with that term is that some regions of the earth seem to be getting cooler, not warmer. Take where I live in New Jersey, for instance. I don’t believe we had a single day this summer where we broke 100 degrees. There was no real heat wave this year. That’s not the norm for what I’ve experienced here my whole life. Many people look at a cool summer like this past one and say, “These hippies need to stop screaming about global warming. Look, it never broke a hundred this summer. There’s nothing to worry about.”
The thing is, what is happening to our earth’s climate is more than just certain regions getting warmer. We’ve got droughts happening not just in places like Africa where droughts are common, but unusually prolonged droughts in places like Australia and the western United States. There are changes in rainfall patterns, sea levels are rising in places but declining in others, storms are getting more severe and more frequent, and we’re losing habitat because of the changing climate.
Why is the climate changing? Well, the current belief by many scientists and environmentalists is that it is changing because greenhouse gasses (carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxides) are building up in our atmosphere and trapping the sun’s heat. That is throwing our climate off balance and changing weather patterns throughout the world. It’s getting warmer in some places, cooler in others. Some places are getting more rain than they have in the past, others are experiencing droughts.
The concern is that if greenhouse gasses continue to build in our atmosphere at the current rate, we could see devastating climate changes in the next 50 years.
What’s causing these greenhouse gasses to build up? Ah…. this is where it gets sticky for many of us. There’s a really good chance it’s our modern, convenient lifestyle. The carbon dioxide our cars emit, the methane that our landfills full of our junk release into the air, the methane that those gazillions of cows we raise for our fast food burgers let loose when they burp, the gasses that our clothes dryers pump out of our house, they could all be contributing to climate change.
What can we do?
We can change our habits. That’s what this blog is all about. It’s about changing a little at a time, a little bit every day, so that my family’s lifestyle contributes less to the problems of this earth and not more.
We can educate people. Especially those who balk when they hear about global warming. Explain that climate change is a better way to describe it. No one in New Jersey can argue that our climate wasn’t different this summer. Something changed.
We can give. Honestly, climate change has not radically changed the day to day living in my region. Sure the summer was a little cooler, but that’s nothing to complain about. But there are places where climate change has already had devastating effects. We can give to charities that do things like provide food and water to people in places where the drought has hit.
We can pray. Yep. Pray. You know, I don’t frequently bring my faith into this blog. I’ve mentioned a few times over the past couple of years that I’m a Christian. But I’ve chosen not to make this blog a “Green Christian Blog.” It’s simply a green blog that is written by someone with the Christian faith. But, make no mistake, my faith is the foundation behind my environmentalism.
Even if you aren’t a Christian, you are probably familiar with the story of Noah and The Flood. After the flood, God chose to restore the earth. That gives me encouragement. He did it before, he can choose to do it again. I believe in the saying (even though it’s not specifically in the Bible) that God helps those that help themselves. I think that if we work hard to make changes and we ask God to help us along, he’ll give us help. You may think I’m delusional, but that’s okay.
Other blogs you’ll want to check out today:
- Melissa at Raising Them Green tackles 3 Ways to Get Kids Involved in Addressing Climate Change
- David at The Good Human lets his Thoughts on Climate Change be known.
- Over on Twilight Earth, Derek is reminding us that It’s Up to Us
- If you’re a gardener, you’ll get a lot out of Carol’s Top 10 Tips for Fighting Climate Change in Your Ecosystem Garden on Ecosystem Gardening
- Glue and Glitter’s Becky is saying a lot of what I’m thinking with her post on Climate Change and the Little Things
- I’m honored that Alison from Loving Nature’s Garden included A Little Greener in her post about green blogs that are Impacting Climate Change One Post at a Time
- Over in Scotland, Suitably Despairing let us know how his mood is about climate change when he answers the question “Am I Still Despairing?”
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