This week, Good Morning America and 13 ON YOUR SIDE will be covering multiple ways in which Climate Change is impacting society both nationally and locally.
We want to begin the week by explaining climate change, its importance, and how we can move forward as a community.
Climate change can be described in three terms: Simple, Serious and Solvable.
- Simple - because we understand the problem.
- Serious - because we are seeing the impacts accelerating.
- Solvable - because we have the knowledge and tools to avoid the worst impacts.
Starting with simple, the basic idea of climate change is that humans burn fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas). This burning puts more carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere than what is naturally there. CO2 is a greenhouse gas that makes the planet warmer.
This is because carbon dioxide traps more heat than what earth already does naturally. This can lead to serious problems, bringing us to the next term: Serious.
Climate change is serious because warmer air means rising sea levels and more extreme weather events.
Extreme weather events impact the people, places, and things we care about. This includes nature, our health and the economy.
While this might sound scary and a bit doom and gloom, there are solutions to the problem. It’s on us to make sure we achieve them.
By lowering greenhouse gas emissions, we can make real progress.
All in all, climate change is simple, serious, and solvable.
We encourage you all to tune in both on-air and online to learn more about the ways we are being impacted and how you can help.
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