Essay Example: Is Climate Change Real?

Planet Earth, and the only home to all living things, is on fire. Due to all the harmful activities humans have participated in since the last century, people have been chipping away at the Earth’s years to live.  These activities are causing climate change. Climate change, in the simplest terms, is the fluctuation of weather patterns. But because of human activities, the fluctuations have become more drastic than ever, causing extreme changes in weather. But with all this evidence, there are still people who do not believe in climate change. However, climate change is real and is a major crisis in the current society because climate change can affect natural disasters and heat on Earth.

Climate change is real because there is proof that it causes extreme weather. For instance, increased heat has wildfires on a rise in many regions. With the dry and hot temperatures, places like California have destructive wildfires that can grow and spread at unexpected rates (“Earth”). Also, global warming can increase rainstorms, droughts, and blizzards. Thanks to climate change, heat has caused water to evaporate from soil and bodies of water and create droughts. Because of this evaporation, loads of water vapor get sucked into clouds and turn into rain or snow. In 2018, the United States had an average of 36.2 inches of rain in a year (“Earth”). Believe it or not, climate change can also affect the way hurricanes are formed. Since global warming is causing sea levels to rise, hurricanes are becoming more powerful because they get all their energy from the warm ocean water. Hurricane Katrina claimed more than 1,800 lives and left behind $161 billion worth of damage (“Earth”). All of this comes back to the root cause of climate change and the spike in global temperatures. When people burn fossil fuels for electricity, heat, and transportation, carbon dioxide gets trapped in the atmosphere and this causes the planet to warm. When gases like carbon dioxide get released into the atmosphere, it is called the greenhouse effect which is caused by global warming (“Earth”). Some may claim that climate change is not real because the climate has always been changing but when people talk about this, they are talking about the weather, not climate. Just because it rains one day and it is sunny the next does not mean the entire world’s climate is changing. When talking about climate, all data shows rapid warming that normally would not happen over hundreds of years (“WWF”). But climate change and the greenhouse effect not only affect extreme weather but also impact the Earth’s glaciers. 

Because of climate change, glaciers all over the world are melting. For example, glaciers are melting in places like the Alps, Himalayas, Alaska, etc. As a result of the planet’s increase in heat, glaciers have shrunk and broken up. This affects many of the organisms living there such as snow leopards, deer, Himalayan moose, and more (“NASA”). Secondly, Antarctica loses about 148 billion tons of ice per year. Plus, Greenland loses 275 billion tons of ice per year (“NASA”). Ice caps are melting so rapidly that it is predicted that the world’s remaining ice is going to melt away. If glaciers continue to melt, the water from the ice is just going to feed the oceans enough to flood homes and eventually submerge entire countries (“The”). In fact, according to the “Gale Middle School Online Collections”, “sea levels around the world have risen about eight inches since 1870. If global temperatures continue to rise and more ice melts, many coastal communities could be flooded and people could be forced out of their homes” (“The”). Once again, this is all caused by the rising temperatures and the greenhouse effect. The sun blasts the Earth with large amounts of radiation. As things like oceans and land heat up, the Earth releases thermal radiation which passes through the atmosphere and into space. This creates an equilibrium between the sun and Earth. But, weaker, longwave thermal radiation has a harder time passing through the atmosphere to get to space. Thus creating greenhouse gases and causing global warming (“January”). Some may claim that climate change is not real because of misinformation on the internet and all the fake news people are spreading online but if people just take a look at real data coming from trusted scientists, they may be able to change their minds. Everyone knows that the internet is not always telling the truth but scientists always are. If people, especially wealthy countries and corporations with a lot of power, do not start caring about climate change, glaciers, which cover around ten percent of the Earth’s surface, will disappear. 

In light of all this information, what other conclusions can be made but that climate change is real and is happening? There are many signs that prove that climate change is a not-so-modern occurrence and has always been a problem. From glaciers becoming just pools of water to hot gasses being trapped in the atmosphere, global warming and climate change have been proved over and over that it is real. How long will the ignorance of the signs continue? How long will it take for people to believe in this global crisis? Climate change is everyone’s responsibility and it is time the facts are faced and climate change is fought!