Climate Change is a huge global issue that we are currently experiencing on the planet. It’s been a huge problem known for decades but only now are we actually seeing the effects of it on the news. From devastating wildfires to powerful surges of floods. We are living dangerously close to the point of no return, so close to the start of mass extinctions. So how can we solve this? Well, we first need to understand what is causing Climate Change before we try to find more solutions to stop this global disaster.

Some people believe that Climate Change is a natural event, and others believe it was caused by human actions on the planet. It’s complicated as several factors often lead to others but in simple terms, Global Warming is caused by humans and also caused by natural (physical) events.

One human cause of Climate Change is deforestation, more specifically the large removal of trees by fire as this releases all the carbon each individual tree has collected over the span of its life and it is this Carbon Dioxide that is partly responsible for the warming of our planet. Carbon Dioxide enters our atmosphere and enhances the greenhouse effect which is damaging the fragile balance of our planet and heating it up like an oven.

As well as burning trees, using cars is another human cause of global warming. This is because cars exhaust nitrous oxide, this is a greenhouse gas and it intensifies the greenhouse effect causing Climate Change.

Another human cause of Global Warming is the mass farming of cattle. When a cow eats grass this grass breaks down inside them releasing methane (a greenhouse gas), they then burp or ‘toot’ this gas out and it is released into our atmosphere. Like all things, in little quantities it is generally harmless however cows are often farmed in mega quantities. This means that eating beef is a huge contributing factor to warming our planet.

But, as I mentioned before, it’s not just us causing Climate Change, natural events that happen on our planet or in our solar system are also causing our planet to heat up. These are called physical causes of Climate Change.

One physical cause is the excessive melting of the ice caps. They add extra cold water to the oceans of our world and this is disrupting the flow of our ocean currents, these currents help regulate global temperatures so the disruption of this huge natural system is helping areas around the world to experience unusual weather patterns ultimately changing the climate in that region.

Hold on a minute, how does cold water heat our planet. This is a common misconception of Climate Change. Although we are seeing the rise in global temperatures, Climate Change doesn’t necessarily mean everywhere is going to become like Spain! It means that areas around the world will get unexpected extreme weather, this could make places colder than they are or hotter than they are. It’s why it snowed in the Sahara and why Scotland, of all places, had a beautiful summer this year.

Although melted ice changes our ocean currents, it also releases methane gases from long decayed organic matter that were trapped in the ice. This gas is 30 times more powerful than Carbon Dioxide at heating up our planet. So although in the short term the cold water will disrupt Earth’s natural heating system, making the weather in some places colder, the released methane will help eventually warm the planet into an unlivable state.

Taking a trip into outer space. Another physical cause of Global Warming is our sun. The sun is covered in regions that are hotter or colder than other parts. The hotter parts are called sunspots. Every 11 years, the Earth receives more heat due to these ‘hot spots’ causing global temperatures to increase.

With all these factors against us, both natural and man-made, who is really to blame for this extinction-level event?

And.. how do we stop it?