1. Understanding Climate Change

See: Wikipedia: Climate Change.

I support the scientific consensus that climate change and global warming are ongoing, human-caused, and likely to have strong negative consequences for humans, the Earth, and the world’s ecosystems. The evidence is clear that the CO₂ levels the Earth’s atmosphere, the Earth’s sea levels, and the Earth’s temperatures are the highest they have ever been in modern human history. The best explanation for why such significant changes to the Earth’s ecology have occurred in such a geologically short time period is that the Industrial Revolution caused humans to start burn fossil fuels for energy.

However, I also believe that climate change has become moralized and politicized on both sides. This has caused people to have a lot of propaganda and inaccurate information to arise. There are many ecological phenomena that have been wrongly attributed to climate change, since their causes have been misidentified. In this essay, I will talk about climate change, how it compares to other ecological issues, my predictions for the future, and what humanity should do to stop climate change and address related ecological issues.

1.1. Why is Climate Change a Problem?

The Earth is estimated to have had much higher temperatures, CO₂ levels, and other differing ecological conditions millions of years ago.

The climate has always been fluctuating significantly throughout the Earth’s recorded history.

That is true. However, we also have to keep in mind that modern humans evolved during the Last Glacial Period when the planet was much cooler. From a bio-evolutionary perspective, it makes sense that humans would want to keep the Earth at cooler temperatures than the projected temperatures that we are predicting decades from now. As global temperatures continue to rise and the climate continues to change, humans will become increasingly more maladapted to the Earth’s environmental conditions.

If we want ourselves, the next generations, and the Earth’s flora and fauna to avoid struggling and dying as a result of these changing ecological conditions, then it is imperative that we act now to prevent further global warming. If possible, it’d also be ideal if we can find a way to reverse global warming and its effects.

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