Rise in sea levels, drought, and more generally, global warming are some of the best known results of climate change. All these effects and climate change itself are already causing problems and will continue doing so. People are discussing this all around the world, but do we know what climate change exactly is? Unlike thought, clime change isn’t necessarily bad. Although, without doubt, smoke from huge factory chimneys or the thousands of cars people use everyday are contributors to global warming, climate change is not a phenomenon has occurred recently due to these. In it’s essence, climate change is a natural phenomenon, despite it having been sped up significantly by human activity.
“Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. These shifts may be natural, such as through variations in the solar cycle.” This is the definition provided by the UN. It is indicated that climate change is simply “long-term change in temperature”. Since earth has formed it’s climate has constantly been changing: First a dust cloud, then a magma ball, then a cooled-down to a ball of dirt, and the world we know today. Of course these changes happened in such a wide amount of time and earth’s climate was much more stable before humans inhibited the planet. However, climate didn’t completely stop changing. Trough the course of time, as sun grows brighter and hotter, earth’s orbit wobbles, volcanoes erupt and release CO2, these shifts in temperatures would cease to occur. Despite being slight, earth’s climate would continue going under changes, even if humans never existed.
It is true that climate change is a natural occurrence. However, this doesn’t prove humankind innocent. Further in the article provided by UN, it is said that “These shifts may be natural, such as through variations in the solar cycle. But since the 1800s, human activities have been the main driver of climate change, primarily due to burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.” While trying to make their lives more efficient, people have developed various technologies; these technologies didn’t have such a big impact on the planet at first. That changed after around 19th century; the effects of industrial revolution are prominent. People began to consume earth’s sources more, polluting the planet more in the process. Although it may not have been seen as a hazard in the past, we know for sure that it is now and will be worse in the long-run. The fact that climate change is a natural occurrence doesn’t mean we should add to the flames.
In summary, we can say that human activities have been affecting the already changing climate of our planet for about two hundred years. The long-term shifts could already be observed in the earth’s history, but recently, they’ve got to a point that causes not only humans but the whole planet damage. Although climate change is a natural phenomenon, even nature can’t heal itself if we keep harming it. In the end, it is up to humans to fix what they have been damaging.
