The ISCFC is all about reducing our individual and collective contributions to climate change.
But is climate change really happening? Is it mostly caused by human activity, including our production of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases?
In the United States and elsewhere, there are people who are not convinced by the science. But the great thing about science is that we use evidence to evaluate scientific questions. So what is the evidence related to climate change?
Are you or are you not convinced by the majority of climate scientists who say that climate change is real and largely human caused? Why are you convinced/not convinced? What evidence might change your mind one way or the other?
Is Climate Change Real & Human-Caused? >
Climate change
Climate change is for real and it is caused by humans. The activities that humans are doing are causing changes in Earth's atmosphere in the amounts of greenhouse gases, aerosols, which are small particles, and cloudiness. The main human source that is causing this is the burning of fossil fuels, which releases carbon dioxide gas into the atmosphere. But there are four other principal greenhouse gases that humans emit into the atmosphere. These greenhouse gases are methane, nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide, and the halocarbons. Some of the activities that humans to do allow carbon dioxide to increase in amount are the increase of fossil fuel use in transportation, building heating and cooling, manufacturing of cement and other goods, and deforestation (humans do this by clear-cutting the forest or selectively picking trees to destroy). Some human activities that release methane into the atmosphere are agriculture, landfills, and natural gas distribution. Humans also release nitrous oxide in the atmosphere. Some of the causes of this are the use of synthetic fertilizers and fossil fuel burning. Halocarbons, which are a group of gases that include chlorine, fluorine, and bromine, are also produced by humans. Some of the activities that produce this are CFCs. Some of these activities have caused the Earth's temperature to rise about 1.5 degree Celsius. This is a huge increase from what it was a few decades ago.