In this blog post I will be talking about climate change, what it actually is, how we know it is happening, what is causing climate change, and the “school strike 4 climate”.

In this part of the blog I will be talking about what is climate change and how we know it is happening. When people think about climate change they also think about global warming and while both talk about the rise in earth’s average surface temperature climate change is more diverse and broader term used than global warming covering global warming, and all its side effects. Whereas global warming only focus exclusively on the earth’s surface temperature rising.

We know climate change is happening from how fast ice glaciers are melting higher co2 levels in the atmosphere. On the below is a graph showcasing the status of the front edge of the three glaciers the Fox, Franz Josef , and Ivory Glacier over the period of 118 years from 1870 to 1988. When we look at the graph we can see that the distance of the front edge of the glacier has shrunk backwards slowly in 1870 to 1950 but from 1960 onwards the front edge of the glaciers began shrinking back rapidly.  We can conclude from the graph that something must’ve happened to cause the ice to melt so rapidly and when you look at what is happening in nz around this time, when you research what happened in this time frame you’ll find out that it was due to the discovery of massive offshore gas fields. In which New Zealand built large gas-fired power stations and industrial chemical plants.  A graph below supports this claim as we can when we look at around that time frame the Co2 emission jumped up rapibly.

In this part of the blog I will be talking about the causes of climate change.  There are any cause of climate change and while we can’t act like climate change hasn’t happened before in which it did, the process from before has not happened this fast and it’s mainly due to human activities. From us increasing the amount of greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere turning it from a thin blanket covering our planet to a thick blanket trapping the most the heat on our planet. To us being heavily reliant on fossil fuels increasing co2 emissions and not trying hard enough to move onto better environmental friendly power supply. There are 2 types of combustion which are complete and incomplete combustion. Complete combustion is created when there is fuel and an abundant level of oxygen whereas Incomplete combustion is created when there is fuel and have a limited supply of oxygen. Then there is the green house effect which is essentially greenhouse gasses trapping heat on earth causing the average surface temperature to rise up. Greenhouse effect/rising global temperatures can cause extreme weather events due to the tra heat in the atmosphere, which supercharges the Earth’s water cycle and destabilizes global wind and weather patterns

In this part of the blog I will be talking about how In 2019, the “school strike 4 climate” movement started in Aotearoa and how it is still continuing on today. Students throughout Aotearoa and globally want to go on strike from school and protest as they know the consequences of climate change in Aotearoa and globally. The consequence of climate change both globally and in Aotearoa are rising earth temperature, rising sea levels, and unpredictable shifting weather. The way we can reduce climate change is by switching to re-newable energy and using less power. The school strike 4 climate had several demands like which were aimed at Passing and strengthening laws to reach net-zero carbon emissions, Stopping all new exploration, mining, and extraction of fossil fuels, and moving swiftly toward 100% renewable energy systems. My opinions on students striking are that it was a very noble thing to do. Below are images of strike 4 climate:

Credits:

• First gas
• Our World in Data
• Radio NZ article
• Te papa overview, including demands made
• One news report (youtube video) on recent strikes