- What is climate change and how do we know its happening (hint: relate to keeling curve/graph activity)?
Climate change is the long-term differences in the global temperatues and weather-patterns. They are primarily from human activities like burning fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas. When we burn these fuels they release greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and these gases wrap around the planet like a blanket which makes the Earths heat trapped and making the global temperatures rise. A quote showing how dangerous this is for us and the Earth: “We are smothering the planet with greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels, creating a blanket around the Earth that traps heat and forces global temperatures to rise. It is our activities—our destruction of the natural world—that have caused this crisis.” – Dr Jane Goodall. We know that climate change is happening because of scientific evidence using a graph called the Keeling Curve. The Keeling Curve is a long-term graph where it tracks the concentration of carbon dioxide in Earths atmosphere.
2. What is causing climate change? (150 words)
Climate change is mainly caused from human activities that that release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the greenhouse gases that normally release from these human activties are carbon dioxide, methane and more. The primary cause of climate change is burning fossil fuels, fossil fuels are coal, oil, and natural gas. Humans burn fossil fuels for transport, industry, and energy. In complete combustion it reacts carbon in the fossil fuels with oxygen to make more carbon dioxide and incomplete combustion means releasing soot and carbon monoxide. These gases can make the greenhouse effects more intense. Earth would reflect back solar heat into space but because of the greenhouse gases Earth gets hotter as the greenhouse gases act as a blanket which warms the blanket. Other things that cause climate changes are Deforestation which is cutting down forests and trees which release the stored carbon dioxide. It also takes away trees that absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, Agriculture and Livestock with Cows and sheep in where they make huge amounts of methane when their digesting and release greenhouse gases.
3. In 2019, the “school strike 4 climate” movement started in Aotearoa. It’s still continuing today. Why do ākonga (students) throughout Aotearoa and globally want to go on strike from school and protest? (~150 – 200 words
Students around Aoteroa globally strike because they realize that the climate change that is happening to their planet threatens their future and they realise they need to intervine and do something about it. Students see the consequences at first in Aoetearoa, they see the intense floods, prolonged droughts, huge coastal erosion. Student around Aoteroa and around the globe see the rising temperatures and the sea levels rising, they also see the ecosystem collapse and seeing all these signs the students in Aoeteroa and the globe this is the reason why the students decide to go on strike. The movement or protest primary or most important demand is to stop the fossil fuel exploration. They want to invest a lot into renewable energy and lowering the emissions and keep the warming to stay at 1.5 C. The students want to protest for a fair shift to be more sustainable and have more sustainable economies wants to make sure workers that work in the carbon invested industries are not left beind. In conclusion the students decide to strike because they think missing a day of school is a needed sacrifice to have a planet where they can live in.