Why Does Climate Change Matter?
Climate Change matters because it has rapidly pushed the climate out of the balance it has been in during the development of human civilization, with its patterns of settlement and development of the agriculture that we all depend on for food. As stated on climate.org:
“Earth’s climate has been good to us. It’s been pretty stable for the past 10,000 years, and that stability has allowed our civilizations to develop and thrive. If we let our fossil fuel use alter those climatic norms, we are leaving our children and grandchildren a less predictable, more unstable world. We have a responsibility to ensure that future generations have the same or better opportunities than we had; allowing climate change to happen would be an abdication of that responsibility. Let’s not let the opportunity to stop climate change pass us by; let’s do what needs to be done, embrace alternative energy and energy conservation, and leave the world as good and as livable a place as we found it.”
Climate change is affecting where people can safely live, where crops can grow, where water is available, the intensity of major storms, and the spread of disease.
Climate change is affecting thousands of species of plants and animals around the Earth, already pushing many toward extinction.
Climate change is changing long-standing patterns of rainfall and drought, causing crop failures and migration of people who can no longer sustain themselves where they previously lived.
Some areas, mainly in southern Asia, are experiencing life threatening hot temperatures. If global warming continues, areas where millions of people live will become uninhabitable.
The impacts we are already seeing are only the harbinger of much larger impacts in coming decades and centuries if we do not rise to the challenge and solve the problem of climate change.
The world that our descendants will inherit, and its capacity to support their lives, depends on action that we take now. Every day that passes makes the challenge harder to solve.
