Brentwoodian 2019

6 Climate change One phrase circulating around a lot is climate change. Over the years there have been debates on it’s ‘genuineness’ despite the evidence maintaining the absolute and unquestionable state that is our warming climate. For millennia the carbon dioxide levels had never been above the 300 parts per million level until 1950 - something changed and that something was us. Since the late 19th century the climate has warmed 0.9 degrees celsius with most of that warming occurring in the past 35 years (less than most teachers’ lifetime). Okay so 0.9 degrees sounds a bit underwhelming but it can have massive consequences. If we look at a human scale and internal body temperature a 1-degree increase is the difference between healthy/ normal and extremely feverish. For the world, the dangers of rising temperatures can also have huge significance especially when we look at jumps between 1.5 or 2 degrees celsius. For example, 0.5 degrees can mean the difference between ice-free summers being 10 times more likely and sea ice remaining through summer; or the difference between 37% of people experiencing extreme heat instead of 14%; or 61 million more people being exposed to drought and many more consequences. As a generation, we are very good at blaming those older than us for causing the current damage to the environment and not doing enough to stop further damage or reverse that already made. But maybe the question we need to ask ourselves is are we doing enough? We’ve hammered on to adults called for more government action but what are we doing in our everyday lives? Are we too busy blaming the previous generation for our problems that we are becoming a generation where the next one will blame us for too little action? So where to begin? Sometimes it’s hard to see how the little things add up but by starting small we can build up and create an overall bigger change. After all if we neglect the little things we can’t combat the larger ones. So the next question is what are the little things? We know recycling is good but sometimes it’s easy to let things slide. If there’s no recycling bin around and you are holding something that can be recycled you could, rather than throwing it in the nearby bin, take it home to pop in the recycling. This may seem inconvenient but so is climate change, except, climate change is a whole lot more than inconvenient. By Charlie Stanbrook "This may seem inconvenient but so is climate change, except, climate change is a whole lot more than inconvenient."