Section 2, Topic 1
Section 2 (The Climate Crisis) - Topic 1 (What is the Climate Crisis?) - News 8
Hello, Save our Beautiful Planet members!
As you might've noticed, we're at Section 2!! Yup, we're done with Section 1, and we're going onto Section 2: The Climate Crisis. As you might've noticed, I wrote 'news 8' in the title. Why? I decided that I wanted to count how many weekly discussions Save our Beautiful Planet has, so we could celebrate milestones such as the 10th or the 100th news post. If you have any milestone number ideas, but them in the chat so I know how often Save our Beautiful Planet members want to celebrate, and write how you want to celebrate (but keep it in reason).
To start off this new section, I wanted to write something about what climate change is just so that we're all on the same page about it, meaning that the next couple climate change posts are understandable by everyone. This is going to be like a dictionary that you can reference whenever you’re wondering what something is. I can’t edit chess.com posts, so if there’s a word that you don’t know not included, just ask for the definition in the comments and I’ll research it and reply with the answer. If there’s a lot of information that I’m missing, then I’ll make a new dictionary.
Climate Change: Many of you might've heard the word 'climate change' referred to as 'global warming.' I used to refer to climate change as 'global warming' but I stopped doing that. Why? Well, the definition of global warming is in the name - the earth is warming up! But as you'll learn later in this article, the earth isn't just warming. Other things are changing, such as the increase or decrease of precipitation (rain). If I use the term 'global warming' know that I mean 'climate change.'
How is global warming - excuse me - climate change - work?
Let's go to the root of the problem and talk about cars and electricity. Okay, now I know some of you are going close the chess.com tab because you don’t want to read about cars and electricity. But don’t! I’m going to try to make it interesting and include jokes. Jokes = lame puns in @earthmelon12345 language.
Anyway, cars and electricity produce things called greenhouse gases. How does this work?
Gas Cars: Let’s focus on cars that run on gas, which in the November of 2021, is more than half of the cars. A lot more than half of the cars, which is sad because gas cars have a lot of environmental impact. Gas cars run on gasoline (I know, who would’ve guessed? *sarcasm*) buy burning gasoline, which emits greenhouse gases into the air, according to eia.gov.
Greenhouse Gases: But wait – what is greenhouse gases? When I first heard the word ‘greenhouse gases’ I was around… 5? 6? Around that age. Anyway, I thought that was a good thing. When talking about the environment and talking about something ‘green’ that normal translates to ‘good.’ Not in this case. (Really, they should change the name of ‘greenhouse gases.’ They aren’t even green!) Greenhouse gases collect in the air, and warm up the earth. This causes the artic ice to melt, which means that sea levels would rise.
Floating Ice Shelf: Floating ice shelves don’t cause sea levels to rise when they melt. Why? Imagine you have a cup of water – you can even get a cup of water right now. Put some ice in the cup of water and then wait. Eventually, the ice will melt. But isn’t ice just frozen water? It is. When the ice melts, then there will be the same amount of ice in your glass as there was before the ice melted. Therefore, floating ice shelves don’t cause sea levels to rise. Then what type of ice does cause sea levels rise?
Ice Sheets: Ice sheets are glaciers and other forms of ice on land. These aren’t part of the ocean, so when they melt, they cause sea levels to rise. This can cause floodings. But how does this effect rainfall? I got the information on ice sheets and floating ice shelves here.
Rainfall & Droughts: To answer the question on how climate change effects rainfall, you can imagine a boiling pot of water. The hotter the water is, the faster the water evaporates. The heat comes from global warming. That means that the water evaporated will make rain. I got this information from here. But this also causes droughts. When water evaporates, there’s less water where the water evaporated. So, climate change causes the uneven distribution of water. I live in Washington (ooh, yay! You know where I live. You can rob my house!), and Washington is known for it’s rain. Over the summer, it wasn’t raining at all. Actually, it drizzled two times the whole summer. I know because I woke up every morning watching the grass and trees die and waited for rain, and two times it drizzled. The drizzle was so light that I could stand outside without a coat for an hour and feel comfortable. See, climate change is happening now.
Sea levels rising: How do the sea levels even rise? If you have a cup of ice and it melts, then you’ll still have the same amount of water in your glass as you had ice. Right? Yup, that’s true. So, when ice melts off a floating ice shelf, which is an iceberg in the water, it doesn’t cause sea levels rising. So, how does ice melting cause sea levels to rise? It’s caused from glaciers, ice shelves, and other ice forms on land. They aren’t part of the water, so when they melt, they’ll turn into water and eventually find their way into the ocean, causing sea levels to rise, meaning more floods.
I hope after reading this article, you know a lot more about climate change. And remember: science changes with each new discovery, so I might have to create a new dictionary as the earth continues to warm and scientists find out more information.
Be back next week (assuming I’ll find time to write a next article) for the next article on climate news! This sections going to have a lot about what’s happening with climate change, so that you’ll be updated on the environment.
Again, thank you for reading!
-@earthmelon12345
