• Question: What do you think is the main contributor to climate change?

    Asked by inazuma to Cassie, Karen, Sofia, Tommy on 20 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Cassandra Raby

      Cassandra Raby answered on 20 Nov 2013:

      Well there’s a large group of scientist that work in the climate industry that have grouped together to form a team – called IPCC (Intergovernmental panel on climate change).

      Every few years they bring out a huge report which summerises all the current research we have about climate change. And the last one that came out was only a couple of months ago!

      In it the report says that scientists are 95% confident (that is very confident in the world of science) that the main contributor to climate change since the 1950s is humans! Eeek!
      So sadly, I’m pretty sure we are making a huge impact on the climate on earth!

    • Photo: Sofia Franco

      Sofia Franco answered on 21 Nov 2013:

      The general consensus it is that the tipping point was when industrialization started and with it the start of all the carbon emissions….if you add that to an exponential growth of the population and industry, you can see how it goes! Basically our planet suffers natural cycles of heating and cooling that take thousands of years to take place…however, when you look at data from the past 50 years you see that we are no longer following the natural pattern, but just going up! As carbon emissions go up, global warming follows and this unbalances the planet’s self-regulating system that is used to take these cycles over thousands of years periods and now has to deal with it an few years, and this has been creating the climate change as we are experiencing it 🙁

    • Photo: Thomas Doherty-Bone

      Thomas Doherty-Bone answered on 21 Nov 2013:

      The evidence is clear that its industrialised human society digging up carbon stored in the Earth’s crust and burning it – cars, electricity, planes, boats. Changes to land use too, such as cutting down forests which store carbon then emit it. Closer to home, the peat bogs in the British Isles are being drained and burned and the large amount of carbon there is released into the atmosphere. Less forest and more livestock grazing leads to more methane in the atmosphere too through cows making burps in their pants. This is changing the composition of the atmosphere, and having complex impacts on weather patterns (climate when considered in the longer term).

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