what to write in an essay about climate change

Climate Change Essay for Students and Children

500+ words climate change essay.

Climate change refers to the change in the environmental conditions of the earth. This happens due to many internal and external factors. The climatic change has become a global concern over the last few decades. Besides, these climatic changes affect life on the earth in various ways. These climatic changes are having various impacts on the ecosystem and ecology. Due to these changes, a number of species of plants and animals have gone extinct.

what to write in an essay about climate change

When Did it Start?

The climate started changing a long time ago due to human activities but we came to know about it in the last century. During the last century, we started noticing the climatic change and its effect on human life. We started researching on climate change and came to know that the earth temperature is rising due to a phenomenon called the greenhouse effect. The warming up of earth surface causes many ozone depletion, affect our agriculture , water supply, transportation, and several other problems.

Reason Of Climate Change

Although there are hundreds of reason for the climatic change we are only going to discuss the natural and manmade (human) reasons.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Natural Reasons

These include volcanic eruption , solar radiation, tectonic plate movement, orbital variations. Due to these activities, the geographical condition of an area become quite harmful for life to survive. Also, these activities raise the temperature of the earth to a great extent causing an imbalance in nature.

Human Reasons

Man due to his need and greed has done many activities that not only harm the environment but himself too. Many plant and animal species go extinct due to human activity. Human activities that harm the climate include deforestation, using fossil fuel , industrial waste , a different type of pollution and many more. All these things damage the climate and ecosystem very badly. And many species of animals and birds got extinct or on a verge of extinction due to hunting.

Effects Of Climatic Change

These climatic changes have a negative impact on the environment. The ocean level is rising, glaciers are melting, CO2 in the air is increasing, forest and wildlife are declining, and water life is also getting disturbed due to climatic changes. Apart from that, it is calculated that if this change keeps on going then many species of plants and animals will get extinct. And there will be a heavy loss to the environment.

What will be Future?

If we do not do anything and things continue to go on like right now then a day in future will come when humans will become extinct from the surface of the earth. But instead of neglecting these problems we start acting on then we can save the earth and our future.

Although humans mistake has caused great damage to the climate and ecosystem. But, it is not late to start again and try to undo what we have done until now to damage the environment. And if every human start contributing to the environment then we can be sure of our existence in the future.

{ “@context”: “https://schema.org”, “@type”: “FAQPage”, “mainEntity”: [ { “@type”: “Question”, “name”: “What is climate change and how it affects humans?”, “acceptedAnswer”: { “@type”: “Answer”, “text”: “Climate change is a phenomenon that happens because of human and natural reasons. And it is one of the most serious problems that not only affect the environment but also human beings. It affects human in several ways but in simple language, we can say that it causes many diseases and disasters that destroy life on earth.” } }, { “@type”: “Question”, “name”: “Can we stop these climatic changes?”, “acceptedAnswer”: { “@type”: “Answer”, “text”: “Yes, we can stop these climatic changes but for that, every one of us has to come forward and has to adapt ways that can reduce and control our bad habits that affect the environment. We have to the initiative and make everyone aware of the climatic changes.” } } ] }

Customize your course in 30 seconds

Which class are you in.

Travelling Essay
Picnic Essay
Our Country Essay
My Parents Essay
Essay on Favourite Personality
Essay on Memorable Day of My Life
Essay on Knowledge is Power
Essay on Gurpurab
Essay on My Favourite Season
Essay on Types of Sports

Download the App

Argumentative Essay Writing

Argumentative Essay About Climate Change

Make Your Case: A Guide to Writing an Argumentative Essay on Climate Change

Published on: Mar 2, 2023

Last updated on: Jan 31, 2024

What is an Argumentative Essay about Climate Change?

The main focus will be on trying to prove that global warming is caused by human activities. Your goal should be to convince your readers that human activity is causing climate change.

To achieve this, you will need to use a variety of research methods to collect data on the topic. You need to make an argument as to why climate change needs to be taken more seriously.

Argumentative Essay Outline about Climate Change

An argumentative essay about climate change requires a student to take an opinionated stance on the subject.

The outline of your paper should include the following sections:

Argumentative Essay About Climate Change Introduction

The first step is to introduce the topic and provide an overview of the main points you will cover in the essay.

This should include a brief description of what climate change is. Furthermore, it should include current research on how humans are contributing to global warming.

An example is:

Paper Due? Why Suffer? That's our Job!

Thesis Statement For Climate Change Argumentative Essay

The thesis statement should be a clear and concise description of your opinion on the topic. It should be established early in the essay and reiterated throughout.

For example, an argumentative essay about climate change could have a thesis statement such as:

âclimate change is caused by human activity and can be addressed through policy solutions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote cleaner energy sourcesâ.

Climate Change Argumentative Essay Conclusion

The conclusion should restate your thesis statement and summarize the main points of the essay.

It should also provide a call to action, encouraging readers to take steps toward addressing climate change.

For example,

Climate change is an urgent issue that must be addressed now if we are to avoid catastrophic consequences in the future. We must take action to reduce our emissions and transition to cleaner energy sources. It is up to us as citizens to demand policy solutions from our governments that will ensure a safe and sustainable future.

How To Write An Argumentative Essay On Climate Change

Writing an argumentative essay about climate change requires a student to take an opinionated stance on the subject.

Following are the steps to follow for writing an argumentative essay about climate change

Do Your Research

The first step is researching the topic and collecting evidence to back up your argument.

You should look at scientific research, articles, and data on climate change as well as current policy solutions.

Pick A Catchy Title

Once you have gathered your evidence, it is time to pick a title for your essay. It should be specific and concise.

Outline Your Essay

After selecting a title, create an outline of the main points you will include in the essay.

This should include an introduction, body paragraphs that provide evidence for your argument, and a conclusion.

Compose Your Essay

Finally, begin writing your essay. Start with an introduction that provides a brief overview of the main points you will cover and includes your thesis statement.

Then move on to the body paragraphs, providing evidence to back up your argument.

Finally, conclude the essay by restating your thesis statement and summarizing the main points.

Proofread and Revise

Once you have finished writing the essay, it is important to proofread and revise your work.

Check for any spelling or grammatical errors, and make sure the argument is clear and logical.

Finally, consider having someone else read over the essay for a fresh perspective.

By following these steps, you can create an effective argumentative essay on climate change. Good luck!

Examples Of Argumentative Essays About Climate Change

Climate Change is real and happening right now. It is one of the most urgent environmental issues that we face today.

Argumentative essays about this topic can help raise awareness that we need to protect our planet.

Below you will find some examples of argumentative essays on climate change written by CollegeEssay.orgâs expert essay writers.

Argumentative Essay About Climate Change And Global Warming

Persuasive Essay About Climate Change

Argumentative Essay About Climate Change In The Philippines

Argumentative Essay About Climate Change Caused By Humans

Geography Argumentative Essay About Climate Change

Check our extensive blog on argumentative essay examples to ace your next essay!

Good Argumentative Essay Topics About Climate Change

Choosing a great topic is essential to help your readers understand and engage with the issue.

Here are some suggestions:

Should governments fund projects that will reduce the effects of climate change?
Is it too late to stop global warming and climate change?
Are international treaties effective in reducing carbon dioxide emissions?
What are the economic implications of climate change?
Should renewable energy be mandated as a priority over traditional fossil fuels?
How can individuals help reduce their carbon footprint and fight climate change?
Are regulations on industry enough to reduce global warming and climate change?
Could geoengineering be used to mitigate climate change?
What are the social and political effects of global warming and climate change?
Should companies be held accountable for their contribution to climate change?

Check our comprehensive blog on argumentative essay topics to get more topic ideas!

We hope these topics and resources help you write a great argumentative essay about climate change.

Now that you know how to write an argumentative essay about climate change, itâs time to put your skills to the test.

Overwhelmed with assignments and thinking, "I wish someone could write me an essay "?

Our specialized writing service is here to turn that wish into reality. With a focus on quality, originality, and timely delivery, our team of professionals is committed to crafting essays that align perfectly with your academic goals.

And for those seeking an extra edge, our essay writer , an advanced AI tool, is ready to elevate your writing to new heights.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a good introduction to climate change.

An introduction to a climate change essay can include a short description of why the topic is important and/or relevant.

It can also provide an overview of what will be discussed in the body of the essay.

The introduction should conclude with a clear, focused thesis statement that outlines the main argument in your essay.

What is a good thesis statement for climate change?

A good thesis statement for a climate change essay should state the main point or argument you will make in your essay.

You could argue that “The science behind climate change is irrefutable and must be addressed by governments, businesses, and individuals.”

Cathy A. (Medical school essay, Education)

For more than five years now, Cathy has been one of our most hardworking authors on the platform. With a Masters degree in mass communication, she knows the ins and outs of professional writing. Clients often leave her glowing reviews for being an amazing writer who takes her work very seriously.

Paper Due? Why Suffer? That’s our Job!

Keep reading

Legal & Policies

Privacy Policy
Cookies Policy
Terms of Use
Refunds & Cancellations
Our Writers
Success Stories
Our Guarantees
Affiliate Program
Referral Program
AI Essay Writer

Disclaimer: All client orders are completed by our team of highly qualified human writers. The essays and papers provided by us are not to be used for submission but rather as learning models only.

Climate Change Essay

500+ words essay on climate change.

Climate change is a major global challenge today, and the world is becoming more vulnerable to this change. Climate change refers to the changes in Earth’s climate condition. It describes the changes in the atmosphere which have taken place over a period ranging from decades to millions of years. A recent report from the United Nations predicted that the average global temperature could increase by 6˚ Celsius at the end of the century. Climate change has an adverse effect on the environment and ecosystem. With the help of this essay, students will get to know the causes and effects of climate change and possible solutions. Also, they will be able to write essays on similar topics and can boost their writing skills.

What Causes Climate Change?

The Earth’s climate has always changed and evolved. Some of these changes have been due to natural causes such as volcanic eruptions, floods, forest fires etc., but quite a few of them are due to human activities. Human activities such as deforestation, burning fossil fuels, farming livestock etc., generate an enormous amount of greenhouse gases. This results in the greenhouse effect and global warming which are the major causes of climate change.

Effects of Climate Change

If the current situation of climate change continues in a similar manner, then it will impact all forms of life on the earth. The earth’s temperature will rise, the monsoon patterns will change, sea levels will rise, and storms, volcanic eruptions and natural disasters will occur frequently. The biological and ecological balance of the earth will get disturbed. The environment will get polluted and humans will not be able to get fresh air to breathe and fresh water to drink. Life on earth will come to an end.

Steps to be Taken to Reduce Climate Change

The Government of India has taken many measures to improve the dire situation of Climate Change. The Ministry of Environment and Forests is the nodal agency for climate change issues in India. It has initiated several climate-friendly measures, particularly in the area of renewable energy. India took several steps and policy initiatives to create awareness about climate change and help capacity building for adaptation measures. It has initiated a “Green India” programme under which various trees are planted to make the forest land more green and fertile.

We need to follow the path of sustainable development to effectively address the concerns of climate change. We need to minimise the use of fossil fuels, which is the major cause of global warming. We must adopt alternative sources of energy, such as hydropower, solar and wind energy to make a progressive transition to clean energy. Mahatma Gandhi said that “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not any man’s greed”. With this view, we must remodel our outlook and achieve the goal of sustainable development. By adopting clean technologies, equitable distribution of resources and addressing the issues of equity and justice, we can make our developmental process more harmonious with nature.

We hope students liked this essay on Climate Change and gathered useful information on this topic so that they can write essays in their own words. To get more study material related to the CBSE, ICSE, State Board and Competitive exams, keep visiting the BYJU’S website.

Frequently Asked Questions on climate change Essay

What are the reasons for climate change.

1. Deforestation 2. Excessive usage of fossil fuels 3. Water, Soil pollution 4. Plastic and other non-biodegradable waste 5. Wildlife and nature extinction

How can we save this climate change situation?

1. Avoid over usage of natural resources 2. Do not use or buy items made from animals 3. Avoid plastic usage and pollution

Are there any natural causes for climate change?

Yes, some of the natural causes for climate change are: 1. Solar variations 2. Volcanic eruption and tsunamis 3. Earth’s orbital changes

CBSE Related Links

Register with BYJU'S & Download Free PDFs

Environment

How to write the perfect essay on climate change.

Writing an essay on green living or other environmental issues can be difficult. You need to make sure that you get your points right. One of the issues is that environmental research is changing at a breathtaking pace, so it is easy to use outdated data to make your point.

Creating the Perfect Essay on Climate Change or Any Environmental Topic

Essay writing is a task which poses an immense challenge to many students. This is because it not only has many requirements, but also requires one to have professional writing skills to produce a top-notch paper. This is especially complicated for climate change papers.

Additionally, many students find it hard to distinguish the type of paper they are writing. Hence, they end up producing the wrong article. Environmental science professors and instructors often give college and university students writing assignments.

You can always hire a professional paper writer to help you. However, you will learn more if you go through the process on your own. But how can you write a paper easily with limited time as a student?

You need to be familiar with the concepts behind climate change if you are planning on writing a paper on it. You should start by looking at previous papers and research on the topic. Global Change has a large list of all major climate change papers .

However, you are going to need to write your own paper and it needs to meet the school’s quality standards. It is up to you to ensure that you understand the distinction between various types of essay writing tasks. Cody Rhodes has been gracious enough to speak with us to clarify what a descriptive essay is and the goal or objective of writing one. Rhodes has said that there are a lot of great insights for people learning to create better papers on climate change.

What is a descriptive essay on Climate Change?

Before we go deeper into descriptive essay writing tips, you need to know what a descriptive essay is. A descriptive essay is a type of academic writing which involves describing a specific place, event, or person to the readers. You must do this in a way that creates a portrait in their minds by engaging their senses: touch, sound, smell, sight, and taste. Your ability to do this guarantees your success. Before you write your descriptive essay, you need to lay the foundation of the entire work.

Choose a topic related to climate change or green living

What topic is best for climate change? You can’t just focus on climate change in general , Rhodes tells us. He says that you need to get into the nuances of specific elements of the subject. You might want to talk about the fact that the minimum arctic ice levels have fallen over 12% a decade since the 1980s . Covering a very specific climate change topic makes things easier.

So, you need to select a topic which you can write a lot about. Your professor may give you one or they may leave it up to you to choose. So, ensure you pick a topic which allows you to convey your opinion about it through your description of it and how you want things laid out for the audience.

Also, you must ensure you structure your essay in a way that helps your topic to have meaning or make sense. A description of an event has paragraphs arranged chronologically, whereas a description of a person or a place has paragraphs arranged generally so that it allows you to go deeper into the specifics. The introduction paragraph of your essay should set out the key points you will discuss in your article as it sets the tone for the rest of the paper.

But what do you do once you’ve chosen your topic? If you need to learn how to write a descriptive essay about a place, event or person consider the following tips.

Do statement

Now that you have chosen a topic, develop a thesis statement for your climate change topic. An example could be “The hospitality sector’s global initiative has contributed to the climate crisis.”

A thesis statement is a statement which holds or supports the argument in the topic of your paper. Additionally, it lays out the purpose of the essay. It is prominent throughout the entire paper. Hence, when creating it, you need to make it precise, avoid clichés, and include it in the introductory paragraph.

Engage your readers’ senses

The audience will be able to comprehend what your paper is about if you create an image in their minds by engaging their senses. So, how do you get the senses right?

Take a sheet of paper and partition it into five columns. Note down all the senses. This will help you sort your thoughts and ideas as you elucidate your topic. Write any feelings or sensations which relate to the topic you are writing about. Back up your thesis statement by providing full sensory details. Utilize literary tools to perfect your paper such as personification, similes, and metaphors.

Write an outline

Once you get the senses right, you can proceed to the next step, which is creating a descriptive essay outline. A descriptive essay outline is essential in writing a descriptive essay as it not only acts as a road map to your essay but also simplifies the writing process. Additionally, it helps to show how the structure of your paper ought to appear. A descriptive essay outline constitutes three main components: the introduction body, and conclusion.

Develop a strong hook which will capture the attention of your audience. They need to be attracted to your paper by reading the introduction. Also, remember to include the thesis statement.
Writing a descriptive paragraph(s)is not easy if you do not have a thesis statement. This is because it is where you provide support or backup the thesis statement (shows the purpose of your essay). So, ensure you begin each paragraph with a topic sentence. Use transitional phrases to show the readers that your essay is continuous.
Conclude your paper with a summary of your main points. Restate your thesis statement.

Create a conclusion

The conclusion of your descriptive essay is fundamental as it shows the reader(s) that your article has come to an end. It needs to be strong, especially if you are trying to make a case in a subject as controversial as climate change.

So, when creating it, ensure you provide a summary of your key points. Restate your thesis statement. Also, remember not to include any new information which you have not mentioned in your paper.

If you do not know how to structure a descriptive essay, follow the format above or have a look at some of the descriptive essay examples written by other students or professionals.

Polish and finish

You can begin writing your essay now that you have a guiding map (outline) you can use. After writing your paper, ensure you take a break then resume to revise it. Go through it and eliminate all the mistakes you may have made during the writing process. Polish it in a way that ensures you have met all the writing instructions and requirements.

Writing a Great Essay on Climate Change Doesn’t Have to Be Overwhelming

Climate change is a complicated topic . Fortunately, writing an essay on climate change doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Writing a descriptive essay on any environmental topic is not hard as long as you know the purpose it seeks to serve. The tips listed above along with someone from WriteMyPaperHub will help you learn how to write a descriptive essay on global warming.

Like our Facebook Page

6 Eco-Friendly Improvements for Your Car

Green Businesses Are Turning to Preventive Maintenance Software

Holistic Healing – Green Approach to Catastrophic Injury Recovery

Renewable Energy and EVs: Perfect Partners for a Greener World

3 Ways an Outdoor Kitchen Can Make Your Home Eco-Friendly

Savvy Investors Are Creating Eco-Friendly Portfolios

Potash: A Future Where Profitability Meets Sustainability

What Are the Most Eco-Friendly Flooring Materials?

Key Technologies For Sustainable Battlefield Strategies

10 Tips to Have a Low-Waste, Eco-Friendly Wedding

eco-friendly entrepreneurs with startups

How to Become an Environmentally Conscious Entrepreneur in 2024

5 Reasons That Diamonds Can Be Excellent Green Investments

The Circular Economy is Conserving Biodiversity

Dissertation
PowerPoint Presentation
Book Report/Review
Research Proposal
Math Problems
Proofreading
Movie Review
Cover Letter Writing
Personal Statement
Nursing Paper
Argumentative Essay
Research Paper
Discussion Board Post

Steps To Follow While Writing An Essay On Climate Change

Table of Contents

Climate change is the most essential issue of our generation; we are the first to witness its early signs and the last who have a chance of stopping them from happening.

Living in a bubble of denial can only get us this far; the planet which is our home is already a scene for melting glaciers, raising floods, extinction of species… the list goes on and on. Spreading awareness on matters of climate change through any means available, including as seemingly trivial form as writing a school essay, cannot be underestimated.

Follow the guidelines suggested in the paragraphs below to learn how to create a perfect essay that will get you an appraisal of your teacher.

Essay on climate changes: how to write?

If you really want to make your teacher gasp while they are reading your work, there are three vital things to pay attention to .

First of all, read the topic carefully and understand it’s specific, i.e., what is expected from you.

For instance, if it is the role of individuals in helping prevent climate change, you should not focus so much on the global problems, but speak about how small changes all of us can introduce in our routines will eventually have a positive environmental effect.

Secondly, determine your personal take on the problem . Search for materials on your subject using keywords, and pile up the evidence that supports your point of view.

Finally, write a conclusion. Make sure that the conclusion you make reflects the viewpoints you have been expressing all throughout your essay.

Below you will find a more detailed breakdown of tasks you will have to accomplish to complete writing an essay on climate changes that is worthy of a top mark.

Check if it is an argumentative essay on climate change or more of a speculative one? Arrange your writing accordingly.

Craft the outline and don’t go off-topic.
Search for keywords .
Make a plan .
Avoid the most common mistakes from the start.
Write an introduction thinking about what you will write later.
Develop your ideas according to the outline .
Make a conclusion which is consistent with what you’ve written in the main paragraphs.
Proofread the draft , correct mistakes and print out the hard copy. All set!

One of the most focal of your writing will be factual evidence. When writing on climate change, resort to providing data shared by international organizations like IPCC , WWF , or World Bank .

It is undeniable that among the main causes of climate change, unfortunately, there are oil and fossil fuels that are the basis of the whole economy and still invaluable sources of energy.

Although everyone knows that oil resources are polluting and that it would be much more useful and environmentally sustainable to rely on renewable energies such as wind and solar energies and electricity, the power of the world seem not to notice or pretend not to see for don’t go against your own interests.

The time has come to react and raise awareness of the use of renewable energy sources.

In addition to the causes already mentioned, we must consider the increase in the carbon dioxide air that traps heat in our atmosphere, thus increasing the temperatures with the consequent of the Arctic glaciers melting.

WWF reported that in 2016, the recorded data was quite worrying with a constant increase in temperatures and a 40% decrease in Arctic marine glaciers.

Topics for essay on global warming and climate change

If you do not have any specific topic to write on, consider yourself lucky. You can pick one that you are passionate about – and in fact, this is what you should do! If we think back to the very definition of essay, it is nothing more than a few paragraphs of expressing one’s personal attitude and viewpoints on a certain subject. Surely, you need to pick a subject that you are opinionated about to deliver a readable piece of writing!

Another point to consider is quaintness and topicality factors. You don’t want to end up writing on a subject that the rest of your class will, and in all honesty, that has zero novelty to it.

Even if it is something as trivial as the greenhouse effect, add an unexpected perspective to it: the greenhouse effect from the standpoint of the feline population of Montenegro. Sounds lunatic, but you get the drift.

Do not worry, below you will find the list of legitimately coverable topics to choose from:

The last generation able to fight the global crisis.
Climate change: top 10 unexpected causes.
Climate changes. Things anyone can do.
Climate changes concern everyone. Is it true?
The Mauna Loa volcano: climate change is here.
Water pollution and coastal cities: what needs to be done?
Is there global warming if it’s still cold?
The CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
Celebrity activists and climate changes.
Individual responsibility for the environment.
How the loss of biodiversity is the biggest loss for humanity.
Ways to fight global warming at home.
Sustainable living as a way of fighting climate change.
Climate change fighting countries to look up to.
Industrial responsibility and climate change.
What future will be like if we fail to make an environmental stand?
Discovering water on Mars: a new planet to live on?
Climate change effects on poor countries.
Nuclear power laws and climate change.
Is it true that climate change is caused by man?

Mistakes to avoid when writing an essay on climate change

When composing your essay, you must avoid the following (quite common!) mistakes:

Clichés – no one wants to read universal truths presented as relevant discoveries.
Repeating an idea already expressed – don’t waste your readers’ time .
Making an accumulation of ideas that are not connected and that do not follow one another; structure your ideas logically .
Being contradictive (check consistency).
Using bad or tired collocations .
Using lackluster adjectives like “good”/”bad”. Instead, think of more eye-catching synonyms.

Structure your essay in a logical way : introduce your thesis, develop your ideas in at least 2 parts that contain several paragraphs, and draw a conclusion.

Bottom line

Writing an essay on global warming and climate change is essentially reflecting on the inevitable consequence of the irresponsible behavior of people inhabiting the planet. Outside of big-scale thinking, there is something each of us can do, and by shaping minds the right way, essential change can be done daily.

Each of us can act to protect the environment, reducing the use of plastic, recycling, buying food with as little packaging as possible, or turning off water and light when not in use. Every little help, even a short essay on climate change can help make a difference.

Can’t wait to save the planet? Do it, while we write your essay. Easy order, complete confidentiality, timely delivery. Click the button to learn more!

Why Abortion Should Be Legal – Essay Writing Tips & Tricks

How to Begin Writing Essays about Mothers

Compare And Contrast Essay On Taoism And Confucianism

45,000+ students realised their study abroad dream with us. Take the first step today

Here’s your new year gift, one app for all your, study abroad needs, start your journey, track your progress, grow with the community and so much more.

Verification Code

An OTP has been sent to your registered mobile no. Please verify

Thanks for your comment !

Our team will review it before it's shown to our readers.

Essay on Global Warming

Updated on
Apr 27, 2024

Being able to write an essay is an integral part of mastering any language. Essays form an integral part of many academic and scholastic exams like the SAT, and UPSC amongst many others. It is a crucial evaluative part of English proficiency tests as well like IELTS, TOEFL, etc. Major essays are meant to emphasize public issues of concern that can have significant consequences on the world. To understand the concept of Global Warming and its causes and effects, we must first examine the many factors that influence the planet’s temperature and what this implies for the world’s future. Here’s an unbiased look at the essay on Global Warming and other essential related topics.

Short Essay on Global Warming and Climate Change?

Since the industrial and scientific revolutions, Earth’s resources have been gradually depleted. Furthermore, the start of the world’s population’s exponential expansion is particularly hard on the environment. Simply put, as the population’s need for consumption grows, so does the use of natural resources , as well as the waste generated by that consumption.

Climate change has been one of the most significant long-term consequences of this. Climate change is more than just the rise or fall of global temperatures; it also affects rain cycles, wind patterns, cyclone frequencies, sea levels, and other factors. It has an impact on all major life groupings on the planet.

What is Global Warming?

Global warming is the unusually rapid increase in Earth’s average surface temperature over the past century, primarily due to the greenhouse gases released by people burning fossil fuels . The greenhouse gases consist of methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, carbon dioxide, water vapour, and chlorofluorocarbons. The weather prediction has been becoming more complex with every passing year, with seasons more indistinguishable, and the general temperatures hotter.

The number of hurricanes, cyclones, droughts, floods, etc., has risen steadily since the onset of the 21st century. The supervillain behind all these changes is Global Warming. The name is quite self-explanatory; it means the rise in the temperature of the Earth.

What are the Causes of Global Warming?

According to recent studies, many scientists believe the following are the primary four causes of global warming:

Deforestation
Greenhouse emissions
Carbon emissions per capita

Extreme global warming is causing natural disasters , which can be seen all around us. One of the causes of global warming is the extreme release of greenhouse gases that become trapped on the earth’s surface, causing the temperature to rise. Similarly, volcanoes contribute to global warming by spewing excessive CO2 into the atmosphere.

The increase in population is one of the major causes of Global Warming. This increase in population also leads to increased air pollution . Automobiles emit a lot of CO2, which remains in the atmosphere. This increase in population is also causing deforestation, which contributes to global warming.

The earth’s surface emits energy into the atmosphere in the form of heat, keeping the balance with the incoming energy. Global warming depletes the ozone layer, bringing about the end of the world. There is a clear indication that increased global warming will result in the extinction of all life on Earth’s surface.

Also Read: Land, Soil, Water, Natural Vegetation, and Wildlife Resources

Solutions for Global Warming

Of course, industries and multinational conglomerates emit more carbon than the average citizen. Nonetheless, activism and community effort are the only viable ways to slow the worsening effects of global warming. Furthermore, at the state or government level, world leaders must develop concrete plans and step-by-step programmes to ensure that no further harm is done to the environment in general.

Although we are almost too late to slow the rate of global warming, finding the right solution is critical. Everyone, from individuals to governments, must work together to find a solution to Global Warming. Some of the factors to consider are pollution control, population growth, and the use of natural resources.

One very important contribution you can make is to reduce your use of plastic. Plastic is the primary cause of global warming, and recycling it takes years. Another factor to consider is deforestation, which will aid in the control of global warming. More tree planting should be encouraged to green the environment. Certain rules should also govern industrialization. Building industries in green zones that affect plants and species should be prohibited.

Effects of Global Warming

Global warming is a real problem that many people want to disprove to gain political advantage. However, as global citizens, we must ensure that only the truth is presented in the media.

This decade has seen a significant impact from global warming. The two most common phenomena observed are glacier retreat and arctic shrinkage. Glaciers are rapidly melting. These are clear manifestations of climate change.

Another significant effect of global warming is the rise in sea level. Flooding is occurring in low-lying areas as a result of sea-level rise. Many countries have experienced extreme weather conditions. Every year, we have unusually heavy rain, extreme heat and cold, wildfires, and other natural disasters.

Similarly, as global warming continues, marine life is being severely impacted. This is causing the extinction of marine species as well as other problems. Furthermore, changes are expected in coral reefs, which will face extinction in the coming years. These effects will intensify in the coming years, effectively halting species expansion. Furthermore, humans will eventually feel the negative effects of Global Warming.

Also Read: Concept of Sustainable Development

Sample Essays on Global Warming

Here are some sample essays on Global Warming:

Essay on Global Warming Paragraph in 100 – 150 words

Global Warming is caused by the increase of carbon dioxide levels in the earth’s atmosphere and is a result of human activities that have been causing harm to our environment for the past few centuries now. Global Warming is something that can’t be ignored and steps have to be taken to tackle the situation globally. The average temperature is constantly rising by 1.5 degrees Celsius over the last few years.

The best method to prevent future damage to the earth, cutting down more forests should be banned and Afforestation should be encouraged. Start by planting trees near your homes and offices, participate in events, and teach the importance of planting trees. It is impossible to undo the damage but it is possible to stop further harm.

Essay on Global Warming in 250 Words

Over a long period, it is observed that the temperature of the earth is increasing. This affected wildlife, animals, humans, and every living organism on earth. Glaciers have been melting, and many countries have started water shortages, flooding, and erosion and all this is because of global warming.

No one can be blamed for global warming except for humans. Human activities such as gases released from power plants, transportation, and deforestation have increased gases such as carbon dioxide, CFCs, and other pollutants in the earth’s atmosphere. The main question is how can we control the current situation and build a better world for future generations. It starts with little steps by every individual.

Start using cloth bags made from sustainable materials for all shopping purposes, instead of using high-watt lights use energy-efficient bulbs, switch off the electricity, don’t waste water, abolish deforestation and encourage planting more trees. Shift the use of energy from petroleum or other fossil fuels to wind and solar energy. Instead of throwing out the old clothes donate them to someone so that it is recycled.

Donate old books, don’t waste paper. Above all, spread awareness about global warming. Every little thing a person does towards saving the earth will contribute in big or small amounts. We must learn that 1% effort is better than no effort. Pledge to take care of Mother Nature and speak up about global warming.

Essay on Global Warming in 500 Words

Global warming isn’t a prediction, it is happening! A person denying it or unaware of it is in the most simple terms complicit. Do we have another planet to live on? Unfortunately, we have been bestowed with this one planet only that can sustain life yet over the years we have turned a blind eye to the plight it is in. Global warming is not an abstract concept but a global phenomenon occurring ever so slowly even at this moment. Global Warming is a phenomenon that is occurring every minute resulting in a gradual increase in the Earth’s overall climate. Brought about by greenhouse gases that trap the solar radiation in the atmosphere, global warming can change the entire map of the earth, displacing areas, flooding many countries, and destroying multiple lifeforms. Extreme weather is a direct consequence of global warming but it is not an exhaustive consequence. There are virtually limitless effects of global warming which are all harmful to life on earth. The sea level is increasing by 0.12 inches per year worldwide. This is happening because of the melting of polar ice caps because of global warming. This has increased the frequency of floods in many lowland areas and has caused damage to coral reefs. The Arctic is one of the worst-hit areas affected by global warming. Air quality has been adversely affected and the acidity of the seawater has also increased causing severe damage to marine life forms. Severe natural disasters are brought about by global warming which has had dire effects on life and property. As long as mankind produces greenhouse gases, global warming will continue to accelerate. The consequences are felt at a much smaller scale which will increase to become drastic shortly. The power to save the day lies in the hands of humans, the need is to seize the day. Energy consumption should be reduced on an individual basis. Fuel-efficient cars and other electronics should be encouraged to reduce the wastage of energy sources. This will also improve air quality and reduce the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Global warming is an evil that can only be defeated when fought together. It is better late than never. If we all take steps today, we will have a much brighter future tomorrow. Global warming is the bane of our existence and various policies have come up worldwide to fight it but that is not enough. The actual difference is made when we work at an individual level to fight it. Understanding its import now is crucial before it becomes an irrevocable mistake. Exterminating global warming is of utmost importance and each one of us is as responsible for it as the next.

Also Read: Essay on Library: 100, 200 and 250 Words

Essay on Global Warming UPSC

Always hear about global warming everywhere, but do we know what it is? The evil of the worst form, global warming is a phenomenon that can affect life more fatally. Global warming refers to the increase in the earth’s temperature as a result of various human activities. The planet is gradually getting hotter and threatening the existence of lifeforms on it. Despite being relentlessly studied and researched, global warming for the majority of the population remains an abstract concept of science. It is this concept that over the years has culminated in making global warming a stark reality and not a concept covered in books. Global warming is not caused by one sole reason that can be curbed. Multifarious factors cause global warming most of which are a part of an individual’s daily existence. Burning of fuels for cooking, in vehicles, and for other conventional uses, a large amount of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, and methane amongst many others is produced which accelerates global warming. Rampant deforestation also results in global warming as lesser green cover results in an increased presence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which is a greenhouse gas. Finding a solution to global warming is of immediate importance. Global warming is a phenomenon that has to be fought unitedly. Planting more trees can be the first step that can be taken toward warding off the severe consequences of global warming. Increasing the green cover will result in regulating the carbon cycle. There should be a shift from using nonrenewable energy to renewable energy such as wind or solar energy which causes less pollution and thereby hinder the acceleration of global warming. Reducing energy needs at an individual level and not wasting energy in any form is the most important step to be taken against global warming. The warning bells are tolling to awaken us from the deep slumber of complacency we have slipped into. Humans can fight against nature and it is high time we acknowledged that. With all our scientific progress and technological inventions, fighting off the negative effects of global warming is implausible. We have to remember that we do not inherit the earth from our ancestors but borrow it from our future generations and the responsibility lies on our shoulders to bequeath them a healthy planet for life to exist.

Climate Change and Global Warming Essay

Global Warming and Climate Change are two sides of the same coin. Both are interrelated with each other and are two issues of major concern worldwide. Greenhouse gases released such as carbon dioxide, CFCs, and other pollutants in the earth’s atmosphere cause Global Warming which leads to climate change. Black holes have started to form in the ozone layer that protects the earth from harmful ultraviolet rays.

Human activities have created climate change and global warming. Industrial waste and fumes are the major contributors to global warming.

Another factor affecting is the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and also one of the reasons for climate change. Global warming has resulted in shrinking mountain glaciers in Antarctica, Greenland, and the Arctic and causing climate change. Switching from the use of fossil fuels to energy sources like wind and solar.

When buying any electronic appliance buy the best quality with energy savings stars. Don’t waste water and encourage rainwater harvesting in your community.

Tips to Write an Essay

Writing an effective essay needs skills that few people possess and even fewer know how to implement. While writing an essay can be an assiduous task that can be unnerving at times, some key pointers can be inculcated to draft a successful essay. These involve focusing on the structure of the essay, planning it out well, and emphasizing crucial details.

Mentioned below are some pointers that can help you write better structure and more thoughtful essays that will get across to your readers:

Prepare an outline for the essay to ensure continuity and relevance and no break in the structure of the essay
Decide on a thesis statement that will form the basis of your essay. It will be the point of your essay and help readers understand your contention
Follow the structure of an introduction, a detailed body followed by a conclusion so that the readers can comprehend the essay in a particular manner without any dissonance.
Make your beginning catchy and include solutions in your conclusion to make the essay insightful and lucrative to read
Reread before putting it out and add your flair to the essay to make it more personal and thereby unique and intriguing for readers

Also Read: I Love My India Essay: 100 and 500+ Words in English for School Students

Ans. Both natural and man-made factors contribute to global warming. The natural one also contains methane gas, volcanic eruptions, and greenhouse gases. Deforestation, mining, livestock raising, burning fossil fuels, and other man-made causes are next.

Ans. The government and the general public can work together to stop global warming. Trees must be planted more often, and deforestation must be prohibited. Auto usage needs to be curbed, and recycling needs to be promoted.

Ans. Switching to renewable energy sources , adopting sustainable farming, transportation, and energy methods, and conserving water and other natural resources.

Relevant Blogs

For more information on such interesting topics, visit our essay writing page and follow Leverage Edu.

Digvijay Singh

Having 2+ years of experience in educational content writing, withholding a Bachelor's in Physical Education and Sports Science and a strong interest in writing educational content for students enrolled in domestic and foreign study abroad programmes. I believe in offering a distinct viewpoint to the table, to help students deal with the complexities of both domestic and foreign educational systems. Through engaging storytelling and insightful analysis, I aim to inspire my readers to embark on their educational journeys, whether abroad or at home, and to make the most of every learning opportunity that comes their way.

8 Universities with higher ROI than IITs and IIMs

Grab this one-time opportunity to download this ebook

Connect With Us

45,000+ students realised their study abroad dream with us. take the first step today..

Resend OTP in

Need help with?

Study abroad.

UK, Canada, US & More

IELTS, GRE, GMAT & More

Scholarship, Loans & Forex

Country Preference

New Zealand

Which English test are you planning to take?

Which academic test are you planning to take.

Not Sure yet

When are you planning to take the exam?

Already booked my exam slot

Within 2 Months

Want to learn about the test

Which Degree do you wish to pursue?

When do you want to start studying abroad.

September 2024

January 2025

What is your budget to study abroad?

How would you describe this article ?

Please rate this article

We would like to hear more.

Ethics & Leadership
Fact-Checking
Media Literacy
The Craig Newmark Center
Reporting & Editing
Ethics & Trust
Tech & Tools
Business & Work
Educators & Students
Training Catalog
Custom Teaching
For ACES Members
All Categories
Broadcast & Visual Journalism
Fact-Checking & Media Literacy
In-newsroom
Memphis, Tenn.
Minneapolis, Minn.
St. Petersburg, Fla.
Washington, D.C.
Poynter ACES Introductory Certificate in Editing
Poynter ACES Intermediate Certificate in Editing
Ethics Training
Ethics Articles
Get Ethics Advice
Fact-Checking Articles
IFCN Grants
International Fact-Checking Day
Teen Fact-Checking Network
International
Media Literacy Training
MediaWise Resources
Ambassadors
MediaWise in the News

Support responsible news and fact-based information today!

4 guidelines for writing about climate change

The climate story has moved beyond science and is increasingly local . It touches communities and coverage in new ways every day. As you cover the topic in your area, here are some guidelines for your reporting.

Do not conflate science and policy. They are separate things. Science informs policymaking but it does not dictate what policies should be chosen. Different people may reach different conclusions, depending on what they value.

Be specific about which climate change “debate” you are covering. There is no single debate; there are separate debates within science, within policy and within economics, and debates about how scientific findings should guide policy.

Be clear about the science. The overarching issue is as settled as things get in science: The planet is warming and humans are largely responsible. As a result, glaciers and ice sheets are melting. New, contradictory evidence could come along–science is always subject to revision. But the idea that humans are causing climate change is not scientifically controversial.

Avoid “global warming: yes or no?” coverage. Although there are still many scientific questions to be answered, the climate change story has shifted to policy. What should we do, if anything, about climate change? Just as governments routinely make decisions about fiscal policy under great uncertainty, environmental policy can proceed even though scientific uncertainties remain.

Taken from Covering Climate Change , a self-directed course by Tom Yulsman at Poynter NewsU .

Take the full course

Have you missed a Coffee Break Course? Here’s our complete lineup . Or follow along on Twitter at #coffeebreakcourse.

LIVE: Fact-checking Kamala Harris’ 2024 DNC speech in Chicago

PolitiFact is live fact-checking the fourth and final night of the 2024 Democratic National Convention

Opinion | Who has been the DNC’s most surprising speaker so far?

It’s Stephanie Grisham, a former White House press secretary for Donald Trump who now supports Kamala Harris for president

Fact check: What Walz, Buttigieg, Clinton and others got right and wrong at Day 3 of the DNC

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz accepted his party’s vice presidential nomination on the Democratic convention’s third night

Opinion | Stephen Colbert offers a live interview master class as protesters interrupt his chat with Nancy Pelosi

He treated Pelosi with respect. He treated the audience members with respect. And everyone walked away with their dignity.

The Star Tribune isn’t the only local newspaper that’s growing

From Louisiana to South Carolina and Georgia to Vermont, news outlets are bucking the trend and opening bureaus across their states

Start your day informed and inspired.

Get the Poynter newsletter that's right for you.

Home — Essay Samples — Environment — Environment Problems — Climate Change

Essays on Climate Change

Climate change: essay topics for college students.

Welcome to our resource page designed for college students seeking inspiration for their climate change essays. The choice of topic is a crucial first step in the writing process, reflecting your personal interests and creativity. This page aims to guide you through selecting a compelling essay topic that not only captivates your interest but also challenges you to think critically and analytically.

Depending on your assignment requirements or personal preference, essays can be categorized into several types. Below, you will find a variety of climate change essay topics categorized by essay type. Each topic is accompanied by an introductory paragraph example, highlighting a clear thesis statement, and a conclusion paragraph example that summarizes the essay's main points and reiterates the thesis.

Argumentative Essays

Topic: The Effectiveness of International Agreements in Combating Climate Change
Thesis Statement: International agreements, though crucial, are not sufficiently effective in combating climate change without enforceable commitments.

Conclusion Example: In summarizing, international agreements provide a framework for climate action but lack the enforcement necessary for real change. To combat climate change effectively, these agreements must be accompanied by binding commitments that ensure countries adhere to their promises, underscoring the need for a more robust global enforcement mechanism.

Compare and Contrast Essays

Topic: Renewable Energy Sources vs. Fossil Fuels: A Comparative Analysis
Thesis Statement: Renewable energy sources, despite higher initial costs, are more environmentally sustainable and cost-effective in the long run compared to fossil fuels.

Conclusion Example: Through this comparative analysis, it is clear that renewable energy sources offer a more sustainable and cost-effective solution to powering our world than fossil fuels. Embracing renewables not only mitigates the impact of climate change but also secures a sustainable energy future.

Descriptive Essays

Topic: The Impact of Climate Change on Coral Reefs
Thesis Statement: Climate change poses a severe threat to coral reefs, leading to bleaching events, habitat loss, and a decline in marine biodiversity.

Conclusion Example: The devastation of coral reefs is a stark reminder of the broader impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems. Protecting these vital habitats requires immediate action to mitigate the effects of climate change and preserve marine biodiversity for future generations.

Persuasive Essays

Topic: The Role of Individual Actions in Mitigating Climate Change
Thesis Statement: Individual actions, when collectively embraced, can drive significant environmental change and are essential in the fight against climate change.

Conclusion Example: In conclusion, the cumulative effect of individual actions can make a substantial difference in addressing climate change. By adopting more sustainable lifestyles, individuals can contribute to a larger movement towards environmental stewardship and climate action.

Narrative Essays

Topic: A Personal Journey Towards Sustainable Living
Thesis Statement: Through personal commitment to sustainable living, individuals can contribute meaningfully to mitigating climate change while discovering the intrinsic rewards of a simpler, more purposeful lifestyle.

Conclusion Example: This journey towards sustainable living has not only contributed to climate action but has also offered a deeper appreciation for the importance of individual choices. As more people embark on similar journeys, the collective impact on our planet can be transformative.

We encourage you to select a topic that resonates with your personal interests and academic goals. Dive deep into your chosen subject, employ critical thinking, and let your creativity flow as you explore different perspectives and solutions to climate change. Remember, the best essays are not only informative but also engaging and thought-provoking.

Writing on these topics will not only enhance your understanding of climate change and its implications but also develop your skills in research, critical thinking, persuasive writing, and narrative storytelling. Each essay type offers a unique opportunity to explore different facets of the climate crisis, encouraging you to engage with the material in a meaningful way.

Hooks for Climate Change Essay

Climate change is not just an environmental issue; it is a pressing global crisis that affects every aspect of our lives. From melting polar ice caps to rising sea levels, the signs of climate change are everywhere, and they are impossible to ignore.

Imagine a world where natural disasters are a daily occurrence. This is not a dystopian future; it is the reality we face if we do not address climate change now.
Have you ever wondered why the summers seem hotter and the winters milder? The answer lies in the alarming acceleration of climate change.
Picture your favorite coastal city submerged under water. This scenario is closer than you think due to the rapid rise in sea levels.
What if I told you that climate change could lead to the extinction of over one million species by 2050? The clock is ticking for our planet's biodiversity.
Every time you turn on a light or drive your car, you contribute to a global problem. Understanding the personal impact of climate change is the first step towards meaningful action.

Climate Change Outline Essay Examples

Example 1: causes and effects of climate change, introduction.

Introduce the topic of climate change, its significance, and provide a thesis statement outlining the main points.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Deforestation

Industrial Activities

Urbanization

Rising Sea Levels

Extreme Weather Events

Loss of Biodiversity

Impact on Human Health

Renewable Energy Sources

Afforestation and Reforestation

Policy and Legislation

Public Awareness and Education

Summarize the main points, restate the significance of addressing climate change, and provide a call to action for individuals and policymakers.

Example 2: The Impact of Climate Change on Global Ecosystems

Introduce the importance of ecosystems and how they are threatened by climate change. Provide a thesis statement outlining the main areas of focus.

Coral Bleaching

Ocean Acidification

Disruption of Marine Food Chains

Forest Degradation

Changes in Wildlife Migration Patterns

Alteration of Plant Growth Cycles

Glacial Melt and Reduced Snowpack

Changes in Water Quality

Disruption of Aquatic Species Habitats

Summarize the impacts of climate change on different ecosystems, emphasize the interconnectedness of these systems, and highlight the need for comprehensive conservation efforts.

Example 3: The Role of Policy in Combating Climate Change

Introduce the role of policy in addressing climate change, and provide a thesis statement highlighting the importance of governmental and international efforts.

Renewable Energy Incentives

Carbon Pricing

Regulations on Emissions

Paris Agreement

Kyoto Protocol

UN Climate Change Conferences (COP)

Economic and Political Barriers

Technological Innovations

Public and Private Sector Collaboration

Summarize the role of policy in combating climate change, discuss the need for robust and enforceable policies, and call for increased global cooperation and commitment.

The Causes and Effects of Climate Change: a Comprehensive Analysis

Climate change and global cooperation, made-to-order essay as fast as you need it.

Each essay is customized to cater to your unique preferences

+ experts online

150-word on Global Warming

The global environmental issues: climate change, pollution and natural resources, climate change in the 21st century: a global health crisis, climate change: issues and strategy to mitigate it, let us write you an essay from scratch.

450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

How Global Warming Changed Earth's Environment

Analysis of the possible causes of climate change, climate change as a serious threat, global warming and what people can do to save earth, get a personalized essay in under 3 hours.

Expert-written essays crafted with your exact needs in mind

Mother Nature and Climate Change: We Must Take Action

Climate change: a rhetorical perspective, the global problem of co2 emission and its possible solution, impact of the youth climate movement on climate change, the impact of global warming on climate change, climate change and business and government initiatives, impact of climate change on british columbia's biodiversity, the top three individual contributors to climate change, the issue of climate change in african countries, climate change: greenhouse effect, the crucial importance of addressing climate change, climate change and the australian fires, climate changes: emission of greenhouse gases, human & nature contribution, worsening california's wildfires: climate change, climate change as the one of the biggest threats to humanity now, analysis on climate change and the deterioration of the environment, greenhouse gases and climate change, investigation of the consequences of climate change, india's efforts towards mitigating climate change, the importance of climate change education.

Climate change refers to long-term changes in the Earth's climate, including rising temperatures, shifting weather patterns, and more severe natural disasters.

The historical context of climate change spans centuries. The Industrial Revolution in the 18th century marked increased fossil fuel use, releasing significant greenhouse gases. By the late 19th century, scientists like Svante Arrhenius linked carbon dioxide to Earth's temperature. Climate change gained attention in the mid-20th century, with the 1958 Keeling Curve showing rising CO2 levels. Key events include the 1988 establishment of the IPCC, the 1992 UNFCCC, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, and the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Greenhouse gas emissions: The burning of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, and natural gas, releases carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) into the atmosphere, trapping heat and contributing to global warming.
Industrial activities: Industrial processes, including manufacturing, construction, and chemical production, release CO2 and other greenhouse gases through energy consumption and the use of certain chemicals.
Agricultural practices: Livestock farming produces methane through enteric fermentation and manure management, while the use of synthetic fertilizers releases nitrous oxide.
Land use changes: Converting land for agriculture, urban development, or other purposes alters natural ecosystems and contributes to the release of CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
Waste management: Improper handling and decomposition of organic waste in landfills produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
Rising temperatures: Global warming leads to increased average temperatures worldwide, resulting in heatwaves, melting glaciers and polar ice, and rising sea levels.
Extreme weather events: Climate change intensifies extreme weather events such as hurricanes, droughts, floods, and wildfires, leading to devastating impacts on ecosystems, communities, and infrastructure.
Disruption of ecosystems: Changes in temperature and precipitation patterns disrupt ecosystems, affecting biodiversity, migration patterns, and the survival of plant and animal species.
Health impacts: Climate change contributes to the spread of diseases, heat-related illnesses, and respiratory problems due to increased air pollution and the expansion of disease vectors.
Water scarcity: Changing climate patterns can alter rainfall patterns, causing water scarcity in certain regions, affecting agriculture, drinking water supplies, and ecosystems that depend on water sources.

Transitioning to renewable energy sources like solar, wind, and hydropower, along with improving energy efficiency in industries and buildings, can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Promoting electric vehicles, public transportation, and biking infrastructure further cuts emissions. Forest conservation and reforestation help absorb carbon dioxide, while sustainable agriculture practices reduce emissions and improve soil health. Embracing a circular economy reduces waste, and strong climate policies alongside public awareness drive collective action against climate change.

The levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Earth's atmosphere are currently higher than any recorded in the past 800,000 years. According to data from ice core samples, pre-industrial CO2 levels averaged around 280 parts per million (ppm), while current levels have exceeded 410 ppm.
The Earth's average temperature has increased by about 1 degree Celsius since the late 19th century.
The Arctic region is warming at a faster pace than any other part of the planet.
Human activities, such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation, are major contributors to climate change.
Climate change is also affecting wildlife, with many species facing extinction due to habitat loss.

Climate change is a critical issue that affects all aspects of our lives, from the environment to the economy. It poses a threat to biodiversity, food security, and human health. Addressing climate change requires global cooperation and immediate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate its impacts. By raising awareness and taking steps to combat climate change, we can protect the planet for future generations.

1. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2018). Global warming of 1.5°C. Retrieved from https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/ 2. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (n.d.). Climate change: How do we know? Retrieved from https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/ 3. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. (2015). Paris Agreement. Retrieved from https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement 4. World Health Organization. (2018). Climate change and health. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-change-and-health 5. Environmental Protection Agency. (2021). Climate change indicators: Atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. Retrieved from https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/greenhouse-gases 6. United Nations Environment Programme. (2020). Emissions gap report 2020. Retrieved from https://www.unep.org/emissions-gap-report-2020 7. Stern, N. (2007). The economics of climate change: The Stern Review. Cambridge University Press. 8. Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. (2019). Summary for policymakers of the global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services. Retrieved from https://ipbes.net/sites/default/files/2020-02/ipbes_global_assessment_report_summary_for_policymakers_en.pdf 9. World Meteorological Organization. (2021). State of the global climate 2020. Retrieved from https://library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?explnum_id=10739 10. Cook, J., Oreskes, N., Doran, P. T., Anderegg, W. R., Verheggen, B., Maibach, E. W., ... & Nuccitelli, D. (2016). Consensus on consensus: A synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming. Environmental Research Letters, 11(4), 048002. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002

Relevant topics

Global Warming
Natural Disasters
Ocean Pollution
Fast Fashion
Water Pollution
Air Pollution

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Bibliography

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

Instructions Followed To The Letter
Deadlines Met At Every Stage
Unique And Plagiarism Free

Air Pollution Essay Topics Topics: 119
Pollution Research Topics Topics: 236
Global Warming Paper Topics Topics: 184
Recycling Topics Topics: 123
Biodiversity Paper Topics Topics: 58
Earthquake Essay Topics Topics: 107
Climate Essay Topics Topics: 260
Renewable Energy Paper Topics Topics: 118
Ecosystem Essay Topics Topics: 71
Alternative Energy Paper Topics Topics: 92
Hurricane Research Topics Topics: 139
Waste Disposal Paper Topics Topics: 110
Environmental Issues Research Topics Topics: 111
Marine Life Essay Topics Topics: 124
Environment Research Topics Topics: 490

317 Climate Change Essay Topics

Looking for fresh and original climate change titles for your assignment? Look no further! Check out this list of excellent climate change topics for essays, research papers, and presentations. Need some additional inspiration? Click on the links to access helpful climate change essay samples!

🏆 Best Essay Topics on Climate Change

📚 catchy climate change essay topics, 👍 good climate change research topics & essay examples, 🎓 most interesting climate change research titles, 🌶️ hot climate change topics for research, 💡 simple climate change essay ideas, ✍️ climate change essay topics for college, ❓ climate change research paper questions, ✅ climate change topics for presentation, 🔎 current climate change topics for research, ⭐ climate change research topics: our list’s benefits.

The Problem of Global Warming and Ways of Its Solution
Environmental Health Theory and Climate Change
Tree Planting and Climate Change
Climate Change and Future Generations
Climate Change: The Impact of Technology
Climate Change and Corporate Responsibility
Global Warming is Not a Myth
Climate Change Impacts on Oceans The consequences of climate change on seawater have had harmful impacts, including irreversible damage to the water’s natural environment and ecological system.
Food Security: The Impact of Climate Change Since climate change affects the natural world, it is evident that it poses particular challenges for food security in the future.
Climate Change Impacts It is doubtless that global change has become one the challenges, which encompasses a wide range of human life, including social and economical aspects of human life.
Extreme Weather and Global Warming The Global warming is a bad phenomenon that is causing to see level raise, change weather pattern, and create alteration in animal life.
Global Warming and Ozone Depletion The phenomena of ozone depletion and global warming are entirely different processes, they are often confused for each other due to the obvious connection between them.
Solving the Climate Change Crisis by Using Renewable Energy Sources Climate change has caused extreme changes in temperature and weather patterns on planet Earth, thus threatening the lives of living organisms.
The Problem of Climate Change in the 21st Century Climate change is among the top threats facing the world in the 21st century, and it deserves prioritization when planning how to move the country and the globe forward.
Climate Change in Africa and How to Address It According to environmental scientists, Africa is exposed to the effects of climatic alterations subject to its elevated levels of poverty, and dependence on rain-fed farming.
Social Issue: Climate Change The topic of climate change was chosen to learn more in the modern sense about the phenomenon that most people have heard about for decades.
Energy Crisis and Climate Change The global community needs to adopt an energy efficient behavior and invest in the exploration of sustainable energy resources.
Al Gore’s Speech on Global Warming Using two essential constituents of a subtle rhetoric analysis for speech or text, the paper scrutinizes Al Gore’s speech on global warming.
Climate Change and Global Warming Global warming is a subject that has elicited a heated debate for a long time. This debate is commonplace among scholars and policy makers.
Effects of Global Warming: Essay Example According to environmentalists and other nature conservatives, Africa would be the worst hit continent by the effects of global warming despite emitting less greenhouse gases.
How Global Warming Affects Wildlife Global warming is a matter of great concern since it affects humans and wildlife directly, and this issue should be addressed appropriately.
Impact of Climate Change on Property Development and Management This essay will focus on the BBC article, COP26 promises could limit global warming to 1.8C, with a specific focus on the impact of climate change on property development.
Climate Change From the Anthropological Perspective The adaptive nature of the anthropological development of humanity explains the contemporary global problems, and climate change may be assessed from the human adaptation perspective.
How Climate Changes Affect Coastal Areas Natural disasters and hazards caused by climate change are especially the cases during modern times, as the number of toxic substances and polluting elements is increasing every year.
Climate Change: Concept and Theories Climate change has become a concern of scientists rather recently. There are numerous theories as to the reasons for this process, but there are still no particular answers.
Global Warming Effects on the Environment and Animals Global warming is a threat to the survival and well-being of human and animal life. This discussion aims to provide the effects of the current global warming threats.
Climate Change and Accessibility to Safe Water The paper discusses climate change’s effect on water accessibility, providing graphs on water scarcity and freshwater use and resources.
Electric Vehicles and Their Impact on Climate Change Internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEV) that have dominated the market over the recent decades are now giving way to electric vehicles (EV) experiencing rapid growth.
Global Warming: Myth or Reality? Global warming can be described as a progressive increase in the earth’s temperature as a result of a trap to greenhouse gases within its atmosphere.
Philosophers’ Theories on Climate Change The paper demonstrates two philosophers’ theories on climate change, namely Laura Westra and Graham Long. The thoughts and ideas are evaluated by using a hypothetical situation.
Canada: The First Victim of Global Climate Change Canada’s infrastructure and urbanization will be severely damaged by the shift and expansion of uninhabitable zones, which will lead to climate refugees.
Global Warming Challenges Solving in General Electric Environmental solutions that favor the growth of the company rather than social responsibility drive the decisions and policies of the company.
Climate Change, Human Activities and Remedies Human beings are the worst enemies of the environment. The Kyoto Protocol and the concept of green buildings are the two major interventions to climatic change and global warming.
The Effect of Global Warming and the Future Global warming effects are the social and environmental changes brought-about by the increase in global temperatures.
Investing in Climate Change vs. Space Exploration Efforts aimed at investing in climate change versus outer space exploration will be compared in this essay, and their consequences will be analyzed.
Security and Climate Change Climate change has been happening at an unprecedented rate over the last decade to become a major global concern.
“The Basics of Climate Change” Blog The author of “The Basics of Climate Change” reveals the main concepts about the balance between the input and output of energy on Earth that directly relate to the climate.
The Impact of Climate Change on Inflectional Diseases This paper will examine the increasing spread of infectious diseases as one of the effects of climate change, as well as current and possible measures to overcome it.
Climate Change and Social Responsibility in the UAE The UAE is rapidly developing for several decades already, which has a positive influence on the well-being of the population.
How Climate Change Impacts Aviation The issue of climate change and its impact on the aviation industry has been a developing story lately due to the two-way relationship between them.
Climate Change and Global Warming Awareness If people continue to have misconceptions about global warming, climate change will negatively impact weather, food security, and biodiversity.
The Climate Change Impact on Sea Levels and Coastal Zones This paper summarizes the effects of climate change on seawater levels and subsequent effects on the coastal zones.
Global Warming and Business Ethics Business ethics is significant in promoting effective industrial activities that promote environmental conservation and reduce global warming.
Fast Fashion and Its Impacts on Global Warming Fast fashion contributes to this change in weather conditions due to its improper disposal, leading to the release of emissions into the atmosphere, thus causing global warming.
Global Warming in Relation to Human Population Size The density of the world population in the future is a crucial component of climate policy to safeguard the vulnerable future generation.
The Global Impact of Climate Change Into Our Homes and Families A home is a significant part of someone’s life. That’s why it is always considered as part of basic needs. They give people a sense of belonging and security.
Global Warming, Climate Change and Ozone Depletion Global warming refers to an increase in the Earth’s average temperature that is characterized by rising global surface temperatures and the accumulation of pollutants in the atmosphere.
Human Impact on the Environment Leading to Climate Change An elevated amount of greenhouse gases results in the retention of solar energy in the low levels of the atmosphere, which in turn brings to the melting of glaciers.
It’s Not My Fault: Global Warming and Moral Responsibility The work of the American professor of ethical sciences Sinnott-Armstrong approaches the phenomenon of global warming in terms of individual and collective responsibility.
Journal and Newspaper Collection on Global Warming This paper comments on Journal/ newspaper article on global warming from major newspapers and journals around the world
The Issue of Unstoppable Global Warming and Its Effects Drought levels shall increase if the temperatures remain high, evaporation shall increase too, mostly at summer and fall, could worsen famine, and the danger of wildfires.
Climate Changes Impact on Agriculture and Livestock The project evaluates the influences of climate changes on agriculture and livestock in different areas in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Global Warming With an Emphasis on the Arctic This paper presents the impact of global warming with a focus on the Arctic region. It also provides key solutions that can be implemented to reduce its effects.
Climate Change and Its Evidence The review of common claims about global warming made it possible to say that in spite of some skeptical opinions, it might be really happening.
Climate Change: When Nature Is in Agony The issue of climate changes not new; it has already been on the agenda of the world ecologists in 1990s, and in 2010s, the issue seems to have gained a new significance.
Climate Change and International Trade The relationship between climate change and international trade has been on a great verge of developing a new critical issue. This was so evident at the Conference of Parties Climate Conference.
Climate Change and Environmental Degradation Creating a planning model for climate change and environmental degradation requires a comprehensive approach that considers multiple factors.
Climate Change as a Healthcare Priority Human-caused climate change significantly impacts the ecological situation and many areas of human life, such as health care.
Climate Change as an Ethical Issue Although global warming is a hotly debated topic, some groups claim that the issue is not as acute as it is presented.
The Effect of Climate Change on Weather Climate change is resulting in weather extremes that are affecting millions of people around the world in recent times.
Devastating Effects of Global Warming The incapacitating consequences of a changing climate have resulted in significant distress among vulnerable populations as they face various challenges.
Discussion of Impact of Climate Change in Society Modern scholars and environmentalists acknowledge that climate change is a major challenge affecting the global society today.
Greenhouse Effect as a Cause of Global Warming The report serves an informative function and is designed to explore the nature of global warming through the greenhouse effect.
Climate Change in Terms of Project Management The primary aim of the following paper is to define the notion of climate change in terms of project management, risk management, and business communication.
Global Warming: Causes, Factors and Effects The main factors that have been attributed to the resulting global warming are the green house gas effects, differences in the solar and also volcanoes.
Climate Change and Its Potential Impact on Agriculture and Food Supply The global food supply chain has been greatly affected by the impact of global climate change. There are, however, benefits as well as drawbacks to crop production.
Climate Change and Related Issues in Canada The essay argues that modern sources of scientific knowledge about climate change can drastically change people’s attitudes to an eco-friendly lifestyle.
Climate Change Policies and Regulation The current changes in climate patterns have attracted attention from researchers and institutions as they endeavor to formulate and implement policies.
Questions on Information Revolution and Global Warming The information revolution characterizes the period of change propelled by the development of computer technology. Technological advancements impact people’s lives.
The Climate Change Issue in the Political Agenda One of the significant challenges modern societies have in combating the harmful impacts of climate change is the political agenda, which obscures the more comprehensive picture.
Climate Change: The Negative Effects Climate change impacts the world through weather changes. Extreme weather events are becoming more common and more severe. Climate change is also causing the ocean to acidify.
Climate Change Threats to Global Hospitality Industry Climate change is a growing threat to the global hospitality industry, and humanity must take action to mitigate its impact.
Climate Change and Resource Scarcity The paper states that Sustainable Development Goal 13, Climate Action, is the United Nations’ goal to take urgent action to combat climate change.
Climate Change as a Global Problem One of the global problems of our time is global warming. This problem is relevant not in any particular country but all over the world.
Is the Threat of Global Warming Real? Increases in Earth’s average temperature over an extended period are called global warming. Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere have recently increased.
Climate Change: A Global Concern The phenomenon of climate change has attracted a notable amount of attention, the early 1990s being the point at which the phenomenon in question became a worldwide concern.
Climate Change Threats in Public Perception Diverse social, economic, ecological, and geopolitical variables that operate on multiple scales contribute to different levels of human vulnerability to climate change threats.
The Key to Addressing Climate Change in Modern Business Globalisation, industrialisation, and rise of global corporations promoted the increased topicality of the climate change topic and its transformation into a shared problem.
Overpopulation, Climate Change, and Security Issues This research paper examines such social and environmental issues as overpopulation, urbanization, climate change, food security, and air pollution.
Solubility of Carbon Dioxide Related to Climate Change The solubility of carbon dioxide is directly related to climate change because oceans absorb excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Climate Change: Nature Communications Climate change is one of the main concerns in contemporary global society. This subject is an issue of great contention, with different sides disagreeing.
Global Warming: Understanding Causes of Event Global warming is a phenomenon characterized by the gradual increase of the temperature of the earth’s atmosphere.
Climate Change and Its Impact on the Weather Climate change is a serious issue nowadays, considering that it is bound to affect my generation and the next ones.
Climate Change: Impact on Lemurs Climate change and other environmental issues severely impact the lifestyle and behaviors of lemurs. High temperatures make lemurs spend more time on the ground.
Climate Change: Impact on Extreme Weather Events The article summarizes the scientific paper on the impact of climate change on extreme weather events worldwide.
Climate Change: Causes, Dynamics, and Effects It is crucial to provide a description of the problem of the climate crisis, its causes and effects, and possible prevention measures.
Ethical, Moral, and Christian Views on Climate Change Strategies Climate change strategies pose ethical, moral, and religious concerns that influence people to bring change and conserve the environment.
The History of Climate Change and Global Warming Issue The paper states that the history of climate change and the solutions communities opted for are critical to tackling the current global warming issue.
Greenpeace’s Climate Change Article Review The article What Are the Solutions to Climate Change by Greenpeace explains the ways climate change can be resolved while using comprehensive terms and being concise.
Worldwide Effects of Global Warming The article conveys Trenberth’s message about the far-reaching implications of global warming on climate and the urgent need for collective action to address its consequences.
Climate Change and Health: Public Health Human activity influences the environment in various ways, from climate change acceleration to the increasing deforestation that can cause another global pandemic.
Global Warming and Climate Change and Their Impact on Humans Climate change and global warming are significant issues with negative impacts on all aspects of human life; for example, they disrupt the food web, hurting humans and wildlife.
Earth Day and the Climate Change Agenda This research paper examines the social significance and ecological value of Earth Day in the face of the climate change agenda.
The Earth Day and Climate Change Climate change remains a relevant topic despite over fifty years of efforts since the establishment of Earth Day in 1970.
Desertification and Climate Change Desertification can be prevented by holistic and planned grazing. This transformation can lead to better outcomes in the fight against climate change.
Importance of Climate Change Issue Decision The situation of climate change is the central issue of the 21st century, and its solution is a turning point in history.
Climate Changes Effects on the North and South Pole Global climate change has led to major problems in the North and South Pole ecosystems, with many animals losing their homes and even becoming endangered.
Climate Change and Creation of Earth Day Climate change enables communities to create environmental initiatives, industries to update their manufacturing, and politicians to influence the problem through their campaigns.
Climate Change Mitigation Strategies and Animals The thesis of the article is clear and identifies two main points, which are the problem that the global discussion does not propose sufficient methods to solve the issue.
Water Scarcity as Effect of Climate Change Climate change is the cause of variability in the water cycle, which also reduces the predictability of water availability, demand, and quality, aggravating water scarcity.
The Climate Change: Project Topic Exploration Climate change is an environmental problem that relates to an increase in the Earth’s average surface temperature.
Air Pollution Crisis and Climate Change in China Air pollution is a serious problem in many countries, including China. The main source of air pollutants is fumes from burning fuels in industries or vehicles.
Analysis of Climate Change Ethical Issues Climate change is a major problem in contemporary society, evidenced by issues such as global warming that have affected and continue to wreck societal norms around the world.
“The Impact of Climate Change Mitigation Strategies on Animal Welfare” by Shields and Orme-Evans The paper states that for animal welfare to improve, climate change mitigation strategies should encompass systematic changes in the industry.
Climate Change from Different Perspectives The climate change situation has two types of responses, with one camp making deliberate efforts to minimize the impact of climate change and others ignoring the issue altogether.
Climate Change: The Impact on North America As the analysis of climate change patterns reveals, the North American continent is on the verge of profound environmental changes resulting from global warming.
The Impacts of Climate Change Mitigation Strategies on Animal Welfare The article by Shields and Orme-Evans focuses on the problem of climate change from the aspect of greenhouse emissions from farm animals and their contribution to global warming.
How Climate Change Influenced Global Migration Migration and conflict have become the most important reasons causing researchers’ interest in climate change.
Climate Change and Crop Production This paper aims to discuss how climate change affects crop production in Latin American, Central American, and Eastern African regions.
Global Warming and Crop Production in Africa Many people are aware of the current and future negative effects of global warming. Global warming will cause severe reductions in the crop in Africa, particularly in Ethiopia.
Carbon Markets and Climate Change Many climatological concepts predict a rise in worldwide average temperature over the succeeding few decades centered on tripling atmospheric carbon oxide levels.
Solar Activity as a Cause of Climate Change Climate change is not solely the result of human activity because solar activity also impacts the Earth’s climate in a significant manner.
How Human Activities Cause Climate Change Scientists and various leaders globally have seriously debated the causes of climate change. This essay involves a discussion of how human activities cause climate change.
Climate Change: Risks and Consequences Climate change has long been one of the global environmental challenges humanity has faced. A slow but steady rise in surface temperatures is a sustainable trend.
Carbon Dioxide Factor in Climate Change Increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide have a profound effect on global warming, and in turn, it affects the total temperature of the Earth.
Climate Change: The Role of Scientific and Technological Progress This paper serves as a starting point when looking at climate change and the effects of scientific and technological progress.
Consequences of Global Warming Although the opinions about the causes of climate change are diverse, the effects of human activities and natural elements are similar and lead to global warming.
Climate Change and Modern Indigenous Treaties in Northern Canada The purpose of this paper is to answer the following question: how does climate change affect aboriginal culture, food gathering, and Canadian government policy?
Water Scarcity Due to Climate Change This paper focuses on the adverse impact that water scarcity has brought today with the view that water is the most valuable element in running critical processes.
Ascertaining Scientific Truth on Climate Change Human activities impact the environment. The consequences of anthropological actions reverberate across all aspects of the Earth’s habitat.
Climate Change and Fall of the Western Roman Empire The authors researched the relevant literature about why the Empire failed and how climate change was connected to the decline.
Climate Change Prevention Improvements This paper aims to examine the principal indicators in achieving improvements in climate change prevention and the current results of programs.
The UN Climate Change Conference: Indigenous Concerns During the UN Climate Change Conference, it was clear that indigenous environmental defenders have a particular stake in the outcomes of climate change global negotiations.
Climate Change Prediction for the Caribbean Climate change can be defined as the global spectacle of climate alteration described by the earth’s natural climate variations due to human activities.
Climate Change: Canada’s Environment Policy The essay argues that Canada is a major contributor to climate change and its environmental policies are inadequate in resolving the environmental problems.
Researching the Interactions between Climate Change and Plankton Communities This paper is aimed at examining the interactions between climate change and plankton communities, focusing on the abundance, distribution, and structure of the species.
Climate Change in “The Parable of the Sower” by Butler Butler’s “The Parable of The Sower” is a post-apocalyptic knowledge literature novel that addresses climate modification and socioeconomic inequalities.
Social Challenges of Climate Change Climate change is among the most pressing global issues, and it is not easy to find a solution that will work for everyone.
Global Warming: “Hopeful Lessons From the Battle to Save Rainforests” The “Hopeful lessons from the battle to save rainforests” video proposes several solutions to deforestation and global warming.
Climate Change: Factors and Future Climate change and global warming have been stressed since the early 20th century, and different environmental corps and governments have communicated several mitigation techniques.
Climate Change and Global Health Climate change is among the most discussed topics in various fields, as it has overarching effects on many aspects of human life.
Global Warming Effects on Earth Global warming presents a considerable threat by having an enormous influence on humanity’s social, economic, and physical state.
The Affect of Climate Change on the Social and Environmental Determinants of Health There is a lack of sufficient awareness in society about how climate change affects health although it significantly influences its environmental determinants.
Climate Change in Environmentally Vulnerable Countries The repercussions of climate change are global in character and unprecedented in size, ranging from changing weather patterns to sea level rise.
Climate Change and the Media Biases This essay’s purpose is to address the media bias concerning the rising global warming and climate change, referring to news articles made by scientists and various scholars.
The Future of Coal Plants Regarding Climate Change The use of coal plants to provide energy has been at the center of the growth of many economies of the world. However, coal is associated with the emission of greenhouse gasses.
Global Warming and Economics Discussion The article discusses that at the international level, the carbon tax is not always conducive to climate change regulation.
Climate Change and Food Production Cycle In order to address the problem of climate change in relation to the overproduction of food, a more responsible attitude toward its consumption.
Global Warming: The Importance of Addressing the Climate Crisis The paper states that global warming has many consequences. Multiple scientific discoveries emphasize the importance of addressing the climate crisis urgently.
Examining the Potential of Digital Earth Services in Connection to Global Warming In this work, the primary characteristics of global warming will be discussed with the implementation of digital Earth tools, examining the data from these sources.
Climate Change and Carbon Dioxide Emissions Climate change is in large part caused by human action, and the continued industrial development of the world can be accredited to exacerbating the problem further than ever.
Climate Change Reflection in Law System The paper states that climate change in the coming decade will be crucial to achieving global goals set on the governmental and international levels.
Climate Change and Environmental Anxiety Individuals must develop a strategy to be able to resist climate change. In addition, there is a need for a global plan to restrain the influence of global warming.
The Impact of Climate Change on the United States Climate change is a serious issue faced by the United States, and it has various effects, including in the spheres of economy, animal habitat, and health of the population.
The Science Behind Climate Change Regardless of how strong the natural change to the climate system was, it could not have led to the temperature increase seen over the past semicentenary.
Oil Spills and How They Are Related to Climate Change The paper states that oil spills are destructive to ecosystems. Oil spills and climate change are two deeply interrelated environmental phenomena.
The Controversies of Climate Change This paper discusses the issue of climate change by considering the arguments presented by both the proponents and opponents based on ethical principles and sources of moral value.
Causes of Climate Change and Ways to Reduce It Despite the effects, investing in green energy, increasing vegetation cover, and conducting public education are some measures that can be taken to reduce climate change.
Solar Energy in China and Its Influence on Climate Change The influence of solar energy on climate change has impacted production, the advancement of solar energy has impacted climate change in the geography of China.
Natural Climate Solutions for Climate Change in China The crisis in China gives rise to several significant environmental problems, including air pollution, land degradation, deforestation, and poor water quality.
International Climate Change Law and National Acts The growing number of countries involved in the fight against environmental problems is seen as a positive step. As a justification, the scope of emission coverage is considered.
Harmful Impact of Climate Change Climate change is one of the most notable environmental problems that humanity is facing today and defines it as ‘long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns’.
Anthropogenic Influence on Climate Change Throughout History The objective of this paper is to discuss the anthropogenic influence on climate change through history and adaptations during the glaciation period.
Climate Change, Its Causes and Implications The purpose of this paper is to present the causes and implications of climate change and to elaborate on the current climate change policies.
Mitigating Climate Change in Massachusetts: Policy Recommendations The purpose of this report is to discuss and recommend long-term and short-term responses for the state of Massachusetts to undertake to mitigate climate change.
Climate Change and Tesla’s Electric Cars The paper discusses environmental sustainability. Using Tesla company electric vehicles is the best decision for tackling the climate change problem.
The Health Impacts of Climate Change in China Although climate change could not directly affect the Chinese population’s health, climate change interference could increase the number of respiratory system diseases, etc.
Disasters Caused by Climate Change This paper focuses on several recent natural disasters caused by climate change – simultaneous fires in Russia and floods in Pakistan.
Climate Change and Mitigation Approaches The issue of climate change may appear to be extremely controversial. The reason behind that is the fact that environmental changes have both dependence and influence on humanity.
Impacts of Climate Change on Electricity Demand in China Fan et al.’s “Impacts of climate change on electricity demand in China” article forecasts the potential effects on the electricity demand under three climate change scenarios.
Tree Planting Ameliorating Climate Change Environmentalists and policymakers have been designing strategies to ameliorate climate change in a sustainable manner.
Environmental Treaties in Addressing Climate Change In response to the growing concerns, established international organizations and new coalitions have attempted to create several agreements.
Impacts of Climate Change on Agriculture and Food This paper will examine four aspects of climate change: variation in the rainfall pattern, water levels, drought, temperature, and heatwaves.
The Truth Behind Climate Change The real solution of the problem of climate change could be to decarbonize the global energy system that is 80% fossil fuel, but it is significant in scale.
“Climate Change Facts and Effect on Economy” by Amadeo Kimberly Amadeo attempts to address one of the ecological issues, namely global warming, and introduces the article Climate Change Facts and Effect on Economy.
Web-Based Organizational Discourses: Climate Change This paper pertains to the investigation of argumentation formation within the process of interaction with organizations holding similar and opposite opinions and viewpoints.
Discussing Climate Change: Randy Johnson In this work, I will describe an interview with an expert meteorologist Randy Johnson, and provide information necessary to understand his background and experience.
How Human Behavior Promotes Climate Change
The Impact of Global Climate Change on Health
Environmental Issues: Problems of Climate Change
Iron Fertilization: Solving Global Warming
How Car Emissions Affect Global Warming
The Catholic Response to the Climate Change
Climate Change: Dangers and Prevention
Correlation of “Climate Change” and Public Health
The Problem of Climate Change in South Florida
Climate Change as a Public Health Issue
Economic Model for Global Warming
Effect of Climate Change in the Future
Religion and Politics: Pope Francis and Climate Change
How Climate Change Increases the Risk of Hurricanes
Global Warming From a Social Studies Perspective
The Effect of Climate Change on the Environment
Climate Change: El Niño Oscillation Phenomenon (ENSO)
Climate and Social Change in Global Warming Crisis
Capitalism, Climate Change, and Globalization
The Importance of Addressing Climate Change
Impact of Climate Change on Early Societies
Modern Environmental Issues: Climate Change
Global Warming and Climate Change
Climate Change: Forecast of Possible Events
Climate Change: The Leading Cause of Global Warming
Climate Change: Causes and Consequences, and the Issue of Social Collapse
Sustainable Development: The Climate Change Issues
Climate Change Skepticism in Relation to Global Warming
The Issue of Global Warming in the Community
Climate Change as a Challenge to Australia
Global Warming: Do Human Activities Threaten to Change Climate?
Global Warming and Mitigation Strategies
Global Warming: Is It Caused by Nature or Mankind?
Controversy About Global Warming: Skepticism and Reality
Global Warming and Other Ecology Issues
Global Warming: Harmful Impact on the Polar Bears
Global Warming: Issue Analysis
Oil and Gas Industry Response to Global Warming
Global Warming: Causes and Solutions
The Kyoto Protocol: First Framework for Fighting Global Warming
Global Warming as Not a New-Fangled Issue
The Global Warming Crisis and Ways of its Solution
Global Warming: Causes and Consequences
Issue of the Global Warming
Global Warming: Solving a Social Problem
Car Emissions and Global Warming
Women’s Activism Sources Around Climate Change
Weather and Climate Change: Physical Equations
Climate Change and Impact on Human Health
Ecofeminism: Women Against Climate Change
Health Issues Caused by Climate Change
Respiratory Diseases Caused by Climate Change
Global Warming and Its Various Consequences
Climate Change Factors and Impacts on Blue Crab Populations
Global Warming Leads Climate Change
Climate Change Impacts Florida’s Biodiversity
The Paris Accord: Macroeconomics and Global Warming
Climate Change as Political Leaders’ Primary Concern
Virtue Ethics: Altering Testimony on Global Warming
Climate Change Initiative in Canada
Impact of Climate Change on Intermodal Transportation
Global Warming and Its Health Implications
Global Warming and Its Threats: Debates
Remote Sensing Applications to Climate Change
Climate Change and Human Heath
The Issue of Global Warming
Napa Valley Wine Industry and Climate Change
Climate Change Affecting Global Public Health
Global Warming Problems due to Economic Growth
Global Warming and the Free Rider Problem
Trump Presidency: Immigration and Climate Change
Iron Seeding Oceans: Global Warming Solution
Biodiversity, Global Warming, Environmental Conservation
Climate Change as a Threat to Pension Fund
Climate Change: Changing Patterns of Malaria
The Problem of Global Warming and Its Effects
Global Climate Change and Health Concerns
British Petroleum’s Risks due to Climate Changes
Paris Agreement: Climate Change Deal
Global Warming as a Humanity’s Fault
Climate Change: Changing Patterns of Malaria Disease
The Climate Change Problem
Multinational Corporations and Climate Change
Humans Contribution to Global Climate Change
The Seriousness of Global Warming
Global Warming: Car Emissions Effects
Car Emission Effects on Global Warming
Environmental Studies of Global Warming: Cause and Mitigation
The United States Policy on Climate Change
Global Warming Causes and Impacts
Environmental Studies: The Global Warming Holocaust
The Issue of Global Climate Change and the Use of Global Ethic
Concept of Global Warming
Causes and Effects of Global Warming on the Environment
What Natural Forces Have Caused Climate Change?
What Problems Are Involved with Establishing an International Climate Change Regime?
What Role Has Human Activity Played in Causing Climate Change?
What Does the World Say About Climate Change?
What Are the Five Main Effects of Climate Change?
What Is Climate Change and How Is It Changing?
What Is Climate Change in Simple Words?
How Does Climate Change Affect Human Life?
Why Is Climate Change Important?
How Does Climate Change Affect Society?
What Are Some of the Signs of Climate Change?
What Are the Impacts of Climate Change?
What Is the Main Ways of Solving Climate Change Issue?
What Are Some Examples of Climate Change?
How Does Climate Change Affect Our Human Rights?
What Can Students Do to Help Climate Change?
How Can We Reduce the Impact of Climate Change?
When Did Climate Change Become an Issue?
Can Climate Change Be Stopped?
Where Is Climate Change the Worst?
Why Is Climate Change a Global Challenge?
How Many Years Do We Have to Save the Planet From Climate Change?
How Many Years Until Climate Change Is Irreversible?
What American State Is Safest From Climate Change?
Where Should People Live to Avoid Climate Change?
What Countries Will Be the Least Affected by Climate Change?
Who Will Benefit From Climate Change?
What Is China Doing About Climate Change?
Which Country Is the Biggest Contributor to Climate Change?
What Is the Most Effective Solution to Climate Change?
Climate Change-Related Health Risks
Climate Change Threats to Ecosystems and Species
How Deforestation Leads to Climate Change
Costs and Benefits of Climate Change Mitigation Strategies
The Feasibility and Challenges of Renewable Energy Transition
The Politics of Climate Change: Cooperation and Disagreements
How Climate Change Affects Agriculture and Food Production
Climate Change, Migration, and Environmental Refugees
The Connection Between Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events
The Effectiveness of Climate Messaging and Public Perception
How Climate Models Help Predicting Future Climate Scenarios
What Are the Social Justice Dimensions of Climate Change?
Best Personal Carbon Footprint Reduction Strategies
The Impact of Climate Change on Freshwater Availability
Strategies to Cope with Changing Climate Conditions
The Role of Urban Planning in Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation
How Indigenous Knowledge Can Help Understand Climate Change
The Adverse Effect of Climate Change on Polar Regions and Indigenous Peoples
The Consequences of Climate Change and Ocean Acidification for Marine Ecosystems
The Relationship between Environmental Changes and International Security

Here’s what makes our list of topics stand out:

	All the topics are available to you at no cost!
	Our fresh essay titles will inspire great writing.
	Check them out to get even more ideas.
	Our list features plenty of topics to choose from.

Cite this post

Chicago (N-B)
Chicago (A-D)

StudyCorgi. (2021, September 9). 317 Climate Change Essay Topics. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/climate-change-essay-topics/

"317 Climate Change Essay Topics." StudyCorgi , 9 Sept. 2021, studycorgi.com/ideas/climate-change-essay-topics/.

StudyCorgi . (2021) '317 Climate Change Essay Topics'. 9 September.

1. StudyCorgi . "317 Climate Change Essay Topics." September 9, 2021. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/climate-change-essay-topics/.

Bibliography

StudyCorgi . "317 Climate Change Essay Topics." September 9, 2021. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/climate-change-essay-topics/.

StudyCorgi . 2021. "317 Climate Change Essay Topics." September 9, 2021. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/climate-change-essay-topics/.

These essay examples and topics on Climate Change were carefully selected by the StudyCorgi editorial team. They meet our highest standards in terms of grammar, punctuation, style, and fact accuracy. Please ensure you properly reference the materials if you’re using them to write your assignment.

This essay topic collection was updated on June 20, 2024 .

Silhouette of a person walking through a spray of water at sunset with cars and buildings in the background.

Soaring temperatures in New York, July 2010. Photo by Eric Thayer/Reuters

The melting brain

It’s not just the planet and not just our health – the impact of a warming climate extends deep into our cortical fissures.

by Clayton Page Aldern + BIO

In February 1884, the English art critic and polymath John Ruskin took the lectern at the London Institution for a pair of lectures on the weather. ‘The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century’ was his invective against a particular ‘wind of darkness’ and ‘plague-cloud’ that, in his estimate, had begun to envelope Victorian cities only in recent years. He had been taking careful meteorological measurements, he told a sceptical audience. He railed against the ‘bitterness and malice’ of the new weather in question; and, perhaps more importantly, about how it mirrored a certain societal ‘moral gloom’. You could read in us what you could read in the weather, he suggested.

A painting of a landscape with a blue sea, mountains on the left, and dramatic, swirling clouds in the sky.

July Thundercloud in the Val d’Aosta (1858) by John Ruskin. Courtesy Wikipedia

It was easy that February, and perhaps easy today, to disregard any alleged winds of darkness as the ravings of a madman. Clouds are clouds: even if Ruskin’s existed – which was a question of some contemporaneous debate – it would be untoward to imagine they bore any relationship with the human psyche. As Brian Dillon observed of the cloud lectures in The Paris Review in 2019, it can be hard to tell where Ruskin’s ‘bad weather ends and his own ragged, doleful mood begins.’ In 1886, Ruskin suffered a mental breakdown while giving a talk in Oxford. By the end of his life at the turn of the century, he was widely considered insane. His ramblings on meteorology and the human spirit aren’t exactly treated with the same gravitas as his books on J M W Turner.

And yet, for Ruskin, the clouds weren’t just clouds: they were juiced up by a ‘dense manufacturing mist’, as he’d noted in a diary entry. The plague-clouds embodied the miasma of the Industrial Revolution; the moral gloom was specifically that which arose from the rapid societal and environmental changes that were afoot. Ruskin’s era had seen relentless transformation of pastoral landscapes into industrial hubs. Everything smelled like sulphur and suffering. Soot-filled air, chemical and human waste, the clamour of machinery – these were more than just physical nuisances. They were assaults on the senses, shaping moods and behaviour in ways that were not yet fully understood.

A dark, moody painting of an industrial landscape with smokestacks and rooftops, under a cloudy sky with hints of light in the distance.

Mining Area (1852-1905) by Constantin Meunier. Courtesy Wikipedia

Ruskin believed that the relentless pace of industrialisation, with its cacophony of tools and sprawling factories and environmental destruction, undermined psychological wellbeing: that the mind, much like the body, required a healthy social and physical environment to thrive. This was actually a somewhat new idea. (Isaac Ray, a founder of the American Psychiatric Association, wouldn’t define the idea of ‘mental hygiene’, the precursor to mental health, until 1893.) Instability in the environment, for Ruskin, begot instability in the mind. One reflected the other.

M ore than a century later, as we grapple with a new suite of breakneck environmental changes, the plague-clouds are again darkly literal. Global average surface temperatures have risen by about 1.1°C (2°F) since the pre-industrial era, with most of this warming occurring in the past 40 years. Ice is melting; seas are steadily rising; storms are – well, you know this story. And yet, most frequently, it is still a story of the world out there: the world outside of us. The narrative of climate change is one of meteorological extremes, economic upheaval and biodiversity losses. But perhaps it is worth taking a maybe-mad Ruskin seriously. What of our internal clouds? As the climate crisis warps weather and acidifies oceans and shatters temperature records with frightening regularity, one is tempted to ask if our minds are changing in kind.

Here are some of the most concerning answers in the affirmative. Immigration judges are less likely to rule in favour of asylum seekers on hotter days. On such days, students behave as if they’ve lost a quarter-year of education, relative to temperate days. Warmer school years correspond to lower rates of learning. Temperature predicts the incidence of online hate speech. Domestic violence spikes with warmer weather. Suicide , too.

In baseball, pitchers are more likely to hit batters with their pitches on hot days

But you already know what this feels like. Perhaps you’re more ornery in the heat. Maybe you feel a little slow in the head. It’s harder to focus and easier to act impulsively. Tomes of cognitive neuroscience and behavioural economics research back you up, and it’s not all as dire as domestic violence. Drivers honk their horns more frequently (and lean on them longer) at higher temperatures. Heat predicts more aggressive penalties in sport. In baseball, pitchers are more likely to hit batters with their pitches on hot days – and the outdoor temperature is an even stronger predictor of their tendency to retaliate in this manner if they’ve witnessed an opposing pitcher do the same thing.

In other words: it would appear the plague-clouds are within us, too. They illustrate the interconnectedness of our inner and outer worlds. They betray a certain flimsiness of human agency, painting our decision-making in strokes of environmental influence far bolder than our intuition suggests. And they throw the climate crisis into fresh, stark relief: because, yes, as the climate changes, so do we.

T he London Institution closed in 1912. These days, when you want to inveigh against adverse environmental-mind interactions, you publish a paper in The Lancet . And so that is what 24 mostly British, mostly clinical neurologists did in May 2024, arguing that the ‘incidence, prevalence, and severity of many nervous system conditions’ can be affected by global warming. For these researchers, led by Sanjay Sisodiya, professor of neurology at University College London in the UK, the climate story is indeed one of internal clouds.

In their survey of 332 scientific studies, Sisodiya and his colleagues show that climatic influence extends far beyond behaviour and deep into cortical fissures. Aspects of migraine, stroke, seizure and multiple sclerosis all appear to be temperature dependent. In Taiwan, report the authors, the risk of schizophrenia hospitalisation increases with widening daytime temperature ranges. In California , too, ‘hospital visits for any mental health disorder, self-harm, intentional injury of another person, or homicide’ rise with broader daily temperature swings. In Switzerland , hospitalisations for psychiatric disorders increase with temperature, with the risk particularly pronounced for those with developmental disorders and schizophrenia.

Outside the hospital, climate change is extending the habitable range of disease vectors like ticks, mosquitoes and bats, causing scientists to forecast an increased incidence of vector-borne and zoonotic brain maladies like yellow fever, Zika and cerebral malaria. Outside the healthcare system writ large, a changing environment bears on sensory systems and perception, degrading both sensory information and the biological tools we use to process it. Outside the realm of the even remotely reasonable, warming freshwater brings with it an increased frequency of cyanobacterial blooms, the likes of which release neurotoxins that increase the risk of neurodegenerative diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease).

Experiencing natural disasters in utero greatly increases children’s risk of anxiety, depression and ADHD

Indeed, recent studies suggest that climate change may be exacerbating the already substantial burden of neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. In countries with warmer-than-average climates, more intense warming has been linked to a greater increase in Parkinson’s cases and, as Sisodiya et al note, the highest forecasted rates of increase in dementia prevalence are ‘expected to be in countries experiencing the largest effects of climate change’. Similarly, short-term exposure to high temperatures appears to drive up emergency department visits for Alzheimer’s patients. The air we breathe likely plays a complementary role: in Mexico City, for example, where residents are exposed to high levels of fine particulate matter and ozone from a young age, autopsies have revealed progressive Alzheimer’s pathology in 99 per cent of those under the age of 30.

The risks aren’t limited to those alive today. In 2022, for example, an epidemiological study revealed that heat exposure during early pregnancy is associated with a significantly increased risk of children developing schizophrenia, anorexia and other neuropsychiatric conditions. High temperatures during gestation have long been known to delay neurodevelopment in rats. Other scientists have shown that experiencing natural disasters in utero greatly increases children’s risk of anxiety, depression, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and conduct disorders later in life. Such effects cast the intergenerational responsibilities of the Anthropocene in harsh new light – not least because, as Sisodiya and colleagues write, there is a tremendous ‘global disparity between regions most affected by climate change (both now and in the future) and regions in which the majority of studies are undertaken.’ We don’t know what we don’t know.

What we do know is that the brain is emerging, in study after study, as one of climate change’s most vulnerable landscapes.

It is a useful reorientation. Return to the horn-honking and the baseball pitchers for a moment. A focus on the brain sheds some potential mechanistic light on the case studies and allows us to avoid phrases like ‘wind of darkness’. Higher temperatures, for example, appear to shift functional brain networks – the coordinated behaviour of various regions – toward randomised activity. In extreme heat, scientists have taken note of an overworked dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), the evolutionarily new brain region that the neuroendocrinologist Robert M Sapolsky at Stanford University in the US calls ‘the definitive rational decider in the frontal cortex’. The dlPFC limits the degree to which people make impulsive decisions; disrupted dlPFC activity tends to imply a relatively heightened influence of limbic structures (like the emotionally attuned amygdala) on behaviour. More heat, less rational decision-making.

When extreme heat reaches into your mind and tips your scales toward violence, it is constraining your choices

The physicality of environmental influence on the brain is more widespread than the dlPFC – and spans multiple spatial scales. Heat stress in zebrafish, for example, down-regulates the expression of proteins relevant to synapse construction and neurotransmitter release. In mice, heat also triggers inflammation in the hippocampus, a brain region necessary for memory formation and storage. While neuroinflammation often plays an initially protective role, chronic activation of immune cells – like microglia and astrocytes – can turn poisonous, since pro-inflammatory molecules can damage brain cells in the long run. In people, hyperthermia is associated with decreased blood flow to this region. Psychologists’ observations of waning cognition and waxing aggression at higher temperatures makes a world of sense in the context of such findings.

The nascent field of environmental neuroscience seeks to ‘understand the qualitative and quantitative relationships between the external environment, neurobiology, psychology and behaviour’. Searching for a more specific neologism – since that particular phrase also encompasses environmental exposures like noise, urban development, lighting and crime – we might refer to our budding, integrative field as climatological neuroepidemiology. Or, I don’t know, maybe we need something snappier for TikTok. Neuroclimatology? Ecological neurodynamics?

I tend to prefer: the weight of nature.

The weight forces our hands, as in the case of the behavioural effects highlighted above. When extreme heat reaches into your mind and tips your scales toward violence, it is constraining your choices. By definition, impulsive decisions are rooted in comparatively less reflection than considered decisions: to the extent that a changing climate influences our reactions and decision-making, we should understand it as compromising our perceived free will. The weight of nature is heavy. It displaces us.

It is also a heavy psychological burden to carry. You are likely familiar with the notion of climate anxiety . The phrase, which tends to refer to a near-pathological state of worry and fear of impending environmental destruction, has never sat particularly well with me. Anxiety, as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual , is usually couched in terms of ‘excessive’ worry. I’m not convinced there’s anything excessive about seeing the climatic writing on the wall and feeling a sense of doom. Perhaps we ought to consider the climate-anxious as having more developed brains than the rest of the litter – that the Cassandras are the only sane ones left.

I ’m not exactly joking. Neuroscience has begun to study the brains in question, and not for nothing. The midcingulate cortex, a central hub in the brain’s threat-detection circuitry, may hold some clues to the condition’s biological basis: in one 2024 study , for example, researchers at Northern Michigan University in the US found that people who reported higher levels of anxiety about climate change showed distinct patterns of brain structure and function in this region, relative to those with lower levels of climate anxiety – and irrespective of base levels of anxiety writ large. In particular, the climate-anxious brain appears to play host to a smaller midcingulate (in terms of grey matter), but one that’s functionally more connected to other key hubs in the brain’s salience network, a system understood to constantly scan the environment for emotionally relevant information. In the salience network, the midcingulate cortex works hand in hand with limbic structures like the amygdala and insula to prepare the body to respond appropriately to this type of information. In people with climate anxiety, this network may be especially attuned to signals of climate-related threats.

Rather than indicating a deficiency, then, a diminutive midcingulate might reflect a more efficient, finely honed threat-detection system. The brain is well known to prune redundant connections over time, preserving only the most useful neural pathways. Selective sculpting, suggest the Michigan researchers, may allow the climate-anxious brain to process worrisome information more effectively, facilitating rapid communication between the midcingulate and other regions involved in threat anticipation and response. In other words, they write, the climate-anxious midcingulate might be characterised by ‘more efficient wiring’.

This neural sensitivity to potential dangers could be both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, it may attune some people to the very real perils of the future. The midcingulate is critical for anticipating future threats, and meta-analyses have found the region to be consistently activated when people contemplate unpredictable negative outcomes. Given the looming spectre of climate catastrophe, a hair-trigger threat-detection system could be an adaptive asset.

Climate anxiety is not just a sociocultural phenomenon. It has a theoretically identifiable neural correlate

On the other hand, argue the researchers:

[T]he complexity, uncertainty, as well as temporal and geographical distance of the climate crisis, in addition to its global nature, may lead individuals to deprioritising the risks associated with climate change, or becoming overwhelmed and disengaged – a state sometimes referred to as ‘eco-paralysis’.

An overactive midcingulate has been implicated in clinical anxiety disorders, and the new findings suggest that climate anxiety shares some of the same neural underpinnings. (It’s important to recall that climate anxiety seems to be distinct from generalised anxiety, though, as the brain differences observed in the Michigan study couldn’t be explained by overall anxiety levels.)

Ultimately, while speculative, these findings suggest that climate anxiety is not merely a sociocultural phenomenon, but one with theoretically identifiable neural correlates. They provide a potential biological framework for understanding why some people may be more psychologically impacted by climate change than others. And they raise intriguing questions about whether the brains of the climate anxious are particularly well-suited for confronting the existential threat of a warming world – or whether they are vulnerable to becoming overwhelmed by it. In all cases, though, they illustrate that world reaching inward.

T here is perhaps a flipside to be realised here. A changing climate is seeping into our very neurobiology. What might it mean to orient our neurobiology toward climate change?

Such is the premise of a 2023 article in Nature Climate Change by the neuroscientist Kimberly Doell at the University of Vienna in Austria and her colleagues, who argue that the field is well positioned to inform our understanding of climate-adaptation responses and pro-environmental decision-making. In the decades since Ruskin shook his fists at the sky, environmental neuroscience has begun to probe the reciprocal dance between organisms and their ecological niches. We know now that the textures of modern environments – green spaces, urban sprawl, socioeconomic strata – all leave their mark on the brain. Climate change is no different.

Accordingly, argue Doell et al, scientists and advocates alike can integrate findings from neuroscience to improve communications strategies aimed at spurring climate action. They want to turn the tables, taking advantage of insights from neurobiology and cognitive neuroscience to more effectively design climate solutions – both within ourselves and for society as a whole.

The Anthropocene’s fever dream is already warping our wetware

We have models for this type of approach. Poverty research, for instance, has long implicated socioeconomic conditions with subpar health. In more recent years, neuroscience has reverse-engineered the pathways by which poverty’s various insults – understimulation, toxic exposures, chronic stress – can erode neural architecture and derail cognitive development. Brain science alone won’t solve poverty, yet even a limited understanding of these mechanisms has spurred research in programmes like Head Start, a family-based preschool curriculum that has been shown to boost selective attention (as evident in electrophysiological recordings) and cognitive test scores. While the hydra of structural inequity is not easily slain, neuroscientists have managed to shine some light on poverty’s neural correlates, flag its reversible harms, and design precision remedies accordingly. This same potential, argue Doell and her colleagues, extends to the neuroscience of climate change.

To realise this potential, though, we need to further understand how the Anthropocene’s fever dream is already warping our wetware. Social and behavioural science have begun cataloguing the psychological fallout of a planet in flux, but a neural taxonomy of climate change awaits. The field’s methodological and conceptual arsenal is primed for the challenge, but honing it will demand alliances with climate science, medicine, psychology, political science and beyond.

Some are trying. For example, the Kavli Foundation in Los Angeles, US, recognising a need for answers, last year put out a call for scientists to investigate how neural systems are responding to ecological upheaval. With a trial $5 million, the foundation aims to illuminate how habitat loss, light pollution and other environmental insults may be influencing the molecular, cellular and circuit-level machinery of brains, human and otherwise. The central question is: in a biosphere where change is the only constant, are neural systems plastic enough to keep pace, or will they be left struggling to adapt?

The first wave of researchers to take up Kavli’s challenge are studying a diverse array of creatures, each uniquely positioned to reveal insights about the brain’s resilience in the face of planetary disruption. Wolfgang Stein at Illinois State University in the US and Steffen Harzsch at University of Greifswald in Germany, for example, focus on crustaceans, seeking to understand how their neural thermal regulators cope with rising temperatures in shallow and deep waters. Another group has targeted the brains of cephalopods, whose RNA-editing prowess may be key to their ability to tolerate plummeting oxygen levels in their increasingly suffocating aquatic habitats. A third Kavli cohort, led by Florence Kermen at University of Copenhagen in Denmark, is subjecting zebrafish to extreme temperatures, scouring their neurons and glial cells for the molecular signatures that allow them to thrive – even as their watery world heats up.

These initial investments have sparked federal curiosity. In December 2023, the US National Science Foundation joined forces with Kavli, inviting researchers to submit research proposals that seek to probe the ‘modulatory, homeostatic, adaptive, and/or evolutionary mechanisms that impact neurophysiology in response to anthropogenic environmental influence’. We may not be in arms-race territory yet, but at least there’s a suggestion that we’re beginning to walk in the right direction.

T he brain, that spongy command centre perched atop our spinal cord, has always been a black box. As the climate crisis tightens its grip, and the ecological ground beneath our feet grows ever more unsteady, the imperative to pry it open and peer inside grows more urgent by the day. Already, we’ve begun to glimpse the outlines of a new neural cartography, sketched in broad strokes by the likes of Sisodiya and his colleagues. We know now that the brain is less a static lump of self-regulating tissue than it is a dynamic, living landscape, its hills and valleys shaped by the contours of our environment. Just as the Greenland ice sheet groans and buckles under the heat of a changing climate, so too do our synapses wither and our neurons wink out as the mercury rises. Just as rising seas swallow coastlines, and forests succumb to drought and flame, the anatomical borders of our brains are redrawn by each new onslaught of environmental insult.

But the dialogue between brain and biosphere is not a one-way street. The choices we make, the behaviours we pursue, the ways in which we navigate a world in crisis – all of these decisions are reflected back onto the environment, for good or for ill. So, I offer: in seeking to understand how a changing climate moulds the contours of our minds, we must also reckon with how the architecture of our thoughts might be renovated in service of sustainability.

Bit by bit, synapse by synapse, we can chart a course through the gathering plague-cloud

The cartographers of the Anthropocene mind have their work cut out for them. But in the hands of neuroscience – with its shimmering brain scans and humming electrodes, its gene-editing precision and algorithmic might – there is something approaching a starting point. By tracing the pathways of environmental impact to their neural roots, and by following the cascading consequences of our mental processes back out into the world, we might yet begin to parse the tangled web that binds the fates of mind and planet.

This much is clear: as the gears of the climate crisis grind on, our brains will be swept along for the ride. The question is whether we’ll be mere passengers, or whether we’ll seize the controls and steer towards something resembling a liveable future. The weight of nature – the immensity of the crisis we face – is daunting. But it need not be paralysing. Bit by bit, synapse by synapse, we can chart a course through the gathering plague-clouds. It was Ruskin, at a slightly more legible moment in his life, who offered: ‘To banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyse vitality.’ Even if we somehow could, we ought not banish the alleged imperfections of environmental influence on the mind. Instead, we ought to read in them an intimate, vital relationship between self and world.

In this, climatological neuroepidemiology – young and untested though it may be – is poised to play an outsized role. In gazing into the black box of the climate-altered mind, in illuminating the neural circuitry of our planetary predicament, the field offers something precious: a flicker of agency in a world that often feels as if it’s spinning out of control. It whispers that the levers of change are within reach, lodged in the squishy confines of our crania, waiting to be grasped. And it suggests that, even as the weight of nature presses down upon us, we might yet find a way to press back.

Black-and-white photo of a man in a suit and hat grabbing another man by his collar in front of a bar with bottles.

Political philosophy

C L R James and America

The brilliant Trinidadian thinker is remembered as an admirer of the US but he also warned of its dark political future

Harvey Neptune

A suburban street with mountains in the background, featuring a girl on a bike, parked cars, and old furniture on the sidewalk in front of a house.

Progress and modernity

The great wealth wave

The tide has turned – evidence shows ordinary citizens in the Western world are now richer and more equal than ever before

Daniel Waldenström

A brick house with a tiled roof, surrounded by a well-maintained garden with bushes and colourful flowers.

Falling for suburbia

Modernists and historians alike loathed the millions of new houses built in interwar Britain. But their owners loved them

Michael Gilson

Close-up of a person’s hand using a smartphone in a dimly lit room with blurred lights in the background. The phone screen shows the text ‘How can I help you today?’ and a text input field.

Computing and artificial intelligence

Mere imitation

Generative AI has lately set off public euphoria: the machines have learned to think! But just how intelligent is AI?

A black-and-white photo of a person riding a horse in, with a close-up of another horse in the foreground under bright sunlight.

Anthropology

Your body is an archive

If human knowledge can disappear so easily, why have so many cultural practices survived without written records?

Helena Miton

Person in a wheelchair with a laptop, wearing a monitoring cap, and a doctor in a lab coat standing nearby in a clinical setting.

Illness and disease

Empowering patient research

For far too long, medicine has ignored the valuable insights that patients have into their own diseases. It is time to listen

Charlotte Blease & Joanne Hunt

Climate Change Essay: Example and Tips

The following example of climate change essay should be used as a source of information and inspiration. We do not advise direct copy and paste of the parts of the text or the whole paper, because of plagiarism detection. For the ease of use, the paper is divided into logical parts.

1.1 Introduction to climate change essay example
1.2 Body of climate change essay example
1.3.1 Natural disasters
1.3.2 Unsuitable territories for living
1.3.3 The impact on biological diversity
1.3.4 Lack of drinking water, hunger and epidemics
1.3.5 Increasing the level of the world ocean
1.4.1 Adapting the life of society to new conditions
1.4.2 Reducing greenhouse gas emissions
1.5 Conclusion to the climate change essay example

Example of climate change essay

Introduction to climate change essay example.

In recent years, the climate on Earth has changed markedly: some countries suffer from anomalous heat, others from too harsh and snowy winters unusual for these places.

Environmentalists talk about global climate change including an increase in the average annual temperature causing melting of glaciers and an increase in the level of the world’s oceans. In addition to warming, there is also an unbalance of all natural systems, which leads to a change in the regime of precipitation, temperature anomalies and an increase in the frequency of extreme events such as hurricanes, floods and droughts.

According to scientists, for ten months of 2015 the average temperature of the planet was 1.02° C higher than that recorded in the XIX century (when the observation of changes in global temperature began). The threshold of one degree was exceeded for the first time in modern history. Scientists agree that the cause lies in human activity – burning of oil, gas and coal – that leads to greenhouse effect that causes an increase in average temperature. Experts note that between 2000 and 2010, the most powerful increase in greenhouse gas emissions over the past 30 years has been observed. According to the World Meteorological Organization, in 2014, their concentration in the atmosphere reached a record high level.

Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization Michel Jarraud said: “We do not see CO2. This is not a visible threat, but quite real. This means an increase in global temperatures, an increase in the number of extreme weather events, such as floods, melting ice, rising sea level and increasing the acidity of the oceans.”

Body of climate change essay example

If countries do not begin to seriously deal with the problem of environmental protection, by 2100 the temperature on the planet can rise by 3.7-4.8° C. Climatologists warn: irreversible consequences for the ecology will come even with a warming of more than 2° C.

In order to draw maximum attention to climate problems, the UN has attracted not only politicians and scientists, but also celebrities, to the debate. Hollywood actor Robert Redford in his statement warned that for the international community “the time of half measures and the denial of the problem of climate change has ended.”

“We see the effects of this phenomenon (climate change) everywhere – from drought and hunger in Africa and the drying up heat in South Asia to wildfires in North America, devastating hurricanes and floods in New York. We must act together because climate change affects every country” – actor Robert Redford.

What are the consequences for the planet, if the temperature rise can not be stopped?

Natural disasters.

The climatic zones will shift, the weather changes will become more severe (severe frosts, followed by sudden thaws in winter, an increase in the number of abnormally hot days in summer). The frequency and strength of abnormal phenomena such as droughts and floods will increase.

The connection between climate change and the emergence of natural disasters was proved by American scientists who discovered traces of warming in the study of tropical cyclones in the Pacific, unusually high summer temperatures in Europe, China, South Korea and Argentina, and forest fires in the US state of California. Climate change has also catalyzed drought in Africa and the Middle East, snowstorms in Nepal and torrential downpours that have caused floods in Canada and New Zealand.

Unsuitable territories for living

Some countries due to increased humidity and high average temperature by 2100 may become unsuitable for life. According to a study by American scientists, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and other countries of the Middle East are at risk.

According to the calculations of climatologists, at the current rate of growth of greenhouse gas emissions by 2070 the average air temperature in the countries of the Persian Gulf can reach 74-77° C. This will make the territories unsuitable for people. An exception may be large megacities with a developed air conditioning system. But people will be able to leave the house only at night.

The impact on biological diversity

According to some scientists, we are in the middle of the sixth in the history of the Earth mass extinction of species. And this time this process is caused by human actions. If climate warming does not stop, many ecosystems, species of living beings that they contain, will become less diverse, less saturated.

There are forecasts of extinction of up to 30-40% of plant and animal species, as their habitat will change faster than they can adapt to these changes.

Lack of drinking water, hunger and epidemics

UN experts warn that warming will negatively affect yields, especially in the underdeveloped countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America, which will lead to food problems. According to scientists, by 2080 the number of people facing the threat of hunger can increase by 600 million people.

Another important consequence of climate change may be a shortage of drinking water. In regions with arid climate (Central Asia, the Mediterranean, South Africa, Australia, etc.), the situation will be further exacerbated by the reduction in rainfall.

Hunger, water scarcity, and insect migration can lead to an increase in epidemics and the spread of tropical diseases such as malaria in the northern regions.

Climate change can affect not only people’s health, but also increase the risk of political disagreements and conflicts for access to water and food resources.

Increasing the level of the world ocean

One of the most tangible consequences of climate warming is likely to be the melting of glaciers and an increase in the level of the World Ocean. Millions of people on the coast will die from frequent floods or will be forced to relocate, UN analysts predict.

According to the expert community, sea level rise in the 21st century will be up to 1 m (in the 20th century – 0.1-0.2 m). In this case, the most vulnerable are the lowlands, coastal areas and small islands.

The first to enter the risk zone are the Netherlands, Bangladesh and small island states, such as the Bahamas, the Maldives.

Significant territories can be flooded in countries such as Russia, the United States, Britain, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Iraq, Thailand and Vietnam. Serious damage threatens China, where about 140 million people can lose their homes, and Japan, where it can flood more than 30 million people – a quarter of the country’s population.

Facts about climate change and its consequences for different countries

The rise in the level of the World Ocean threatens many cities with flooding. One of the first to go under the water is Venice. The Italian city is located on several islands, the maximum height of which does not exceed 2 meters above sea level;
Even now in Venice, there are regular floods. In 2008, in some areas of the city the water rose by 156 centimeters, and on the San Marco square by 70-80 centimeters;
A rise in sea level of more than 2 meters will lead to the flooding of Amsterdam. The fourth part of the Netherlands is located below sea level. While the country is being protected from floods by protective dams;
Hamburg also uses dams to protect against floods, which occur regularly in Germany’s second largest city. Hamburg can go underwater if the sea level rises by 2.5 meters.
The level of 2.5 meters is critical for St. Petersburg, Russia as well;
Los Angeles will be at risk of flooding if the level of the ocean rises by 3 meters;
The same 3 meters, according to climatologists, can completely flood the New York area of Lower Manhattan;
The aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, which caused floods and severe destruction in America, forced the New York authorities to adopt a plan to protect the city from storms and the effects of warming, which would cost almost $ 20 billion;
Most of New Orleans is below sea level. The city is protected by dams, but they could not help residents when in 2005 they were hit by a hurricane Katrina. Hundreds of thousands of people who left after New Orleans, can be considered the first in the US climate refugees. In the future, due to rising sea level, the situation can only worsen;
Most of London, especially in the south and east, is located on the swamp. Therefore, even a slight increase in sea level increases the risk of serious flooding in the Thames delta;
Now in London there is the so-called “Thames Barrier”, which protects the city from tides. A new problem may be the rising water level in the upper Thames, which affects the entire suburb of London;
The average height of Shanghai above sea level is 6.5 meters. However, part of the city is located in the lowlands, where about 5.5 million people live, which will suffer in case of rising water levels. The authorities only recently began to think about protecting the city from floods. Shanghai is not the only city of China, which is threatened by flooding. The vast territories of cities such as Guangzhou and Hong Kong are located below sea level.

What can we do to stop or slow down climate change?

According to scientists, it is unlikely to completely stop the climate change to mankind. However, the international community is able to contain the temperature increase in order to avoid irreversible environmental consequences. To do this, it is necessary to limit greenhouse gas emissions, develop alternative energy and develop a strategy to reduce risks due to warming.

What can an ordinary person do to slow down climate change?

Adapting the life of society to new conditions

Plans to minimize damage from climate change should cover all areas of human activities, including health, agriculture and infrastructure.

In cold areas, for example, you need to change the storm sewage system, prepare for storm winds (recalculate the strength of structures), change the fire-fighting system – droughts increase the fire hazard.

However, different states have different opportunities to level out the impact of climate change. For example, Holland and Bangladesh experience the same problems: there are more storms, the ocean level has risen. But in Holland there is already a plan of action, they know how they will strengthen the dams, where they will take the funds. And in Bangladesh, there is nothing of this. Thus, most of the measures needed for adaptation are simple and straightforward, but they require tools and effective planning.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions

According to climatologists, in order to keep the temperature rise up to 2° C, countries need to halve global emissions by 2050 in relation to the level of 1990 by 2050, and to the end of the 21st century – to zero.

According to PwC analysts, since 2000, on average, Britain has reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 3% per year, France by 2.7%, the USA by 2.3%. The average annual reduction in carbon emissions over the past 15 years was 1.3%.

However, these efforts are not enough. To prevent irreversible climate change, the annual reduction of carbon dioxide emissions up to 2100 should be at least 6.3%.

This means, on the one hand, it is necessary to introduce energy-saving technologies, on the other – to switch to alternative energy sources.

Conclusion to the climate change essay example

To sum up the information given above, let’s repeat the main threats related to warming:

Increase in the frequency, intensity and duration of droughts in some regions, extreme precipitation, floods, cases of unsafe soil for agriculture – in others;
Increase of fire danger in forests and peat bogs;
violation of the habitual way of life of indigenous northern peoples;
degradation of permafrost with damage to buildings and communications;
violation of ecological balance, displacement of some biological species by others;
increase in electricity consumption for air conditioning in the summer season for a large country.

Even in the worst situation, there are some positive changes:

warming in the Arctic will increase the duration of navigation along the Northern Sea Route and facilitate the development of oil and gas deposits on the shelf;
the heating season will decrease, and, accordingly, the energy consumption will decrease;
the northern boundary of agriculture will shift to the north, due to which the area of agricultural land will grow, especially in Western Siberia and the Urals.

Explore Greyhound Nation

Loyola Today

Our Future Is Now - A Climate Change Essay by Francesca Minicozzi, '21

Francesca Minicozzi (class of 2021) is a Writing/Biology major who plans to study medicine after graduation. She wrote this essay on climate change for WR 355/Travel Writing, which she took while studying abroad in Newcastle in spring 2020. Although the coronavirus pandemic curtailed Francesca’s time abroad, her months in Newcastle prompted her to learn more about climate change. Terre Ryan Associate Professor, Writing Department

Our Future Is Now

By Francesca Minicozzi, '21 Writing and Biology Major

“If you don’t mind me asking, how is the United States preparing for climate change?” my flat mate, Zac, asked me back in March, when we were both still in Newcastle. He and I were accustomed to asking each other about the differences between our home countries; he came from Cambridge, while I originated in Long Island, New York. This was one of our numerous conversations about issues that impact our generation, which we usually discussed while cooking dinner in our communal kitchen. In the moment of our conversation, I did not have as strong an answer for him as I would have liked. Instead, I informed him of the few changes I had witnessed within my home state of New York.

Zac’s response was consistent with his normal, diplomatic self. “I have been following the BBC news in terms of the climate crisis for the past few years. The U.K. has been working hard to transition to renewable energy sources. Similar to the United States, here in the United Kingdom we have converted over to solar panels too. My home does not have solar panels, but a lot of our neighbors have switched to solar energy in the past few years.”

“Our two countries are similar, yet so different,” I thought. Our conversation continued as we prepared our meals, with topics ranging from climate change to the upcoming presidential election to Britain’s exit from the European Union. However, I could not shake the fact that I knew so little about a topic so crucial to my generation.

After I abruptly returned home from the United Kingdom because of the global pandemic, my conversation with my flat mate lingered in my mind. Before the coronavirus surpassed climate change headlines, I had seen the number of internet postings regarding protests to protect the planet dramatically increase. Yet the idea of our planet becoming barren and unlivable in a not-so-distant future had previously upset me to the point where a part of me refused to deal with it. After I returned from studying abroad, I decided to educate myself on the climate crisis.

My quest for climate change knowledge required a thorough understanding of the difference between “climate change” and “global warming.” Climate change is defined as “a pattern of change affecting global or regional climate,” based on “average temperature and rainfall measurements” as well as the frequency of extreme weather events. 1 These varied temperature and weather events link back to both natural incidents and human activity. 2 Likewise, the term global warming was coined “to describe climate change caused by humans.” 3 Not only that, but global warming is most recently attributed to an increase in “global average temperature,” mainly due to greenhouse gas emissions produced by humans. 4

I next questioned why the term “climate change” seemed to take over the term “global warming” in the United States. According to Frank Luntz, a leading Republican consultant, the term “global warming” functions as a rather intimidating phrase. During George W. Bush’s first presidential term, Luntz argued in favor of using the less daunting phrase “climate change” in an attempt to overcome the environmental battle amongst Democrats and Republicans. 5 Since President Bush’s term, Luntz remains just one political consultant out of many politicians who has recognized the need to address climate change. In an article from 2019, Luntz proclaimed that political parties aside, the climate crisis affects everyone. Luntz argued that politicians should steer clear of trying to communicate “the complicated science of climate change,” and instead engage voters by explaining how climate change personally impacts citizens with natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, and forest fires. 6 He even suggested that a shift away from words like “sustainability” would gear Americans towards what they really want: a “cleaner, safer, healthier” environment. 7

The idea of a cleaner and heathier environment remains easier said than done. The Paris Climate Agreement, introduced in 2015, began the United Nations’ “effort to combat global climate change.” 8 This agreement marked a global initiative to “limit global temperature increase in this century to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels,” while simultaneously “pursuing means to limit the increase to 1.5 degrees.” 9 Every country on earth has joined together in this agreement for the common purpose of saving our planet. 10 So, what could go wrong here? As much as this sounds like a compelling step in the right direction for climate change, President Donald Trump thought otherwise. In June 2017, President Trump announced the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement with his proclamation of climate change as a “’hoax’ perpetrated by China.” 11 President Trump continued to question the scientific facts behind climate change, remaining an advocate for the expansion of domestic fossil fuel production. 12 He reversed environmental policies implemented by former President Barack Obama to reduce fossil fuel use. 13

Trump’s actions against the Paris Agreement, however, fail to represent the beliefs of Americans as a whole. The majority of American citizens feel passionate about the fight against climate change. To demonstrate their support, some have gone as far as creating initiatives including America’s Pledge and We Are Still In. 14 Although the United States officially exited the Paris Agreement on November 4, 2020, this withdrawal may not survive permanently. 15 According to experts, our new president “could rejoin in as short as a month’s time.” 16 This offers a glimmer of hope.

The Paris Agreement declares that the United States will reduce greenhouse gas emission levels by 26 to 28 percent by the year 2025. 17 As a leader in greenhouse gas emissions, the United States needs to accept the climate crisis for the serious challenge that it presents and work together with other nations. The concept of working coherently with all nations remains rather tricky; however, I remain optimistic. I think we can learn from how other countries have adapted to the increased heating of our planet. During my recent study abroad experience in the United Kingdom, I was struck by Great Britain’s commitment to combating climate change.

Since the United Kingdom joined the Paris Agreement, the country targets a “net-zero” greenhouse gas emission for 2050. 18 This substantial alteration would mark an 80% reduction of greenhouse gases from 1990, if “clear, stable, and well-designed policies are implemented without interruption.” 19 In order to stay on top of reducing emissions, the United Kingdom tracks electricity and car emissions, “size of onshore and offshore wind farms,” amount of homes and “walls insulated, and boilers upgraded,” as well as the development of government policies, including grants for electric vehicles. 20 A strong grip on this data allows the United Kingdom to target necessary modifications that keep the country on track for 2050. In my brief semester in Newcastle, I took note of these significant changes. The city of Newcastle is small enough that many students and faculty are able to walk or bike to campus and nearby essential shops. However, when driving is unavoidable, the majority of the vehicles used are electric, and many British citizens place a strong emphasis on carpooling to further reduce emissions. The United Kingdom’s determination to severely reduce greenhouse emissions is ambitious and particularly admirable, especially as the United States struggles to shy away from its dependence on fossil fuels.

So how can we, as Americans, stand together to combat global climate change? Here are five adjustments Americans can make to their homes and daily routines that can dramatically make a difference:

Stay cautious of food waste. Studies demonstrate that “Americans throw away up to 40 percent of the food they buy.” 21 By being more mindful of the foods we purchase, opting for leftovers, composting wastes, and donating surplus food to those in need, we can make an individual difference that impacts the greater good. 22
Insulate your home. Insulation functions as a “cost-effective and accessible” method to combat climate change. 23 Homes with modern insulation reduce energy required to heat them, leading to a reduction of emissions and an overall savings; in comparison, older homes can “lose up to 35 percent of heat through their walls.” 24
Switch to LED Lighting. LED stands for “light-emitting diodes,” which use “90 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs and half as much as compact fluorescents.” 25 LED lights create light without producing heat, and therefore do not waste energy. Additionally, these lights have a longer duration than other bulbs, which means they offer a continuing savings. 26
Choose transportation wisely. Choose to walk or bike whenever the option presents itself. If walking or biking is not an option, use an electric or hybrid vehicle which emits less harmful gases. Furthermore, reduce the number of car trips taken, and carpool with others when applicable.
Finally, make your voice heard. The future of our planet remains in our hands, so we might as well use our voices to our advantage. Social media serves as a great platform for this. Moreover, using social media to share helpful hints to combat climate change within your community or to promote an upcoming protest proves beneficial in the long run. If we collectively put our voices to good use, together we can advocate for change.

As many of us are stuck at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, these suggestions are slightly easier to put into place. With numerous “stay-at-home” orders in effect, Americans have the opportunity to make significant achievements for climate change. Personally, I have taken more precautions towards the amount of food consumed within my household during this pandemic. I have been more aware of food waste, opting for leftovers when too much food remains. Additionally, I have realized how powerful my voice is as a young college student. Now is the opportunity for Americans to share how they feel about climate change. During this unprecedented time, our voice is needed now more than ever in order to make a difference.

However, on a much larger scale, the coronavirus outbreak has shed light on reducing global energy consumption. Reductions in travel, both on the roads and in the air, have triggered a drop in emission rates. In fact, the International Energy Agency predicts a 6 percent decrease in energy consumption around the globe for this year alone. 27 This drop is “equivalent to losing the entire energy demand of India.” 28 Complete lockdowns have lowered the global demand for electricity and slashed CO2 emissions. However, in New York City, the shutdown has only decreased carbon dioxide emissions by 10 percent. 29 This proves that a shift in personal behavior is simply not enough to “fix the carbon emission problem.” 30 Climate policies aimed to reduce fossil fuel production and promote clean technology will be crucial steppingstones to ameliorating climate change effects. Our current reduction of greenhouse gas emissions serves as “the sort of reduction we need every year until net-zero emissions are reached around 2050.” 31 From the start of the coronavirus pandemic, politicians came together for the common good of protecting humanity; this demonstrates that when necessary, global leaders are capable of putting humankind above the economy. 32

After researching statistics comparing the coronavirus to climate change, I thought back to the moment the virus reached pandemic status. I knew that a greater reason underlay all of this global turmoil. Our globe is in dire need of help, and the coronavirus reminds the world of what it means to work together. This pandemic marks a turning point in global efforts to slow down climate change. The methods we enact towards not only stopping the spread of the virus, but slowing down climate change, will ultimately depict how humanity will arise once this pandemic is suppressed. The future of our home planet lies in how we treat it right now.

“Climate Change: What Do All the Terms Mean?,” BBC News (BBC, May 1, 2019), https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48057733 )
Ibid.
Kate Yoder, “Frank Luntz, the GOP's Message Master, Calls for Climate Action,” Grist (Grist, July 26, 2019), https://grist.org/article/the-gops-most-famous-messaging-strategist-calls-for-climate-action
Melissa Denchak, “Paris Climate Agreement: Everything You Need to Know,” NRDC, April 29, 2020, https://www.nrdc.org/stories/paris-climate-agreement-everything-you-need-know)
“Donald J. Trump's Foreign Policy Positions,” Council on Foreign Relations (Council on Foreign Relations), accessed May 7, 2020, https://www.cfr.org/election2020/candidate-tracker/donald-j.-trump?gclid=CjwKCAjw4871BRAjEiwAbxXi21cneTRft_doA5if60euC6QCL7sr-Jwwv76IkgWaUTuyJNx9EzZzRBoCdjsQAvD_BwE#climate and energy )
David Doniger, “Paris Climate Agreement Explained: Does Congress Need to Sign Off?,” NRDC, December 15, 2016, https://www.nrdc.org/experts/david-doniger/paris-climate-agreement-explained-does-congress-need-sign )
“How the UK Is Progressing,” Committee on Climate Change, March 9, 2020, https://www.theccc.org.uk/what-is-climate-change/reducing-carbon-emissions/how-the-uk-is-progressing/)
Ibid.
“Top 10 Ways You Can Fight Climate Change,” Green America, accessed May 7, 2020, https://www.greenamerica.org/your-green-life/10-ways-you-can-fight-climate-change )
Matt McGrath, “Climate Change and Coronavirus: Five Charts about the Biggest Carbon Crash,” BBC News (BBC, May 5, 2020), https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/science-environment-52485712 )

Yale Program on Climate Change Communication

About YPCCC
Yale Climate Connections
Student Employment
For The Media
Past Events
YPCCC in the News
Climate Change in the American Mind (CCAM)
Publications
Climate Opinion Maps
Climate Opinion Factsheets
Six Americas Super Short Survey (SASSY)
Resources for Educators
All Tools & Interactives
Partner with YPCCC

Home / For Educators: Grades 6-12 / Climate Explained: Introductory Essays About Climate Change Topics

Climate Explained: Introductory Essays About Climate Change Topics

Filed under: backgrounders for educators ,.

Climate Explained, a part of Yale Climate Connections, is an essay collection that addresses an array of climate change questions and topics, including why it’s cold outside if global warming is real, how we know that humans are responsible for global warming, and the relationship between climate change and national security.

More Activities like this

Climate Change Basics: Five Facts, Ten Words

Backgrounders for Educators

To simplify the scientific complexity of climate change, we focus on communicating five key facts about climate change that everyone should know.

Why should we care about climate change?

Having different perspectives about global warming is natural, but the most important thing that anyone should know about climate change is why it matters.

External Resources

Looking for resources to help you and your students build a solid climate change science foundation? We’ve compiled a list of reputable, student-friendly links to help you do just that!

Subscribe to our mailing list

Please select all the ways you would like to hear from Yale Program on Climate Change Communication:

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. For information about our privacy practices, please visit our website.

We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy practices here.

337 Climate Change Research Topics & Examples

You will notice that there are many climate change research topics you can discuss. Our team has prepared this compilation of 185 ideas that you can use in your work.

📝 Key Points to Use to Write an Outstanding Climate Change Essay

🏆 best climate change title ideas & essay examples, 🥇 most interesting climate change topics to write about, 🎓 simple & easy research titles about climate change, 👍 good research topics about climate change, 🔍 interesting topics to write about climate change, ⭐ good essay topics on climate change, ❓ climate change essay questions.

A climate change essay is familiar to most students who learn biology, ecology, and politics. In order to write a great essay on climate change, you need to explore the topic in great detail and show your understanding of it.

This article will provide you with some key points that you could use in your paper to make it engaging and compelling.

First of all, explore the factors contributing to climate change. Most people know that climate change is associated with pollution, but it is essential to examine the bigger picture. Consider the following questions:

What is the mechanism by which climate change occurs?
How do the activities of large corporations contribute to climate change?
Why is the issue of deforestation essential to climate change?
How do people’s daily activities promote climate change?

Secondly, you can focus on solutions to the problems outlined above.

Climate change essay topics often provide recommendations on how individuals and corporations could reduce their environmental impact. These questions may help to guide you through this section:

How can large corporations decrease the influence of their operations on the environment?
Can you think of any examples of corporations who have successfully decreased their environmental footprint?
What steps can people take to reduce pollution and waste as part of their daily routine?
Do you believe that trends such as reforestation and renewable energy will help to stop climate change? Why or why not?
Can climate change be reversed at all, or is it an inescapable trend?

In connection with these topics, you could also discuss various government policies to address climate change. Over the past decades, many countries enacted laws to reduce environmental damage. There are plenty of ideas that you could address here:

What are some famous national policies for environmental protection?
Are laws and regulations effective in protecting the environment? Why or why not?
How do environmentally-friendly policies affect individuals and businesses?
Are there any climate change graphs that show the effectiveness of national policies for reducing environmental damage?
How could government policies on climate change be improved?

Despite the fact that there is definite proof of climate change, the concept is opposed by certain politicians, business persons, and even scientists.

You could address the opposition to climate change in your essay and consider the following:

Why do some people think that climate change is not real?
What is the ultimate proof of climate change?
Why is it beneficial for politicians and business persons to argue against climate change?
Do you think that climate change is a real issue? Why or why not?

The impact of ecological damage on people, animals, and plants is the focus of most essay titles on global warming and climate change. Indeed, describing climate change effects in detail could earn you some extra marks. Use scholarly resources to research these climate change essay questions:

How has climate change impacted wildlife already?
If climate change advances at the same pace, what will be the consequences for people?
Besides climate change, what are the impacts of water and air pollution? What does the recent United Nations’ report on climate change say about its effects?
In your opinion, could climate change lead to the end of life on Earth? Why or why not?

Covering at least some of the points discussed in this post will help you write an excellent climate change paper! Don’t forget to search our website for more useful materials, including a climate change essay outline, sample papers, and much more!

Climate Change – Problems and Solutions It is important to avoid cutting trees and reduce the utilization of energy to protect the environment. Many organizations have been developed to enhance innovation and technology in the innovation of eco-friendly machines.
Global Warming as Serious Threat to Humanity One of the most critical aspects of global warming is the inability of populations to predict, manage, and decrease natural disruptions due to their inconsistency and poor cooperation between available resources.
Causes and Effects of Climate Changes Climate change is the transformation in the distribution patterns of weather or changes in average weather conditions of a place or the whole world over long periods.
Is Climate Change a Real Threat? Climate change is a threat, but its impact is not as critical as wrong political decisions, poor social support, and unstable economics.
Climate Change: Human Impact on the Environment This paper is an in-depth exploration of the effects that human activities have had on the environment, and the way the same is captured in the movie, The Eleventh Hour.
Climate Change and Extreme Weather Conditions The agreement across the board is that human activities such as emissions of the greenhouse gases have contributed to global warming.
Climate Change and Its Impacts on the UAE Currently, the rise in temperature in the Arctic is contributing to the melting of the ice sheets. The long-range weather forecast indicates that the majority of the coastal areas in the UAE are at the […]
Climate Change Causes and Predictions These changes are as a result of the changes in the factors which determine the amount of sunlight that gets to the earth surface.
The Role of Technology in Climate Change The latter is people’s addiction, obsession, and ingenuity when it comes to technology, which was the main cause of climate change and will be the primary solution to it as well.
The Impact of Climate Change on Food Security Currently, the world is beginning to encounter the effects of the continuous warming of the Earth. Some of the heat must be reflected in space to ensure that there is a temperature balance in the […]
Global Warming and Human Impact: Pros and Cons These points include the movement of gases in the atmosphere as a result of certain human activities, the increase of the temperature because of greenhouse gas emissions, and the rise of the oceans’ level that […]
Tourism and Climate Change Problem There are a number of factors that propelled the growth of tourism and these factors include the improvement of the standards of living in many developed nations, good work polices allowing more time for vacations […]
Transportation Impact on Climate Change It is apparent that the number of motor vehicles in the world is increasing by the day, and this translates to an increase in the amount of pollutants produced by the transportation industry annually.
Climate Change – Global Warming For instance, in the last one century, scientists have directly linked the concentration of these gases in the atmosphere with the increase in temperature of the earth.
Climate Change’s Impact on Crop Production I will address the inefficiencies of water use in our food production systems, food waste, and the impact of temperature on crop yield.
Research Driven Critique: Steven Maher and Climate Change The ravaging effects of Covid-19 must not distract the world from the impending ramifications of severe environmental and climatic events that shaped the lives of a significant portion of the population in the past year.
Climate Change Definition and Description The wind patterns, the temperature and the amount of rainfall are used to determine the changes in temperature. Usually, the atmosphere changes in a way that the energy of the sun absorbed by the atmosphere […]
The Climate Change Articles Comparison In a broader sense, both articles address the concept of sustainability and the means of reinforcing its significance in the context of modern global society to prevent further deterioration of the environment from happening.
Climate Change and Role of Government He considers that the forest’s preservation is vital, as it is the wellspring of our human well-being. As such, the legislature can pass policies that would contribute to safeguarding our nation’s well-being, but they do […]
Climate Change, Development and Disaster Risk Reduction However, the increased cases of droughts, storms, and very high rainfalls in different places are indicative of the culmination of the effects of climate change, and major disasters are yet to follow in the future.
Climate Change: Mitigation Strategies To address the latter views, the current essay will show that the temperature issue exists and poses a serious threat to the planet.
Neolithic Revolution and Climate Change At the primary stage of the evolution of human civilization, the rise of agriculture in the later part of stone age, also known as the Neolithic Revolution, was ultimately necessary to keep pace with the […]
Climate Change: The Day After Tomorrow In the beginning of the film “The Day After Tomorrow”, the main character, Professor Jack Hall, is trying to warn the world of the drastic consequences of a changing climate being caused by the polluting […]
“Climate Change: Turning Up the Heat” by Barrie Pittock The researcher stresses that people should try to minimize the negative effects of climate change in order to enable humanity to adapt to the changing environment in a more effective way.
Climate Change and Renewable Energy Options The existence of various classes of world economies in the rural setting and the rise of the middle class economies has put more pressure on environmental services that are highly demanded and the use of […]
Wildfires and Impact of Climate Change Climate change has played a significant role in raise the likelihood and size of wildfires around the world. Climate change causes more moisture to evaporate from the earth, drying up the soil and making vegetation […]
Rainforests of Victoria: Potential Effects of Climate Change The results of the research by Brooke in the year 2005 was examined to establish the actual impacts of climate change on the East Gippsland forest, especially for the fern specie.
Climate Change Needs Human Behavior Change The thesis of this essay is that human behavior change, including in diet and food production, must be undertaken to minimize climate change, and resulting misery.
Saving the Forest and Climate Changes The greenhouse gases from such emissions play a key role in the depletion of the most essential ozone layer, thereby increasing the solar heating effect on the adjacent Earth’s surface as well as the rate […]
Climate Change Impacts on Ocean Life The destruction of the ozone layer has led to the exposure of the earth to harmful radiation from the sun. The rising temperatures in the oceans hinder the upward flow of nutrients from the seabed […]
Climate Change as a Global Security Threat It is important to stress that agriculture problems can become real for the USA as well since numerous draughts and natural disasters negatively affect this branch of the US economy.
The Three Myths of Climate Change In the video, Linda Mortsch debunks three fundamental misconceptions people have regarding climate change and sets the record straight that the phenomenon is happening now, affects everyone, and is not easy to adapt.
Global Perspectives in the Climate Change Strategy It is required to provide an overview of those programs and schemes of actions that were used in the local, federal and global policies of the countries of the world to combat air pollution.
Technology Influence on Climate Change Undoubtedly, global warming is a portrayal of climate change in the modern world and hence the need for appropriate interventions to foster the sustainability of the environment.
Climate Change Impact on Bangladesh Today, there are a lot of scientists from the fields of ecology and meteorology who are monitoring the changes of climate in various regions of the world.
The Key Drivers of Climate Change The use of fossil fuel in building cooling and heating, transportation, and in the manufacture of goods leads to an increase in the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere.
Global Warming and Effects Within 50 Years Global warming by few Scientists is often known as “climate change” the reason being is that according to the global warming is not the warming of earth it basically is the misbalance in climate.
Global Warming: Causes and Consequences Other definitions of global warming are “the increase in the average temperature of the Earth’s near-surface air and oceans since the mid-twentieth century and its projected continuation”.
Technological and Policy Solutions to Prevent Climate Change Scientists and researchers across the globe are talking about the alarming rates of temperature increase, which threaten the integrity of the polar ice caps.
Ways to Reduce Global Warming The objectives of this report are to identify the causes of global warming, to highlight the expected effects of global warming and to identify ways of reducing global warming.
Anthropogenic Climate Change Since anthropogenic climate change occurs due to the cumulative effect of greenhouse gases, it is imperative that climatologists focus on both immediate and long term interventions to avert future crises of global warming that seem […]
Global Climate Change and Environmental Conservation There may be a significantly lesser possibility that skeptics will acknowledge the facts and implications of climate change, which may result in a lower desire on their part to adopt adaptation. The climate of Minnesota […]
Health Issues on the Climate Change However, the mortality rate of air pollution in the United States is relatively low compared to the rest of the world.
Climate Change: The Key Issues An analysis of world literature indicates the emergence in recent years of a number of scientific publications on the medical and environmental consequences of global climate change.
Desert, Glaciers, and Climate Change When the wind blows in a relatively flat area with no vegetation, this wind moves loose and fine particles to erode a vast area of the landscape continuously in a process called deflation.
Evidence of Climate Change The primary reason for the matter is the melting of ice sheets, which adds water to the ocean. The Republic of Maldives is already starting to feel the effects of global sea-level rise now.
Weather Abnormalities and Climate Change One of the crucial signs of climate change is the rise of the sea level. Thus, the problem of climate change is a threat to water security and needs resolution.
Climate Change’s Negative Impact on Biodiversity This essay’s primary objective is to trace and evaluate the impact of climate change on biological diversity through the lens of transformations in the marine and forest ecosystems and evaluation of the agricultural sector both […]
Pollution & Climate Change as Environmental Risks The purpose of this essay is to provide an analysis of the three articles, focusing on the environmental risks and the risk perceptions of the authors.
The Role of Science and Technology in International Relations Regarding Climate Change This paper examines the role of science and technology as it has been used to address the challenge of climate change, which is one of the major issues affecting the global societies today.
Climate Change: Is Capitalism the Problem or the Solution? This means that capitalism, which is the ability to produce wealth lies in the solution and also the causes of the current global climatic governance.
Climate Change and Its Effects on Tourism in Coastal Areas It is hereby recommended that governments have a huge role to play in mitigating the negative effects of climate change on coastal towns.
Biology of Climate Change There is sufficient evidence that recent climate change is a result of human activities.”Warming of the climate system is unequivocal; as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, […]
The Global Warming Problem and Solution Therefore, it is essential to make radical decisions, first of all, to reduce the use of fossil fuels such as oil, carbon, and natural gas. One of the ways of struggle is to protest in […]
The Straw Man Fallacy in the Topic of Climate Change The straw man fallacy is a type of logical fallacy whereby one person misrepresents their opponent’s question or argument to make it easier to respond.
Global Warming and Climate Change The author shows the tragedy of the situation with climate change by the example of birds that arrived too early from the South, as the buds begin to bloom, although it is still icy.
Climate Change and Threat to Animals In the coming years, the increase in the global temperatures will make many living populations less able to adapt to the emergent conditions or to migrate to other regions that are suitable for their survival.
Starbucks: Corporate Social Responsibility and Global Climate Change Then in the 90s and onwards to the 21st century, Starbucks coffee can be seen almost anywhere and in places where one least expects to see a Starbucks store.
Energy Conservation for Solving Climate Change Problem The United States Environmental Protection Agency reports that of all the ways energy is used in America, about 39% is used to generate electricity.
Environmental Issue – Climate Change If the right measures are put in place, our environment will be regenerated and the continued alterations to the climate will eventually stop.
The Negative Effects of Climate Change in Cities This is exemplified by the seasonal hurricanes in the USA and the surrounding regions, the hurricanes of which have destroyed houses and roads in the past.
Business & Climate Change The purpose of this paper is to apply principles of problem solving skills such as the K-T technique, in analyzing how the challenge of climate change is addressed in the soft drinks industry which in […]
Impact of Food Waste on Climate Change In conclusion, I believe that some of the measures that can be taken to prevent food waste are calculating the population and their needs.
Climate Change and Resource Sustainability in Balkan: How Quickly the Impact is Happening In addition, regarding the relief of the Balkans, their territory is dominated by a large number of mountains and hills, especially in the west, among which the northern boundary extends to the Julian Alps and […]
Climate Change: Renewable Energy Sources Climate change is the biggest threat to humanity, and deforestation and “oil dependency” only exacerbate the situation and rapidly kill people. Therefore it is important to invest in the development of renewable energy sources.
Climate Change and the Allegory of the Cave Plato’s allegory of the cave reflects well our current relationship with the environment and ways to find a better way to live in the world and live with it.
Climate Change, Economy, and Environment Central to the sociological approach to climate change is studying the relationship between the economy and the environment. Another critical area of sociologists ‘ attention is the relationship between inequality and the environment.
Terrorism, Corruption, and Climate Change as Threats Therefore, threats affecting countries around the globe include terrorism, corruption, and climate change that can be mitigated through integrated counter-terror mechanisms, severe punishment for dishonest practices, and creating awareness of safe practices.
Climate Change’s Impact on Hendra Virus Transmission to humans occurs once people are exposed to an infected horse’s body fluids, excretions, and tissues. Land clearing in giant fruit bats’ habitats has exacerbated food shortages due to climate change, which has led […]
Beef Production’s Impact on Climate Change This industry is detrimental to the state of the planet and, in the long term, can lead to irreversible consequences. It is important to monitor the possible consequences and reduce the consumption of beef.
Cities and Climate Change: Articles Summary The exponential population growth in the United States of America and the energy demands put the nation in a dilemma. Climate change challenges are experienced as a result of an increase in greenhouse gas emissions […]
The Impact of Climate Change on Vulnerable Human Populations The fact that the rise in temperatures caused by the greenhouse effect is a threat to humans development has focused global attention on the “emissions generated from the combustion” of fossil fuels.
How Aviation Impacts Climate Change A measurement of the earth’s radiation budget imbalance brought on by changes in the quantities of gases and aerosols or cloudiness is known as radiative forcing.
Food Waste Management: Impact on Sustainability and Climate Change How effective is composting food waste in enhancing sustainability and reducing the effects of climate change? The following key terms are used to identify and scrutinize references and study materials.”Food waste” and sustain* “Food waste” […]
Protecting the Environment Against Climate Change The destruction of the ozone layer, which helps in filtering the excessive ray of light and heat from the sun, expose people to some skin cancer and causes drought.
Climate Change and Immigration Issues Due to its extensive coverage of the aspects of climate migration, the article will be significant to the research process in acquiring a better understanding of the effects of climate change on different people from […]
Global Warming: Speculation and Biased Information For example, people or organizations that deny the extent or existence of global warming may finance the creation and dissemination of incorrect information.
Impacts of Climate Change on Ocean The development of phytoplankton is sensitive to the temperature of the ocean. Some marine life is leaving the ocean due to the rising water temperature.
Impact of Climate Change on the Mining Sector After studying the necessary information on the topic of sustainability and Sustainability reports, the organization was allocated one of the activities that it performs to maintain it.
Climate Change: Historical Background and Social Values The Presidential and Congress elections in the US were usually accompanied by the increased interest in the issue of climate change in the 2010s.
Communities and Climate Change Article by Kehoe In the article, he describes the stringent living conditions of the First Nations communities and estimates the dangers of climate change for these remote areas.
Discussion: Reverting Climate Change Undertaking some of these activities requires a lot of finances that have seen governments setting aside funds to help in the budgeting and planning of the institutions.
Was Climate Change Affecting Species? It was used because it helps establish the significance of the research topic and describes the specific effects of climate change on species.
Climate Change Attitudes and Counteractions The argument is constructed around the assumption that the deteriorating conditions of climate will soon become one of the main reasons why many people decide to migrate to other places.
How Climate Change Could Impact the Global Economy In “This is How Climate Change Could Affect the World Economy,” Natalie Marchand draws attention to the fact that over the next 30 years, global GDP will shrink by up to 18% if global temperatures […]
Effective Policy Sets to Curb Climate Change A low population and economic growth significantly reduce climate change while reducing deforestation and methane gas, further slowing climate change. The world should adopt this model and effectively increase renewable use to fight climate change.
Climate Change: Social-Ecological Systems Framework One of the ways to understand and assess the technogenic impact on various ecological systems is to apply the Social-Ecological Systems Framework.
The Climate Change Mitigation Issues Indeed, from the utilitarian perspective, the current state of affairs is beneficial only for the small percentage of the world population that mostly resides in developed countries.
The Dangers of Global Warming: Environmental and Economic Collapse Global warming is caused by the so-called ‘Greenhouse effect’, when gases in Earth’s atmosphere, such as water vapor or methane, let the Sun’s light enter the planet but keep some of its heat in.
Aviation, Climate Change, and Better Engine Designs: Reducing CO2 Emissions The presence of increasing levels of CO2 and other oxides led to the deterioration of the ozone layer. More clients and partners in the industry were becoming aware and willing to pursue the issue of […]
Climate Change as a Problem for Businesses and How to Manage It Additionally, some businesses are directly contributing to climate change due to a lack of measures that will minimise the emission of carbon.
Climate Change and Disease-Carrying Insects In order to prevent the spreading of the viruses through insects, the governments should implement policies against the emissions which contribute to the growth of the insects’ populations.
Aspects of Global Warming Global warming refers to the steadily increasing temperature of the Earth, while climate change is how global warming changes the weather and climate of the planet.
David Lammy on Climate Change and Racial Justice However, Lammy argues that people of color living in the global south and urban areas are the ones who are most affected by the climate emergency.
Moral Aspects of Climate Change Addresses However, these approaches are anthropocentric because they intend to alleviate the level of human destruction to the environment, but place human beings and their economic development at the center of all initiatives.
Feminism: A Road Map to Overcoming COVID-19 and Climate Change By exposing how individuals relate to one another as humans, institutions, and organizations, feminism aids in the identification of these frequent dimensions of suffering.
Global Warming: Moral and Political Challenge That is, if the politicians were to advocate the preservation of the environment, they would encourage businesses completely to adopt alternative methods and careful usage of resources.
Climate Change: Inconsistencies in Reporting An alternative route that may be taken is to engage in honest debates about the issue, which will reduce alarmism and defeatism.
Climate Change: The Chornobyl Nuclear Accident Also, I want to investigate the reasons behind the decision of the USSR government to conceal the truth and not let people save their lives.
“World on the Edge”: Managing the Causes of Climate Change Brown’s main idea is to show the possibility of an extremely unfortunate outcome in the future as a result of the development of local agricultural problems – China, Iran, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and others – […]
Gendering Climate Change: Geographical Insights In the given article, the author discusses the implications of climate change on gender and social relations and encourages scholars and activists to think critically and engage in debates on a global scale.
Climate Change and Its Consequences for Oklahoma This concept can be defined as a rise in the Earth’s temperature due to anthropogenic activity, resulting in alteration of usual weather in various parts of the planet.
Climate Change Impacts in Sub-Saharan Africa This is why I believe it is necessary to conduct careful, thorough research on why climate change is a threat to our planet and how to stop it.
Climate Change: Global Warming Intensity Average temperatures on Earth are rising faster than at any time in the past 2,000 years, and the last five of them have been the hottest in the history of meteorological observations since 1850.
The Negative Results of Climate Change Climate change refers to the rise of the sea due to hot oceans expanding and the melting of ice sheets and glaciers.
Addressing Climate Change: The Collective Action Problem While all the nations agree that climate change is a source of substantial harm to the economy, the environment, and public health, not all countries have similar incentives for addressing the problem. Addressing the problem […]
Collective Climate Change Responsibility The fact is that individuals are not the most critical contributors to the climate crisis, and while ditching the plastic straw might feel good on a personal level, it will not solve the situation.
Climate Change and Challenges in Miami, Florida The issue of poor environment maintenance in Miami, Florida, has led to climate change, resulting in sea-level rise, an increase of flood levels, and droughts, and warmer temperatures in the area.
Climate Change as Systemic Risk of Globalization However, the integration became more complex and rapid over the years, making it systemic due to the higher number of internal connections.
Impact of Climate Change on Increased Wildfires Over the past decades, America has experienced the most severe fires in its history regarding the coverage of affected areas and the cost of damage.
Creating a Policy Briefing Book: Climate Change in China After that, a necessary step included the evaluation of the data gathered and the development of a summary that perfectly demonstrated the crucial points of this complication.
Natural Climate Solutions for Climate Change in China The social system and its response to climate change are directly related to the well-being, economic status, and quality of life of the population.
Climate Change and Limiting the Fuel-Powered Transportation When considering the options for limiting the extent of the usage of fuel-powered vehicles, one should pay attention to the use of personal vehicles and the propensity among most citizens to prefer diesel cars as […]
Climate Change Laboratory Report To determine the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causing global warming in the next ten decades, if the estimated rate of deforestation is maintained.
Climate Change: Causes, Impact on People and the Environment Climate change is the alteration of the normal climatic conditions in the earth, and it occurs over some time. In as much as there are arguments based around the subject, it is mainly caused by […]
Climate Change and Stabilization Wages The more the annual road activity indicates that more cars traversed throughout a fiscal year, the higher the size of the annual fuel consumption. The Carbon Capture and Storage technology can also reduce carbon emissions […]
UK Climate Change Act 2008 The aim of the UK is to balance the levels of greenhouse gases to circumvent the perilous issue of climate change, as well as make it probable for people to acclimatize to an inevitable climate […]
Sustainability, Climate Change Impact on Supply Chains & Circular Economy With recycling, reusing of materials, and collecting waste, industries help to fight ecological issues, which are the cause of climate change by saving nature’s integrity.
Climate Change Indicators and Media Interference There is no certainty in the bright future for the Earth in the long-term perspective considering the devastating aftereffects that the phenomenon might bring. The indicators are essential to evaluate the scale of the growing […]
Climate Change: Sustainability Development and Environmental Law The media significantly contributes to the creation of awareness, thus the importance of integrating the role of the news press with sustainability practices.
How Climate Change Affects Conflict and Peace The review looks at various works from different years on the environment, connections to conflict, and the impact of climate change.
Toyota Corporation: The Effects of Climate Change on the Word’s Automobile Sector Considering the broad nature of the sector, the study has taken into account the case of Toyota Motor Corporation which is one of the firms operating within the sector.
The Impact of Climate Change on Agriculture However, the move to introduce foreign species of grass such as Bermuda grass in the region while maintaining the native grass has been faced by challenges related to the fiscal importance of the production.
Health and Climate Change Climate change, which is a universal problem, is thought to have devastating effects on human and animal health. However, the precise health effects are not known.
The Issue of Climate Change The only confirmed facts are the impact of one’s culture and community on willingness to participate in environmental projects, and some people can refuse to join, thereby demonstrating their individuality.
Climate Change as a Battle of Generation Z These issues have attracted the attention of the generation who they have identified climate change as the most challenging problem the world is facing today.
Climate Change and Health in Nunavut, Canada Then, the authors tend to use strict and formal language while delivering their findings and ideas, which, again, is due to the scholarly character of the article. Thus, the article seems to have a good […]
Climate Change: Anticipating Drastic Consequences Modern scientists focus on the problem of the climate change because of expecting the dramatic consequences of the process in the future.
The Analysis of Process of Climate Change Dietz is the head of the Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
The Way Climate Change Affects the Planet It can help analyze past events such as the Pleistocene ice ages, but the current climate change does not fit the criteria. It demonstrates how slower the change was when compared to the current climate […]
Polar Bear Decline: Climate Change From Pole to Pole In comparison to 2005 where five of the populations were stable, it shows that there was a decline in stability of polar bear population.
Preparing for the Impacts of Climate Change The three areas of interest that this report discusses are the impacts of climate change on social, economic and environmental fronts which are the key areas that have created a lot of debate and discussion […]
Strategy for Garnering Effective Action on Climate Change Mitigation The approach should be participatory in that every member of the community is aware of ways that leads to climate change in order to take the necessary precaution measures. Many member nations have failed to […]
Impact of Global Climate Change on Malaria There will be a comparison of the intensity of the changes to the magnitude of the impacts on malaria endemicity proposed within the future scenarios of the climate.
Climate Change Economics: A Review of Greenstone and Oliver’s Analysis The article by Greenstone and Oliver indicates that the problem of global warming is one of the most perilous disasters whose effects are seen in low agricultural output, poor economic wellbeing of people, and high […]
Pygmy-Possum Burramys Parvus: The Effects of Climate Change The study will be guided by the following research question: In what ways will the predicted loss of snow cover due to climate change influence the density and habitat use of the mountain pygmy-possum populations […]
Climate Change and the Occurrence of Infectious Diseases This paper seeks to explore the nature of two vector-borne diseases, malaria, and dengue fever, in regards to the characteristics that would make them prone to effects of climate change, and to highlight some of […]
Links Between Methane, Plants, and Climate Change According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it is the anthropogenic activities that has increased the load of greenhouse gases since the mid-20th century that has resulted in global warming. It is only the […]
United Nations Climate Change Conference In the Kyoto protocol, members agreed that nations needed to reduce the carbon emissions to levels that could not threaten the planet’s livelihoods.
The Involve of Black People in the Seeking of Climate Change Whereas some researchers use the magnitude of pollution release as opposed to closeness to a hazardous site to define exposure, others utilize the dispersion of pollutants model to comprehend the link between exposure and population.
Climate Change Dynamics: Are We Ready for the Future? One of the critical challenges of preparedness for future environmental changes is the uncertainty of how the climate system will change in several decades.
How Climate Change Impacts Ocean Temperature and Marine Life The ocean’s surface consumes the excess heat from the air, which leads to significant issues in all of the planet’s ecosystems.
Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Plan for Abu Dhabi City, UAE Abu Dhabi is the capital city of the UAE and the Abu Dhabi Emirate and is located on a triangular island in the Persian Gulf.
Climate Change in Communication Moreover, environmental reporting is not accurate and useful since profits influence and political interference affect the attainment of truthful, objective, and fair facts that would promote efficiency in newsrooms on environmental reporting.
Global Pollution and Climate Change Both of these works address the topic of Global pollution, Global warming, and Climate change, which are relevant to the current situation in the world.
Climate Change Is a Scientific Fallacy Even in the worst-case scenario whereby the earth gives in and fails to support human activities, there can always be a way out.
Climate Change: Change Up Your Approach People are becoming aware of the relevance of things and different aspects of their life, which is a positive trend. However, the share of this kind of energy will be reduced dramatically which is favorable […]
Climate Change: The Broken Ozone Layer It explains the effects of climate change and the adaptation methods used. Vulnerability is basically the level of exposure and weakness of an aspect with regard to climate change.
Climate Change and Economic Growth The graph displays the levels of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the years before our time with the number 0 being the year 1950.
Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence The point of confluence in the cattle raids in East Africa and the planting of opium in the poor communities is the struggle to beat the effects of climatic changes.
Personal Insight: Climate Change To my mind, economic implications are one of the most concerning because the economy is one of the pillars of modern society.
A Shift From Climate Change Awareness Under New President Such statements raised concerns among American journalists and general population about the future of the organization as one of the main forces who advocated for the safe and healthy environment of Americans and the global […]
Human Influence on Climate Change Climate changes are dangerous because they influence all the living creatures in the world. Thus, it is hard to overestimate the threat for humankind the climate changes represent.
Environmental Studies: Climate Changes Ozone hole is related to forest loss in that the hole is caused by reaction of different chemicals that are found in the atmosphere and some of these gases, for example, the carbon dioxide gas […]
Global Warming: Negative Effects to the Environment The effect was the greening of the environment and its transformation into habitable zones for humans The second system has been a consequence of the first, storage.
Global Warming Problem Overview: Significantly Changing the Climate Patterns The government is not in a position to come up with specific costs that are attached to the extent of environmental pollution neither are the polluters aware about the costs that are attached to the […]
Global Change Biology in Terms of Global Warming A risk assessment method showed that the current population could persist for at least 2000 years at hatchling sex ratios of up to 75% male.
The Politics of Climate Change, Saving the Environment In the first article, the author expresses his concern with the problem of data utilization on climate change and negative consequences arising from this.
Maize Production and Climate Change in South Africa Maize farming covers 58% of the crop area in South Africa and 60% of this is in drier areas of the country.
Global Warming Issues Review and Environmental Sustainability Whether it is the melt down of Arctic ice, the damage of the Ozone layer, extra pollution in developing countries; all sums up to one thing in common and that is global warming.
Global Warming: Ways to Help End Global Warming
Biofuels and Climate Change
The Influence of Global Warming and Pollution on the Environment
How Global Warming Has an Effect on Wildlife?
Climate Change Risks in South Eastern Australia
The Politics and Economics of International Action on Climate Change
Climate Change: Influence on Lifestyle in the Future
Climate Change During Socialism and Capitalistic Epochs
Climate Change and Public Health Policies
Climate Changes: Cause and Effect
World Trade as the Adjustment Mechanism of Agriculture to Climate Change by Julia & Duchin
Chad Frischmann: The Young Minds Solving Climate Change
Public Health Education on Climate Change Effects
Research Plan “Climate Change”
Diets and Climate Change
The Role of Human Activities on the Climate Change
Climate Change Factors and Countermeasures
Climate Change Effects on Population Health
Climate Change: Who Is at Fault?
Climate Change: Reducing Industrial Air Pollution
Global Climate Change and Biological Implications
Global Warming, Its Consequences and Prevention
Climate Change and Risks for Business in Australia
Climate Change Solutions for Australia
Climate Change, Industrial Ecology and Environmental Chemistry
“Climate Change May Destroy Alaskan Towns” Video
Climate Change Effects on Kenya’s Tea Industry
Environmental Perils: Climate Change Issue
Technologically Produced Emissions Impact on Climate Change
City Trees and Climate Change: Act Green and Get Healthy
Climate Change and American National Security
Anthropogenic Climate Change and Policy Problems
Climate Change, Air Pollution, Soil Degradation
Climate Change in Canada
International Climate Change Agreements
Polar Transformations as a Global Warming Issue
Moral Obligations to Climate Change and Animal Life
Technology’s Impact on Climate Change
Climate Change in Abu Dhabi
Global Warming and Climate Change: Fighting and Solutions
Climate Change Debates and Scientific Opinion
Earth’s Geologic History and Global Climate Change
CO2 Emission and Climate Change Misconceptions
Geoengineering as a Possible Response to Climate Change
Global Warming: People Impact on the Environment
Climate Change: Ways of Eliminating Negative Effects
Climate Change Probability and Predictions
Climate Changes and Human Population Distribution
Climate Change as International Issue
Climate Change for Australian Magpie-Lark Birds
Climate Change Effects on Ocean Acidification
Climate Change Governance: Concepts and Theories
Climate Change Impacts on the Aviation Industry
Climate Change Management and Risk Governance
United Nation and Climate Change
Human Rights and Climate Change Policy-Making
Climate Change: Anthropological Concepts and Perspectives
Climate Change Impacts on Business in Bangladesh
Climate Change: Nicholas Stern and Ross Garnaut Views
Challenges Facing Humanity: Technology and Climate Change
Climate Change Potential Consequences
Climate Change in United Kingdom
Climate Change From International Relations Perspective
Climate Change and International Collaboration
International Security and Climate Change
Climate Change Effects on World Economy
Global Warming and Climate Change
Responsible Factors for Climate Change
Organisational Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy
The Effect of Science on Climate Change
Vulnerability of World Countries to Climate Change
Anthropogenic Climate Change
The Implementation of MOOCs on Climate Change
The Climate Change and the Asset-Based Community Development
Global Warming and Its Effects on the Environment
Climate Change Research Studies
Climate Change Negative Health Impacts
Managing the Impacts of Climate Change
Early Climate Change Science
Views Comparison on the Problem of Climate Change
Climate Change and Corporate World
Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) in Reducing the Effects of Climate Change
Climate Change Affecting Coral Triangle Turtles
Introduction to Climate Change: Major Threats and the Means to Avoid Them
Climate Change and Its Effects on Indigenous Peoples
Asian Drivers of Global Change
The Causes and Effects of Climate Change in the US
Metholdogy for Economic Discourse Analysis in Climate Change
The Impact of Climate Change on New Hampshire Business
Climate Change Effects on an Individual’s Life in the Future
Ideology of Economic Discourse in Climate Change
The Role of Behavioural Economics in Energy and Climate Policy
The Economic Cost of Climate Change Effects
Climate Change: Floods in Queensland Australia
Impact of Climate Change and Solutions
Climate Change and Its Global Implications in Hospitality and Tourism
Negative Impacts of Climate Change in the Urban Areas and Possible Strategies to Address Them
Climate Changes: Snowpack
Climate Change and Consumption: Which Way the Wind Blows in Indiana
The United Nation’s Response to Climate Change
Critical Review: “Food’s Footprint: Agriculture and Climate Change” by Jennifer Burney
Global Warming: Justing Gillis Discussing Studies on Climate Change
Economics and Human Induced Climate Change
Global Warming Causes and Unfavorable Climatic Changes
Spin, Science and Climate Change
Climate Change, Coming Home: Global Warming’s Effects on Populations
Social Concepts and Climate Change
Climate Change and Human Health
Climate Change: The Complex Issue of Global Warming
Climate Changes: Human Activities and Global Warming
Public Awareness of Climate Changes and Carbon Footprints
Climate Change: Impact of Carbon Emissions to the Atmosphere
Problems of Climate Change
Solving the Climate Change Crisis Through Development of Renewable Energy
Climate Change Is the Biggest Challenge in the World That Affects the Flexibility of Individual Specie
Climate Changes
Climate Change Definition and Causes
Climate Change: Nearing a Mini Ice Age
Global Warming Outcomes and Sea-Level Changes
Climate Change: Causes and Effects
China Climate Change
Protecting Forests to Prevent Climate Change
Climate Change in Saudi Arabia and Miami
Effects of Global Warming on the Environment
Threat to Biodiversity Is Just as Important as Climate Change
Does Climate Change Affect Entrepreneurs?
Does Climate Change Information Affect Stated Risks of Pine Beetle Impacts on Forests
Does Energy Consumption Contribute to Climate Change?
Does Forced Solidarity Hinder Adaptation to Climate Change?
Does Risk Communication Really Decrease Cooperation in Climate Change Mitigation?
Does Risk Perception Limit the Climate Change Mitigation Behaviors?
What Are the Differences Between Climate Change and Global Warming?
What Are the Effects of Climate Change on Agriculture in North East Central Europe?
What Are the Policy Challenges That National Governments Face in Addressing Climate Change?
What Are the Primary Causes of Climate Change?
What Are the Risks of Climate Change and Global Warming?
What Does Climate Change Mean for Agriculture in Developing Countries?
What Drives the International Transfer of Climate Change Mitigation Technologies?
What Economic Impacts Are Expected to Result From Climate Change?
What Motivates Farmers’ Adaptation to Climate Change?
What Natural Forces Have Caused Climate Change?
What Problems Are Involved With Establishing an International Climate Change?
What Role Has Human Activity Played in Causing Climate Change?
Which Incentives Does Regulation Give to Adapt Network Infrastructure to Climate Change?
Why Climate Change Affects Us?
Why Does Climate Change Present Potential Dangers for the African Continent?
Why Economic Analysis Supports Strong Action on Climate Change?
Why Should People Care For the Perceived Event of Climate Change?
Why the Climate Change Debate Has Not Created More Cleantech Funds in Sweden?
Why Worry About Climate Change?
Will African Agriculture Survive Climate Change?
Will Carbon Tax Mitigate the Effects of Climate Change?
Will Climate Change Affect Agriculture?
Will Climate Change Cause Enormous Social Costs for Poor Asian Cities?
Will Religion and Faith Be the Answer to Climate Change?
Flood Essay Topics
Ecosystem Essay Topics
Atmosphere Questions
Extinction Research Topics
Desert Research Ideas
Greenhouse Gases Research Ideas
Recycling Research Ideas
Water Issues Research Ideas
Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, March 2). 337 Climate Change Research Topics & Examples. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/climate-change-essay-examples/

"337 Climate Change Research Topics & Examples." IvyPanda , 2 Mar. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/topic/climate-change-essay-examples/.

IvyPanda . (2024) '337 Climate Change Research Topics & Examples'. 2 March.

IvyPanda . 2024. "337 Climate Change Research Topics & Examples." March 2, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/climate-change-essay-examples/.

1. IvyPanda . "337 Climate Change Research Topics & Examples." March 2, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/climate-change-essay-examples/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "337 Climate Change Research Topics & Examples." March 2, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/climate-change-essay-examples/.

ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

Climate change.

Climate change is a long-term shift in global or regional climate patterns. Often climate change refers specifically to the rise in global temperatures from the mid-20th century to present.

Earth Science, Climatology

Fracking tower

Fracking is a controversial form of drilling that uses high-pressure liquid to create cracks in underground shale to extract natural gas and petroleum. Carbon emissions from fossils fuels like these have been linked to global warming and climate change.

Photograph by Mark Thiessen / National Geographic

Climate is sometimes mistaken for weather. But climate is different from weather because it is measured over a long period of time, whereas weather can change from day to day, or from year to year. The climate of an area includes seasonal temperature and rainfall averages, and wind patterns. Different places have different climates. A desert, for example, is referred to as an arid climate because little water falls, as rain or snow, during the year. Other types of climate include tropical climates, which are hot and humid , and temperate climates, which have warm summers and cooler winters.

Climate change is the long-term alteration of temperature and typical weather patterns in a place. Climate change could refer to a particular location or the planet as a whole. Climate change may cause weather patterns to be less predictable. These unexpected weather patterns can make it difficult to maintain and grow crops in regions that rely on farming because expected temperature and rainfall levels can no longer be relied on. Climate change has also been connected with other damaging weather events such as more frequent and more intense hurricanes, floods, downpours, and winter storms.

In polar regions, the warming global temperatures associated with climate change have meant ice sheets and glaciers are melting at an accelerated rate from season to season. This contributes to sea levels rising in different regions of the planet. Together with expanding ocean waters due to rising temperatures, the resulting rise in sea level has begun to damage coastlines as a result of increased flooding and erosion.

The cause of current climate change is largely human activity, like burning fossil fuels , like natural gas, oil, and coal. Burning these materials releases what are called greenhouse gases into Earth’s atmosphere . There, these gases trap heat from the sun’s rays inside the atmosphere causing Earth’s average temperature to rise. This rise in the planet's temperature is called global warming. The warming of the planet impacts local and regional climates. Throughout Earth's history, climate has continually changed. When occuring naturally, this is a slow process that has taken place over hundreds and thousands of years. The human influenced climate change that is happening now is occuring at a much faster rate.

Media Credits

The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited.

Production Managers

Program specialists, last updated.

October 19, 2023

User Permissions

For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. They will best know the preferred format. When you reach out to them, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource.

If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer. If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media.

Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service .

Interactives

Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. You cannot download interactives.

Related Resources

Understanding Climate Change on Tribal Allotment Lands
Diversity Blooms Within The Queer Flower Bed
Fighting Climate Change with Bee-utiful Pollinator Gardens

Creative Writing a Gateway to Creative Climate Solutions

How poetry and art are crucial in the climate crisis .

by Malia Reiss
May 06, 2024

female bent over journal with pen writing

“Raging Floods.” “Climate Migrants.” “Coral Reefs Gone.” These are the kinds of stories spanning today’s headlines. As temperatures are rising globally, morale is steadily sinking.

New solutions are needed to combat this crisis, environmentally and emotionally. UC Davis creative writing master’s students and professors say that creative storytelling and art may be the keys to helping the world process these changes, and that collaborations with scientists can give rise to new, innovative solutions.

“Art and poetry are going to play a pivotal role in adapting human behavior to these new circumstances that are vastly different from anything we’ve known,” said poetry master’s student Trevor Bashaw .

Imagining a better (or worse) future

Free of limitations, art is a portal to reimagine the world.

In 2020, UC Davis English professor Michael Ziser and geology professor Nicholas Pinter took graduate students on a white water rafting trip down the Colorado River and through the Grand Canyon. They also invited two famous science fiction writers, Paolo Bacigalupi and Kim Stanley Robinson , both of whom write about a climate-apocalyptic world.

“The advantage science fiction writers have is that they have license to completely reimagine things,” said Ziser. “They can just pose a solution and think about how it may work out. It encourages people to imagine, what world do they prefer to be a part of?”

Rafting boats parked at a river in the grand canyon with several people organizing them.

The authors and students entered the Grand Canyon on March 10, 2020. They emerged two weeks later to a world shut down amid a global pandemic. The merging of science and science fiction felt all too relevant.

Bacigalupi’s thriller novel, The Water Knife , tells a dark, futuristic story where the Southwestern U.S. is engaged in a violent war for water. Bacigalupi attended the Grand Canyon trip with graduate students studying the same river system he wrote about drying up.

Robinson's novels also explore what the future may look like under continued corruption and failure to address world crises like climate change. On the trip, students read Robinson's Pacific Edge, part of his series depicting the future of California.

By inviting these authors, Pinter and Ziser hoped to encourage the merging of art and science and to give graduate student scientists a new way of looking at the future of their study systems.

“Any channel by which we can get more people from different walks of life to be thinking about these problems, the better,” said Ziser. “These problems require our coordinated response as a civilization.”

Kim Stanley Robinson on a white water rafting boat

Collaborations between scientists and artists can generate solutions that one party may not have been able to accomplish on its own.

“Everyone is being asked to hyperspecialize, and I think that age is over,” said Ziser. “We need to keep a multi-pronged approach to understanding the world.”

To poetry master’s student Bashaw, the divide between art and science isn’t clean cut, and separating the two can limit progress.

“The sciences and the arts have a lot to learn from each other, in terms of knowledge bases and methodologies,” said Bashaw. “The writer’s workshop is a lot more similar to a lab than people may realize; a lot of scientific discoveries were made through creative accidents; and art is pushed forward by technological advances.”

With collaborations like these, new ways of thinking can emerge. Art can be a limitless tool toward furthering scientific discovery.

“Everything is trapped by its genre. But when we try to imagine something radically different, we create something bigger,” said Pinter.

Where processing has a place

For creative solutions to be acted upon, policymakers, scientists, and the public need to reach common ground. UC Davis creative writing master’s students contend that art and writing not only generate innovative solutions, but also open gateways to these solutions.

“With climate change, there’s a lot of grieving that we need to do as a community,” said Bashaw. “I don’t think we have even emotionally accepted it’s occurring.”

Bashaw thinks that only when humanity can process the climate crises can the world come together to carry out solutions. To them, art is where processing has a place.

“In art and poetry, there can be more room for love and feeling and all of these things that make us human,” said Bashaw.

In their own writing, Bashaw draws parallels between processing the queer experience and processing the climate crisis. They describe their writing as “queer eco-poetics,” which focuses on how individuals relate to nature and constructed environments.

“Poetry can transform what feels scary into all kinds of different things and bring a sense of peace,” said Bashaw. “I want people to feel seen without shame. I think of my writing as home-making and finding peace within place.”

Connie Pearson, a creative nonfiction master’s student at UC Davis, also believes that art can bring to life the human emotional experience within major world crises.

“It’s a real sweet spot: seeing what’s going on, combined with how somebody is processing,” said Pearson.

Pearson’s work comprises personal essays centered around her experiences being an animal activist. By diving into her vulnerable and personal experience, she hopes to humanize the activism she’s been part of since 1980.

“Vulnerability is so crucial in writing,” said Pearson. “I connect so much more to pieces written from the personal lens.”

Processing and healing

Climate change is a global phenomenon, and will require everyone working together to reach a solution. This is a daunting task, but with solutions posed by both scientists and artists together, and with a shift in mindset, the future could heal.

“Art allows you to sit with the unknown and ambiguity in a way that’s not paralyzing, but exciting,” said Bashaw. “We need to help people process and confront this looming phenomenon.”

Malia Reiss is a science news intern with UC Davis Strategic Communications. She studies environmental science and management at UC Davis.

Subscribe to the Science & Climate newsletter

Media Resources

Kat Kerlin, UC Davis News and Media Relations, 530-750-9195, [email protected]

Primary Category

Secondary categories.

Ecological art can bring us closer to understanding nature. How does this look in the era of climate change?

Associate Professor, School of Design, University of Technology Sydney

Disclosure statement

Alexandra Crosby receives funding from the Australian Research Council

University of Technology Sydney provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation AU.

View all partners

Ecology has always fascinated Australian artists. Think of landscape painters like Arthur Boyd (1920–99), who was inspired by nature and committed his career and legacy to protecting it.

Boyd spent the latter part of his life painting the Shoalhaven River at Bundanon, New South Wales. The use of the land along the river for agriculture was causing erosion, disturbing soil, plant and animal life. With increased tourism and intensified use of the river, Boyd feared further destruction, and so Boyd and his wife bought land along the river during the 1970s – gifting it to the Australian people in 1993.

Since scientific studies began showing the undeniable human impacts on the climate, ecology and art have been brought together in new and urgent ways.

Ecological art can communicate the results of scientific studies, create opportunities for community-based interventions, and can even function in their own right as restorations of ecological systems.

Ecology and art

If you have ever enjoyed Sydney Park you were visiting the integrated environmental artwork Water Falls by Jennifer Turpin and Michaelie Crawford.

Water Falls consists of two sets of terracotta troughs, arranged in dramatic zig-zagging lines. As part of a constructed wetland ecosystem, the artwork harvests stormwater from the surrounding streets, preventing flooding and providing habitat for native animals. It is experienced as the rhythmic sight and sound of falling water. Ecology as art.

Ecological artists deal with the politics, language, culture, economics, ethics and aesthetics of ecology in ways that scientists sometimes fall short.

In 2012 and 2021 , Tega Brain engineered an artificial wetland system which could also wash dirty clothes. Coin Operated Wetland shows how water, although often made invisible by the urban life it sustains, is always circulating and part of us and our cities.

Many First Nations artists have pointed out the entanglements of language and Country with ecological knowledge.

Quandamooka Artist Megan Cope makes sculptural installations that engage with local ecological systems. In her work Kinyingarra Guwinyanba (“a place of oysters”, 2022), she plants sea gardens with oysters to create “a living, generative land and sea artwork that demonstrates how art can physically heal country”.

Ecological art brings scientific language into the gallery and into our conversations. Using language in different ways can be a way of rethinking human relationships to land, water and atmosphere.

Topographies

There are currently two exhibitions in Sydney showcasing interdisciplinary research on climate change communicated in artistic ways.

Topographies at the Sydney College of the Arts engages with topography: the study of the forms and features of land surface. Curator Vicky Browne describes topographies here as “the process of marking out the shape of the world”.

Magnetic Topographies , an artist collective who are featured in the exhibition were in residence in Bundanon in 2023. They extend topographic research to “avian navigations”, “earthly togetherness” and “repellent terrain”.

Biljana Novakovic’s Listen for the Beginning (2024) is an enormous piece of light blue fabric is embroidered with coloured words and phrases layered over one another, an interpretation of Gooliyari, known as Cooks River, Sydney, and sometimes as Australia’s sickest urban river .

Ben Denham’s work A Topography of Air (2024) is a collection of multisensory ecological communications and interventions. Custom electronics, barometric pressure sensors, modular synthesisers and wooden boxes are combined with dried native grasses and “the atmosphere”. We feel as though we are in a laboratory – but we are not quite sure of the experiment, or what is being measured.

Alongside this work is another piece by Denham. Generalised Diagram (2024) employs the visual language of science in the form of a flow chart, black lines on a white page, pinned to the wall, showing feedback loops between oscillators, amplifiers, bodies, politics and the atmosphere.

Denham’s sculpture and flow chart work together to explain how to understand features on maps, in graphs, and in the terrain in sensory ways. “We see the visual form on a map, we feel pressure gradients on our skin,” Denham explains .

Living Water

At the University of New South Wales Library, Living Water celebrates 75 years of water research from faculties and institutions across NSW.

The River Ends at the Ocean is a collaborative project engaging with diverse knowledge about Gooliyari.

In 2021, Aunty Rhonda Dixon-Grovenor, Astrida Neimanis and Clare Britton led a group of approximately 60 walkers along the concreted banks, restored edges, and straightened channels of the estuary, following the tide out to Kyeemagh Beach.

At the entrance to the exhibition, a film of the walk by Aunty Rhonda Dixon-Grovenor layers over a flowing sketch by Britton of the Cooks River and its tributaries.

The drawing is based on the Cooks River Environment Survey and Landscape Design: Report of the Cooks River Project (1976) and helps us understand how the river catchment, and ecological knowledge about it, has changed over time.

Another collaborative creative work, Rippon Lea Water Story , (2023) explores waters, memory, plant and animal life, and infrastructure at Rippon Lea, a colonial estate in Melbourne on Boon Wurrung Country.

In the dark space of the gallery, we are asked to listen deeply to the sounds of Melbourne’s subterranean waterways, recorded with specialist microphones called hydrophones . These underwater microphones were developed by scientists to record biotic, abiotic and anthropogenic sounds in marine environments.

Here, these recordings allow us to hear the sounds of water flowing underneath the concrete surfaces of the city.

Moving forward with art and science

Visual artists synthesise and represent different types of knowledge and language.

The exhibitions are bringing new audiences to ecological science and developing understandings needed to convince people and organisations to take action on climate change.

Australian art
Sydney College of the Arts
Visual art and design

OzGrav Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Student Administration Officer

Casual Facilitator: GERRIC Student Programs - Arts, Design and Architecture

Senior Lecturer, Digital Advertising

Manager, Centre Policy and Translation

Knowledge is power

Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our newsletters.

Eye on the Storm News
Weekly News from Yale Climate Connections

Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner and Mailchimp to receive emails from the site owner. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.

Yale Climate Connections

When will climate change turn life in the U.S. upside down?

Jump to a section of this essay

What is a dangerous level of climate change, climate change’s impacts will be highly asymmetric, an immediate u.s. climate change threat: an insurance crisis, a second potential immediate u.s. climate change threat: a global food shock, “black swan” and “gray swan” extreme weather events, a “new normal” of extreme weather has not yet arrived, longer-range concerns: global catastrophic risk events, devastating impacts from climate change are accelerating, paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology, hope for the future via ‘cathedral thinking’.

Although there is a major climate change hurricane approaching, we’re busy throwing a hurricane party , charging up our planetary credit card to pay for the expenses, with little regard to the approaching storm that is already cutting off our escape routes. This great storm will fundamentally rip at the fabric of society, creating chaos and a crisis likely to last for many decades.

The intensifying climate change storm will soon reach a threshold I think of as a category 1 hurricane for humanity — when long-term global warming surpasses 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures, a value increasingly characterized over the last decade as “dangerous” climate change .

For humanity as a whole, this amount of warming is risky, but not devastating. Global warming is currently at about 1.2-1.3 degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures and is likely to cross the 1.5-degree threshold in the late 2020s or early 2030s .

Assuming that we don’t work exceptionally hard to reduce emissions in the next 10 years, the world is expected to reach 2 degrees Celsius of warming between 2045 and 2051. In my estimation, that will be akin to a major category 3 hurricane for humanity — devastating, but not catastrophic.

Allowing global warming to exceed 2.5 degrees Celsius will cause category 4-level damage to civilization — approaching the catastrophic level. And warming in excess of 3 degrees Celsius will likely be a catastrophic category 5-level superstorm of destruction that will crash civilization.

We must take strong action rapidly to rein in our emissions of heat-trapping gases to avoid that outcome — and build great resilience to the extreme climate of the 21st century that we have so foolishly brought upon ourselves.

According to the Carbon Action Tracker (see tweet below), we are on track for 2.7 degrees Celsius of warming; if the nations of the world meet their targets for reducing heat-trapping climate pollution, warming will be limited to 2.1 degrees. There’s a big difference between being hit by a Cat 4 versus a Cat 3, and every tenth of a degree of warming that we prevent will be critical.

Two years on from Glasgow and our warming estimates for government action have barely moved. Governments appear oblivious to the extreme events of the past year, somehow thinking treading water will deal with the flood of impacts? https://t.co/fbM4xY9OJe pic.twitter.com/MekGIeU1Z3 — ClimateActionTracker (@climateactiontr) December 5, 2023

As climate scientist Michael Mann explains in his latest book, “ Our Fragile Moment ,” great climate science communicator Stephen Schneider once said, “The ‘end of the world’ or ‘good for you’ are the two least likely among the spectrum of potential [climate] outcomes.” So forget sci-fi depictions of planetary apocalypse. That will not be our long-term climate change fate.

But the impacts of climate change will be apocalyptic for many nations and people — particularly those that are not rich and White. People and communities with the least resources tend to be the first and hardest hit by climate change , not only because poorer people and communities are inherently more vulnerable to the impacts of any disaster, but also because the extremes induced by climate change tend to be worse in the tropics and subtropics, home to many poor nations.

In the U.S., climate change has already turned life upside down for numerous communities. For example, in North Carolina, the financially strapped, Black-majority towns of Fair Bluff and Princeville are in danger of abandonment from hurricane-related flooding (from Hurricane Floyd in 1999, Matthew in 2016, and Florence in 2018). Seven Springs, North Carolina (population 207 in 1960, now just 55) is largely abandoned.

Climate change was a key contributor to these floods; a 2021 study found that about one-third of the cost of major U.S. flood events since 1988, totaling $79 billion, could be attributed to climate change. And for the town of Paradise, California — utterly destroyed by the devastating Camp Fire of 2018, which killed 85 and caused over $16 billion in damage — climate change has been apocalyptic.

In the U.S., the most likely major economic disruption from climate change over the next few years might well be a collapse of the housing market in flood-prone and wildfire-prone states. Billion-dollar weather disasters — which cause about 76% of all weather-related damages — have steadily increased in number and expense in recent years and would be even worse were it not for improved weather forecasts and better building codes. The recent increase in weather-disaster losses has brought on an insurance crisis — especially in Florida , Louisiana , California , and Texas — which threatens one of the bedrocks of the U.S. economy, the housing and real estate market.

In California, the insurer of last resort, the FAIR plan, had only about $250 million in cash on hand as of March 2024.

“One major fire near Lake Arrowhead, where the Plan holds $8 billion in policies, would plunge the whole scheme into insolvency,” observed Harvard’s Susan Crawford, author of “Charleston: Race, Water, and the Coming Storm.”

It is widely acknowledged that higher weather disaster losses result primarily from an increase in exposure : more people with more stuff moving into vulnerable places, including those at risk of floods. Martin Bertogg, Swiss Re’s head of catastrophic peril, said in a 2022 AP interview that two-thirds, perhaps more, of the recent rise in weather-related disaster losses is the result of more people and things in harm’s way.

But this balance will likely shift in the coming decades. Increased exposure will continue to drive increased weather disaster losses, but the fractional contribution of climate change to disaster losses — at least for wildfire, hurricane, and flood disasters — is likely to increase rapidly, making the insurance crisis accelerate.

County-level property overvaluation in the U.S. from flood risk

A 2023 study (Fig. 2) drew attention to a massive real estate bubble in the U.S.: the vast number of properties whose purported value doesn’t account for the true costs of floods. The study estimated that across the U.S., residential properties are overvalued by a total of $121-$237 billion under current flood risks. This bubble will likely continue to grow as sea levels rise, storms dump heavier rains, and unwise risky development continues.

Likewise, U.S. properties at risk of wildfires are collectively overvalued by about $317 billion, according to David Burt , a financial guru who foresaw the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis. Insurers are already pulling out of the areas most at risk, threatening to make property ownership too expensive for millions and posing a serious threat to the economically critical real estate industry.

Climate futurist Alex Steffen has described the climate change-worsened real estate bubble this way:

As awareness of risk grows, the financial value of risky places drops. Where meeting that risk is more expensive than decision-makers think a place is worth, it simply won’t be defended. It will be unofficially abandoned. That will then create more problems. Bonds for big projects, loans, and mortgages, business investment, insurance, talented workers — all will grow more scarce. Then, value will crash, a phenomenon I call the Brittleness Bubble .

Something brittle is prone to a sudden, catastrophic failure and cannot easily be repaired once broken. The popping of the real estate Brittleness Bubble will potentially trigger panic selling and a housing market collapse like a miniature version of the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 but focused on the 20% of American homes in wildfire and flood risk zones. In his 2023 Congressional testimony , Burt estimated that a wildfire and flood-induced repricing of risk of the U.S. housing market could have a quarter to half the impact of the 2008 Great Financial Crisis.

However, the 2008 crisis was relatively short-lived, as fixes to the financial system and a massive federal bailout led to a rebound in property values after a few years. A climate change-induced housing crisis will likely be resistant to a similar fix because the underlying cause will worsen: Sea levels will continue to rise, flooding heavy rains will intensify, and wildfires will grow more severe, increasing risk.

Science writer Eugene Linden wrote in 2023, “as we saw in 2008, a housing crisis can quickly morph into a systemic financial crisis because banks own most of the value, and thus the risk, in housing and commercial real estate.”

Crawford of Harvard recently wrote : “Because insurance can help communities and households recover more quickly from disasters, and because so much of the U.S. economy is driven by spending on housing, the inaccessibility and unaffordability of insurance poses a threat to the stability of the entire economy.”

As Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse , a Democrat from Rhode Island, said earlier this year, “The thing about economic crises is that they come on slowly, until they come on fast.”

How the insurance crisis may play out: the “Wholly irrational and completely ad-hoc pirate capitalism” solution

In his blunt 2023 essay, “ Insurance Politics at the End of the World ,” journalist Hamilton Nolan offers these thoughts on the potential ways this climate change-induced insurance crisis could be addressed:

The rational capitalism solution here is: We accurately price your risk and that risk becomes unaffordable and people move away from areas that are stupid to live in and therefore climate adaptation is achieved. The rational socialism solution is: We collectively embrace the idea that we need to adapt to climate change and the federal government creates long-term programs that incentivize moving away from areas that are stupid to live in and disincentivize “build as much crap in South Florida flood zones as you can now to take advantage of the real estate bubble” and generally cushion the economic blow for all the people whose lives will have to change. The path we are on today, though — the path that our current political system makes likely — is the path of Wholly Irrational and Completely Ad-Hoc Pirate Capitalism: Increasing climate change-induced disasters cause panic among homeowners as a class; politicians rush to grab dollars to enable everyone to live the same as they are now for as long as possible; and eventually the whole thing crashes into the wall of reality in a way that causes uncontainable, national pain rather than just the specific, regional, temporary pain of the smarter solutions.

When will the Brittleness Bubble pop?

When might this “crash into the wall of reality” happen and the Brittleness Bubble pop? Politicians are working extremely hard to keep their jobs by delaying this day of reckoning, artificially limiting insurance rate rises and offering state-run insurance plans of last resort. This approach — the equivalent of giving a blood transfusion to the injured, without stopping the bleeding — does not fix the underlying problem and all but guarantees that the pain of the eventual national reckoning will be much larger. Insurance is designed to transfer risk, but risk is rising everywhere.

As the hurricane season is set to begin soon and wildfire risk gradually increasing, private insurers in some states are fleeing areas considered at high risk. It's leaving so-called "residual," or last resort plans, to pick up the tab. https://t.co/3sxv9m0FOS pic.twitter.com/YTkZ9OlJE3 — Axios (@axios) May 10, 2024

Crawford addressed the issue in a 2024 essay, “ Who ends up holding the bag when risky real estate markets collapse? ” Citing financial guru Burt, she concluded: “2025 or 2026 is when things give way and it becomes very difficult to offload houses and buildings in risky places where mortgages are suddenly hard to get, much less insurance.” When asked in an interview with Marketplace if the market is due for another correction, as homeowners in places with growing risk of flooding and wildfire have to pay more for insurance, Burt said:

This is actually happening right now and is probably going to happen over the next three to five years, like a full reckoning of these new costs for 15 or 20% of the homes in the U.S. … If all their equity is already gone [because of lowered property values], their costs are going up a ton, they can barely afford it, that’s when people walk away.

In the same Marketplace story, though, Ben Keys, a professor of real estate and finance at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, said, “The idea that we would expect there to be a huge wave of defaults or delinquencies feels relatively unlikely.”

But like Burt, climate change futurist Steffen predicts the real estate Brittleness Bubble will pop within five years (10 at the most).

I suspect we're less than 5 years away from a prolonged surge of value loss in real estate assets based on risk, insurability, economic brittleness and local capacities to ruggedize (or not). That kind of devaluation will echo through the whole economy. https://t.co/Qs0zyMS38g — Alex Steffen (@AlexSteffen) May 21, 2024

This reckoning could come sooner for Florida if another $100-billion hurricane hits. The Florida insurance and coastal property market did manage to withstand the $117-billion cost of Category 4 Hurricane Ian of 2022, but another blow like that might well cause a severe downward spiral in the Florida real estate market from which it might never fully recover. This vulnerability was underscored by Florida Gov. DeSantis during a 2023 radio interview with a Boston host, when DeSantis suggested homeowners should “ knock on wood ” and hope the state didn’t get hit by a hurricane in 2024.

But “knocking on wood” is not an effective climate adaptation strategy for Florida. Because of climate change, Mother Nature is now able to whip heavier bowling balls with more devastating impact down Hurricane Alley. It’s only a matter of time before she hurls a strike into a major Florida city, causing an intensified coastal real estate and insurance crisis. And the odds of such a strike are higher than average in 2024 because of record-warm ocean temperatures in the tropical Atlantic, combined with a developing La Niña event.

Watch out for increased coastal flooding in the mid-2030s

We may manage to avoid a coastal real estate market crash in the next 10 years if we get lucky with hurricanes and if our politicians continue to pump huge amounts of money to bail out the failing system.

But it will become increasingly difficult to keep the coastal property market propped up beginning in the mid-2030s, because of accelerating sea level rise combined with an 18.6-year wobble in the moon’s orbit. Thus, I expect that the longest we might stave off the popping of the coastal real estate Brittleness Bubble is 15 years.

As I wrote in my 2023 post, 30 great tools to determine your flood risk in the U.S. , beginning in 2033, the moon will be in a position favorable for bringing higher tides to locations where one high tide and low tide per day dominate. This will bring a rapid increase in high tide flooding to the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico, the Southeast, the West Coast, and Hawaii. This expected acceleration in the mid-2030s is obvious for St. Petersburg (Fig. 3), plotted using NASA’s Flooding Analysis Tool and Flooding Days Projection Tool . The rapid acceleration in coastal flooding simultaneously along a huge swathe of heavily developed U.S. coast in the mid-2030s will be sure to significantly stress the coastal housing market. And according to the Coastal Flood Resilience Project , the nation is flying blind on the possible impacts: There are no national assessments of the potential loss of major, critical infrastructure assets to coastal storms and rising seas.

Another immediate danger: a series of global extreme weather events affecting agriculture, causing global economic turmoil.

In my 2024 post, “ What are the odds that extreme weather will lead to a global food shock? ” I reviewed a 2023 report by insurance giant Lloyd’s, which modeled the odds of a globally disruptive extreme food shock event bringing simultaneous droughts in key global food-growing breadbaskets. The authors estimated that a “major” food shock scenario costing $3 trillion globally over a five-year period had a 2.3% chance of happening per year (Fig. 4). Over a 30-year period, those odds equate to about a 50% probability of occurrence — assuming the risks are not increasing each year, which, in fact, they are.

Chart of Lloyd's 2023 extreme weather leading to food and water shock scenario

Yet another concern for the U.S. is the risk of wholly unanticipated “black swan” extreme weather events that scientists didn’t see coming. As Harvard climate scientists Paul Epstein and James McCarthy wrote in a 2004 paper, “Assessing Climate Instability”: “We are already observing signs of instability within the climate system. There is no assurance that the rate of greenhouse gas buildup will not force the system to oscillate erratically and yield significant and punishing surprises.”

One example of such a punishing surprise was Superstorm Sandy of 2012, that unholy hybrid spawn of a Caribbean hurricane/extratropical storm that became the largest hurricane ever observed and one of the most damaging, costing $88 billion. And who anticipated that a siege of climate-change-intensified wildfires in western North America beginning in 2017, causing multiple summers of horrific air quality that would significantly degrade the quality of life in the West? Or the jet stream experiencing a sudden increase in unusually extreme configurations over the past 20 years, leading to prolonged periods of intense extreme weather over multiple portions of the globe simultaneously? As the late climate scientist Wally Broecker once said, “Climate is an angry beast, and we are poking at it with sticks.”

Just as concerning might be future “gray swan” events — extreme weather events that climate models anticipate could happen but exceed anything in the historical record. (“Gray swan” is an expression first coined by hurricane scientist Kerry Emanuel in his 2016 paper, “ Grey swan tropical cyclones .”) Several potential gray swan events I have written about include a $1 trillion California “ARkStorm” flood , the potential failure of the Old River Control Structure during an extreme flood that allows the Mississippi River to change course, or a storm like 2015’s Hurricane Patricia , with winds over 200 mph, hitting Miami, Galveston/Houston, Tampa, or New Orleans. The risk of gray swan events is steadily increasing.

I’m often asked if the absurdly extreme weather events we’ve been experiencing recently are the new normal. “No!” I reply. “Heat is energy, so the energy to fuel more intense extreme weather events will increase until we reach net-zero emissions. At that time, the climate will finally stabilize at a new normal with a highly dangerous level of extreme weather events.”

Barring a series of extraordinary volcanic eruptions or a major geoengineering effort, even under an optimistic “low” emissions climate scenario, the earliest the climate might stabilize is in the mid-2070s (Fig. 5); thus, the weather will grow more extreme, on average, for at least the next 50 years. Considering that CO2 emissions have not yet peaked and may be following the “Intermediate” pathway shown below, there is considerable danger that the weather will still be growing more extreme when today’s children are very old early next century. But even when net zero emissions are reached, sea level rise will continue to occur at a pace difficult to adapt to, and the climate crisis will continue to intensify.

A chart showing potential global carbon dioxide pathways, from very low to very high

The high probability that the weather will grow more extreme throughout the lifetime of everybody reading this essay means that we have to take seriously some very bad long-term threats. As I wrote in my 2022 post, “ The future of global catastrophic risk events from climate change ,” a global catastrophic risk event is defined as a catastrophe global in impact that kills over 10 million people or causes over $10 trillion (2022 USD) in damage. Since the beginning of the 20th century, there have been only three such events: World War I, World War II, and the COVID-19 pandemic. But climate change is a threat multiplier, increasing the risk of five types of global catastrophic risk events:

Coastal flooding from sea-level rise and land subsidence
Collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the powerful currents that circulate warm water in the tropical Atlantic Ocean to the Arctic and back (an August 2024 study gave a 59% chance of an AMOC collapse occurring before 2050)

The likeliest of these is a global catastrophic risk event from sea level rise, which is highly likely to occur by the end of the century. For example, a moderate global warming scenario will put $7.9-12.7 trillion dollars of global coastal assets at risk of flooding from sea level rise by 2100, according to a 2020 study, “ Projections of global-scale extreme sea levels and resulting episodic coastal flooding over the 21st century .” Although this study did not take into account assets that inevitably will be protected by new coastal defenses, neither did it consider the indirect costs of sea level rise from increased storm surge damage, mass migration away from the coast, increased saltiness of fresh water supplies, and many other factors. A 2019 report by the Global Commission on Adaptation estimated that sea level rise will lead to damages of more than $1 trillion per year globally by 2050.

Furthermore, sea level rise, combined with other stressors, might bring about megacity collapse — a frightening possibility when infrastructure destruction, salinification of freshwater resources, and a real estate collapse potentially combine to create a mass exodus of people from a major city, reducing its tax base to the point that it can no longer provide basic services. The collapse of even one megacity might have severe impacts on the global economy, creating increased chances of a cascade of global catastrophic risk events. One megacity potentially at risk of this fate is the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta, with a population of 10 million. Land subsidence of up to two inches per year and sea level rise of about an eighth of an inch per year are causing so much flooding in Jakarta that Indonesia is constructing a new capital city in Borneo.

Is the #AMOC approaching a tipping point? Here's my take after researching this topic for over 30 years. Open access, peer-reviewed, in full colour & understandable for non-experts. https://t.co/gMu6Zw5mR7 pic.twitter.com/mrgzO9NMxR — Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf 🌏 🦣 (@rahmstorf) April 11, 2024

I also expect one or more climate change-amplified global catastrophic risk events from drought will occur this century. Mexico City, with a metro area population of 22 million, has suffered record heat over the past year, is in danger of its reservoirs running dry, and is drilling ever-deeper wells to tap an overtaxed aquifer. Though the city will muddle through the crisis now that the summer rains have come this year, what is the plan for 30 years from now, when the climate is expected to be drier and much, much hotter? Although Mexico City can greatly improve its water situation by fixing a poorly maintained system that has a 40% loss rate , it is unclear how the city will be able to survive the much hotter and drier climate of 30 years from now. And at least 10 other major cities are in a similar bind.

Technology can help us adapt to a hotter climate by providing air conditioning (if you are rich enough), but technological solutions to create more water availability when the taps run dry are much more difficult to achieve. I believe water shortages will drive a partial collapse of and mass migration out of multiple major cities 20-40 years from now, significantly amplifying global political and economic turmoil. For example, a 2010 study, “ Linkages among climate change, crop yields and Mexico-US cross-border migration ,” found that a 10% reduction in crop yields in Mexico leads to an additional 2% of the population emigrating to the United States.

In his frightening 2019 book “ Food or War ,” science writer Julian Cribb documents 25 food conflicts that have led to famine, war, and the deaths of more than a million people — mostly caused by drought. Since 1960, Cribb says, 40-60% of armed conflicts have been linked to resource scarcity, and 80% of major armed conflicts occurred in vulnerable dry ecosystems. Hungry people are not peaceful people, Cribb argues.

Though climate change itself is not accelerating faster than what climate scientists and climate models predicted , devastating impacts from climate change do seem to be accelerating. That is because the new climate is crossing thresholds beyond which an infrastructure designed for the 20th century can withstand. These breaches are occurring in tandem with an increase in exposure — more people with more stuff living in harm’s way — which is the dominant cause of the sharp increase in weather-disaster losses in recent years. It’s sobering to realize that the current U.S. insurance crisis has primarily been driven by increased exposure and foolish insurance policies that promote development in risky places — not climate change — and that climate change’s relative contribution to the crisis is set to grow significantly.

Accelerating sea level rise alone is sure to cause a massive shock to the U.S. economy; according to a 2022 report from NOAA , sea level along the U.S. coastline is projected to rise, on average, 10-12 inches (0.25-0.30 meters) in the next 30 years (2020-2050), which will be as much as the rise measured over the last 100 years (1920-2020). At this level, 13.6 million homes might be at risk of flooding by 2051 , triggering a mass migration of millions of people away from the coast.

If we add to sea-level-rise-induced migration the additional migration that will result from climate change-intensified wildfires, heatwaves, and hurricanes, we are forced to acknowledge the reality that a nation-challenging Hurricane Katrina-level climate change storm has already begun in the U.S., one which has the potential to cause catastrophic damage. As I wrote in my June post, The U.S. is finally making serious efforts to adapt to climate change , there have been some encouraging efforts to prepare for the coming mass migration. But, as I argued in my follow-up post, The U.S. is nowhere near ready for climate change , we remain woefully unprepared for what is coming.

And my subsequent post, Can a colossal extreme weather event galvanize action on the climate crisis? , argues that we should not expect that any future extreme weather event or breakdown of the climate system will galvanize the type of response needed — we’ve already had at least 13 events since 1988 that should have done so, yet have not. Even if such an event did prompt strong, transformative change, it’s too late to avoid having life turned upside-down by climate change. It’s like we’ve waited until our skin started getting red before seeking shade from the sun, and we’re only now taking our first stumbling steps toward shade. Well, it’s a long hike to shade, and a blistering sunburn is unavoidable.

Given the unprecedented nature and complexity of this planetary crisis, there is huge uncertainty on how this drama may unfold; there are climate scientists who offer a more optimistic outlook than I do (for example, Hannah Ritchie , author of “Not the End of the World”), and those who are more pessimistic ( James Hansen ).

I suggest that you make the most of the current “calm before the storm” and prepare for the chaotic times ahead, which could begin at any time. I will offer my recommendations on how to do this in my next post in this series, “What should you do to prepare for the climate change storm?”

The urgency to rapidly deal with the climate crisis was succinctly summarized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its latest summary report: “There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all.”

But taking advantage of that window of opportunity is difficult because of human psychological and political realities. In climate scientist Peter Gleick’s 2023 book, “The Three Ages of Water,” he quotes Harvard’s E.O. Wilson, father of sociobiology, who perhaps said it best: “The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall.”

The boat of civilization has already hit multiple rocks along the rapids of climate change and is taking on water. Perilous rapids with even more dangerous rocks and waterfalls lie before us, but the course of our boat cannot be so easily altered to avoid the rocks, because of our Paleolithic emotions and medieval institutions. As a result, we may have only a few more years — or perhaps as long as 15 years — of relative normalcy in our everyday lives here in the U.S. before the approaching climate change storm ends our golden age of prosperity. But this “golden age” was made of fool’s gold, paid for with wealth plundered from future generations.

Though this essay has dwelt on some grim realities, I am optimistic that we will prevent climate change from becoming a civilization-destroying category 5-level catastrophe. But we must fight extremely hard to correct the course of our boat and not allow its inertia to carry us into the rocks that stud the rapids of climate change. This is not a task that can be accomplished in our lifetimes.

Susan Joy Hassol, the climate communication veteran who served as a senior science writer on three National Climate Assessments, put it this way in an interview with Yale Climate Connections contributor Daisy Simmons: “This is the fight of our lives, and it’s a multigenerational task. We need what’s been called ‘cathedral thinking.’ That is, the people who started working on that stone foundation , they never saw the thing finished. It took generations to get these major works done. This is that kind of problem. And we have to all do our part. The more I act, the better I feel, because I know I’m part of the solution.”

Actions we take now will yield enormous future benefits, and the faster we undertake transformative actions to adapt to the new climate reality, the less suffering will occur. The Global Commission on Adaptation says that “every $1 invested in adaptation could yield up to $10 in net economic benefits, depending on the activity.” We should work to build our cathedral of the future with the thought that each action we take now will multiply by a factor of 10 in importance in the future.

An excellent @nytimes article on rapid growth of wind, solar, & EVs, including factories, in the US. Costs are below fossil and nuclear (see graphs). Reasons why, graphs with how fast, pictures of it happening. https://t.co/uglQDnE97t pic.twitter.com/oIpLmlp28v — Willett Kempton (@WillettKempton) September 5, 2023

But some of the hardest work has been done: The cornerstone of this cathedral of the future has already been laid. The clean energy revolution is here and has progressed far more rapidly than I had dared hope. Passage of the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and 2023 Inflation Reduction Act has been instrumental in getting this cornerstone laid. Solar energy is now the cheapest source of energy in world history, and the costs of wind power and battery technology have also plummeted. Two recent reports were optimistic that climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions had finally peaked in 2023, and GDP growth has decoupled from carbon dioxide emissions in recent years, giving hope that economic growth can still occur without making the planet hotter.

At its heart, the root of the climate crisis is humanity’s spiritual inharmoniousness: We overvalue the pursuit of material wealth and we worship billionaires but undervalue growing more connected to our spiritual selves and acting to preserve and appreciate the natural systems that sustain us. Making yourself more peaceful and loving through quiet spiritual pursuits and time spent in nature will help counteract the anxiety and fear sparked by the climate crisis. But in tandem with your increased peace must come a righteous anger to “throw the money changers out of the temple” and topple the might of the fossil fuel industry and its enablers.

So put your shoulder to an oar! Help us power the boat of civilization through the rapids of climate change. All of humanity shares the same boat, and you have the opportunity to make your own unique and valuable contribution to the effort.

This is a nice way to visualize the pathway to your unique climate action. https://t.co/cjlv5XXrak — Jeff Masters (@DrJeffMasters) May 15, 2024

As promised, here is the rainbow at the end. It’s the intro image from my first and last Weather Underground blog posts, “ The 360-degree Rainbow ,” and “ So long, wunderground! ” My unique and valuable contribution to building our new cathedral has not yet reached the end of the rainbow, for a rainbow has no end — it is a full circle. One just has to fly high in a rainstorm where the sun is shining to see it.

I will continue to make my voice heard as long as climate science-denying politicians, corporations, media pundits, and wealthy individuals continue to row the boat of civilization into the rocks of climate-change catastrophe. I encourage those of you who have learned about extreme weather and climate change from me to do the same. To get started, learn from one of the best communicators in the business, climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe :

more like this

Free online tool kit can help small businesses prepare for climate change

How open spaces can save lives during wildfires

What should you do to prepare for the climate change storm?

Jeff Masters

Jeff Masters, Ph.D., worked as a hurricane scientist with the NOAA Hurricane Hunters from 1986-1990. After a near-fatal flight into category 5 Hurricane Hugo, he left the Hurricane Hunters to pursue a... More by Jeff Masters

Food & Food Culture in FWS

8/21/2024 By | Tracy Hamler Carrick

This fall, students will research and write about topics related to food and food culture in these First-Year Writing Seminars:

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE 1119 | A Taste of Russian Literature (Raissa Krivitsky)

Explore important aspects of the Russian culture in broad historical, geopolitical and socioeconomic context through the lens of Russian folklore, poetry, short stories of Gogol, Chekhov, and Bulgakov, works of contemporary Russian-American writers, visual art, and international film, in which, among other things, food and Russian culinary and hospitality tradition figure prominently. The literary journey will take you from the lavish tables of the eighteenth-century aristocracy, to the hardship and austerity of GULAG prison, to the colorful and savory regional fare of the former Russian Empire and Soviet Union, to the fridge and pantry staples in the everyday life of Russian family. Your writing assignments will help you develop critical thinking and argumentative skills, precision and clarity of expression, ability to write with discipline, creativity, and sense of style.

MEDIEVAL STUDIES 1101 | Aspects of Medieval Culture: Food in the Medieval World (Alice Wolff)

The proverb “you are what you eat” was just as true in the medieval period as it is today. What foods did medieval people in Eurasia and North Africa consume, and what role did their food choices play in their identities? This course will explore medieval food and identity from archaeological, anthropological, and historical perspectives, with readings including scientific articles, excerpts from history books, and medieval sources ranging from Arabic cookbooks to trial testimony from the Spanish Inquisition. Writing assignments will focus on skills such as science communication, revision of academic writing, and crafting evidence-based arguments on individual research topics. The final project will offer the option for either a creative/nontraditional work or a traditional research essay.

ROMANCE STUDIES 1108 | Cultural Identities, Cultural Differences: Food Cultures (Itziar Rodrigues de Rivra)

Food is a basic human need, but it carries a wide array of cultural meaning. Ethnicity, nationality, religion, social class, gender, or personal taste, influenced by food choices and practices. Through interpreting fiction, poems, essays, and films, this course will examine the cultural and social significance of food, the role of food as a literary choice and cinematic device, and images of eating, cooking, and drinking as metaphors of human experience and desire. We will analyze works both from the United States and from around the globe.

ROMANCE STUDIES 1114 | Semiotics (Ti Alkire)

What allows us to make assumptions about people based on the way they speak or dress? How can we understand the deeper meaning of a fairy tale or an episode of The Simpsons? What does macaroni and cheese mean, and why is it not on the menu at most upscale Manhattan eateries? This seminar introduces semiotics, the study of signs and the meaning-bearing sign systems they form; sign systems that include not only human language but also literature, painting, sculpture, film, music, dance, and also such aspects of popular culture as advertising, fashion, food, and television, to name just a few. The diversity of semiotic systems provides many possibilities for thinking and writing critically about the world we live in.

WRITING 1370 | Elements of Academic Writing: Food for Thought (Tracy Carrick)

How does the food on your table tell a story about you, your family, your community, your nation? How do we make food choices, and how are these choices complicated by the cultural, socio-economic, and political forces that both create and combat widespread international hunger and food insecurity? Join this course to study the essential elements of academic writing and to learn flexible and sustainable strategies for producing interesting, clear, and precise academic prose that can address a variety of audiences and meet diverse rhetorical aims. Writing 1370/80 is a smaller FWS (capped at 12 students) that spends more time navigating the steps in the writing process in order to respond to each student’s individual needs and build confidence and reflective practice. As in all FWSs, students practice higher-order thinking, close reading, and analyzing evidence. They also complete 4-5 major writing assignments. This course places greater emphasis on in-class writing, one-on-one conferences with the teacher, peer workshopping, discussion, and learning to talk about how different types of writing work. Students will deeply engage diverse course materials (journalism, scholarly articles, podcasts, films, etc.) on topics like art, literature, and relevant social issues to explore ideas about a text, write for specific audiences, and develop creativity, style and voice.

Technology, Social Media & Generative AI in FWS

Health & Wellness in FWS

Useful Resources for FWS Instructors

climate change & environmental sustainability

Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability in FWS

Clean & Green Pakistan
Palestine Emergency Appeal
Disaster Management
Orphan Care Program
Aghosh Home
Community Services
Become a Volunteer
Ways To Donate
Gaza Medical Mission
Digital Guru
International Partners
Procurement
Media Coverage
Hannah Fatima Zainab
August 22, 2024
Updated about a day ago

Pakistan is facing a severe climate change crisis, with far-reaching consequences for its environment, economy, and human population. The country is ranked seventh among the most vulnerable countries to climate change, and its impacts are already being felt across various sectors.

Rising Temperatures and Extreme Weather Events

Pakistan has witnessed a significant increase in temperatures over the past few decades, with an average rise of 0.5°C since 1960. This warming trend is projected to continue, with temperatures expected to rise by another 2-3°C by 2050. The consequences of this warming are widespread, from heatwaves to droughts, and from floods to landslides.

Melting Glaciers and Water Scarcity

Pakistan's glaciers are melting at an alarming rate, threatening the country's water security. The glaciers in the Hindu Kush-Karakoram-Himalayan (HKH) region, which supply water to the Indus River, are projected to lose up to 65% of their mass by 2050. This will lead to reduced water flows, affecting agriculture, industry, and human consumption.

Deforestation and Land Degradation

Deforestation and land degradation are significant contributors to climate change in Pakistan. The country has lost over 30% of its forest cover in the past few decades, leading to soil erosion, landslides, and reduced biodiversity.

Agricultural Impacts

Climate change is affecting agriculture in Pakistan, with changing weather patterns, reduced water availability, and increased frequency of extreme weather events. This has led to reduced crop yields, affecting food security and the livelihoods of farmers.

Health Impacts

Climate change is also having significant health impacts in Pakistan, from heat stress to water-borne diseases. The country is already experiencing increased mortality rates due to heatwaves, and the situation is expected to worsen in the coming years.

Economic Impacts

The economic impacts of climate change in Pakistan are significant, with estimated losses ranging from 2-5% of GDP annually. The country's infrastructure, industry, and agriculture are all vulnerable to climate-related disasters, affecting economic growth and development.

Conclusion

The climate change crisis in Pakistan requires urgent attention and action. The country needs to adopt a multi-faceted approach to address the causes and impacts of climate change, from reducing greenhouse gas emissions to promoting climate-resilient agriculture practices. Additionally, disaster risk reduction and management strategies need to be put in place to mitigate the impacts of extreme weather events. Only through collective action can Pakistan hope to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change and build a sustainable future.

It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout.

HOW CLIMATE CHANGE AFFECTS THE ENVIRONMENT IN PAKISTAN
The Climate Change Crisis in Pakistan
The Climate Change Crisis in Pakistan: A Call to Action by Alkhidmat Foundation
الخدمت فاؤنڈیشن کی شمالی علاقہ جات سمیت سندھ اور بلوچستان کے سیلاب اوربارشوں سے متاثرہ علاقو ں میں امدادی سرگرمیاں جاری

Share full article

Supported by

Urgent Calls for Action on the Climate

Search the United Nations

Diplomacy for peace
Preventing conflicts, sustaining peace
Disarming the world
New and emerging threats

Climate, peace and security: what we need to know

Climate change affects us all, no matter where we live, but it is particularly devastating for fragile countries and communities facing conflict or humanitarian crises. Today, of the 15 countries most vulnerable to climate change , 13 are struggling with violent conflicts.

While climate change does not directly ignite conflict, it acts as a threat multiplier , exacerbating existing vulnerabilities and tensions. It intensifies competition for dwindling natural resources, drives up food prices and heightens geopolitical instability. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that the impact of climate change will worsen and become a more significant driver of conflict in the years to come.

This snapshot reveals the devastating consequences of conflict and climate-induced disasters on millions of people living around the world. It looks at what’s happening on the ground in some of the most affected countries.

Learn more about climate change , its causes and effects and its impacts on human security .

Afghanistan

Caption: Desertification is affecting the majority of land in Afghanistan’s northern, western and southern regions. A shepherd struggles to care for his herd in the drylands of Kunduz, north-eastern Afghanistan. Credit: Shamsuddin Hamedi/UNAMA

Afghanistan, grappling with decades of conflict and underdevelopment, remains one of the world's most impoverished and insecure nations. The escalating effects of climate change, manifesting in intensified droughts and flash floods, are deepening the country's humanitarian crisis, leading to increased displacement, hunger and poverty.

In 2022, Afghanistan endured its most severe drought in three decades, and 2023 marked the third consecutive year of drought conditions. This environmental catastrophe has left six million Afghans teetering on the brink of famine.

Desertification is worsening the situation, ravaging more than 75 per cent of land in the northern, western and southern regions. This has reduced vegetation cover, accelerated land degradation and severely impacted farming.

Today, the consequences are increasingly dire, with nearly 30 million Afghans – over two thirds of the population – in desperate need of humanitarian assistance to survive.

Read more about climate change and desertification .

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Caption: The Luwowo coltan mine near Rubaya, North Kivu. Credit: MONUSCO/ Sylvain Liechti 2014

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), conflict and the climate crisis are locked in a devastating cycle, each aggravating the other. Escalating violence and increasingly severe floods have triggered record levels of displacement. The country is now home to the largest number of internally displaced people in Africa, with a staggering 6.4 million people having fled or lost their homes. Floods and storms between 2008 and 2023 drove nearly nearly 2 million displacements.

Displacement leaves people even more vulnerable to the ravages of climate change. They struggle in precarious living situations with limited resources and infrastructure to cope with extreme weather events.

In the DRC, an abundance of natural resources has fuelled armed conflict . Unsustainable mining, logging and poaching practices both perpetuate the violence and devastate the environment. This process accelerates climate change and destroys ecosystems essential for food production and economic growth.

Haiti

Caption: A woman wades through a flooded market in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Credit: UN Photo/Logan Abassi

With a history of catastrophic disasters and deep poverty, Haiti is one of the most vulnerable nations in Latin America and the Caribbean when it comes to climate change.

Rising temperatures and prolonged droughts have severely impacted food access for 4.9 million Haitians , nearly half the country's population. In June 2023 , floods and landslides afffected nearly 40,000 families, displacing at least 13,400 people. The increasing frequency of floods has led to a surge in deaths, widespread destruction, displacement and outbreaks of waterborne diseases.

Sea-level rise further compounds Haiti's vulnerability, as coastal erosion and flooding endanger the lives and livelihoods of countless people residing along the coast, particularly in the densely populated capital, Port-au-Prince . The city’s precarious situation is aggravated by poorly constructed housing on floodplains and inadequate waste management, factors that heighten the risks of disease outbreaks.

Read more about the impact of climate change on people’s health .

Caption: Low levels of water in the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers have dried up many streams, including at this fish market where fishing boats, returning from Shat Al Arab at the confluence of the rivers, used to dock. Credit: IOM Iraq 2023/Raber Aziz

Among the Arab States , Iraq is one of the most vulnerable to climate change, and is already grappling with devastating consequences . Rising temperatures, dwindling rainfall and surging dust storms are wreaking havoc on land and water resources .

The impact on children is particularly dire, with UNICEF reporting that nearly three out of five lack access to clean water. Less than half of schools have basic drinking water, jeopardizing children's health, nutrition and cognitive development.

Desertification has ravaged approximately 40 per cent of Iraq's land. The Government estimates that an additional 250 million square metre s of arable land will be lost to degradation each year.

Drought has left an estimated 7 million Iraqis vulnerable to displacement and food insecurity, with approximately 1.2 million people lacking enough to eat. In December 2022, nearly 70,000 people fled their homes and farms due to drought in central and southern Iraq.

Climate-induced stressors have heightened threats from resource competition, intercommunal tensions and violent conflict, casting a dark shadow over the country's future.

Learn more about climate change and water scarcity .

South Sudan

Caption: A family arrives in Bentiu in 2023 after being forced to flee their flooded village in South Sudan. Credit: UNHCR/Andrew McConnell

Devastating cycles of floods and droughts in South Sudan are destroying agriculture and deepening food insecurity, impacting approximately 1 million people annually, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs . Above-average rainfall has engorged rivers and tributaries, submerging vast stretches of land as well as homes, farms and schools.

With 95 per cent of South Sudan's population dependent on climate-sensitive livelihoods like farming and agriculture, the impacts of floods and droughts are profound. In recent years, the severe disruption of agricultural activities has left over 8 million people food insecure and displaced nearly 2 million .

South Sudan also grapples with extreme heat. In 2023, a prolonged heatwave, with temperatures soaring to a scorching 45°C (113°F), forced schools to close for two weeks . The multifaceted climate crisis plunging this relatively new nation into a state of humanitarian emergency highlights the urgent need for climate adaptation and resilience.

Learn more about climate change and extreme heat .

In 2018, the United Nations established the Climate Security Mechanism. Led by the United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and Department of Peacekeeping Operations as well as the United Nations Environment Programme and United Nations Development Programme, the initiative is designed to address links between climate, peace and security in responses to crises around the world.

The mechanism supports United Nations field missions, country teams and regional organizations to analyze climate-related security risks and design integrated, timely responses. Learn more about its work .

IMAGES

Read the Draft of the Climate Change Report
The Science of Climate Change Explained: Facts, Evidence and Proof
💣 Essay about global warming by student. Climate Change Essay For
≫ Overcoming Global Warming and Climate Change Free Essay Sample on
Climate Change Solution Ideas :: Sustainability
Frequently Asked Questions about Climate Change

COMMENTS

Essay on Climate Change: Check Samples in 100, 250 Words
Writing an essay on climate change is crucial to raise awareness and advocate for action. The world is facing environmental challenges, so in a situation like this such essay topics can serve as s platform to discuss the causes, effects, and solutions to this pressing issue. They offer an opportunity to engage readers in understanding the ...
Climate Change Essay for Students and Children
Climate change refers to the change in the environmental conditions of the earth. This happens due to many internal and external factors. The climatic change has become a global concern over the last few decades. Besides, these climatic changes affect life on the earth in various ways. These climatic changes are having various impacts on the ...
Climate Change Essay
200 Words Essay on Climate Change. The climate of the Earth has changed significantly over time. While some of these changes were brought on by natural events like volcanic eruptions, floods, forest fires, etc., many of the changes were brought on by human activity. The burning of fossil fuels, domesticating livestock, and other human ...
Argumentative Essay About Climate Change
Argumentative Essay About Climate Change Introduction. The first step is to introduce the topic and provide an overview of the main points you will cover in the essay. This should include a brief description of what climate change is. Furthermore, it should include current research on how humans are contributing to global warming.
Climate Change Essay for Students in English
Climate Change Essay: Go through the 500+ Words Essay on Climate Change and get ideas on how to write an effective essay on issues related to the environment. Boost your essay writing skills to score high marks in the English exam and also participate in various essay writing competitions.
How To Write The Perfect Essay On Climate Change
Creating the Perfect Essay on Climate Change or Any Environmental Topic. Essay writing is a task which poses an immense challenge to many students. This is because it not only has many requirements, but also requires one to have professional writing skills to produce a top-notch paper. This is especially complicated for climate change papers.
Steps To Follow While Writing An Essay On Climate Change
Writing an essay on global warming and climate change is essentially reflecting on the inevitable consequence of the irresponsible behavior of people inhabiting the planet. Outside of big-scale thinking, there is something each of us can do, and by shaping minds the right way, essential change can be done daily.
Essay on Global Warming with Samples (150, 250, 500 Words
Being able to write an essay is an integral part of mastering any language. Essays form an integral part of many academic and scholastic exams like the SAT, and UPSC amongst many others.It is a crucial evaluative part of English proficiency tests as well like IELTS, TOEFL, etc. Major essays are meant to emphasize public issues of concern that can have significant consequences on the world.
4 guidelines for writing about climate change
As you cover the topic in your area, here are some guidelines for your reporting. Do not conflate science and policy. They are separate things. Science informs policymaking but it does not dictate ...
Free Climate Change Essay Examples & Topic Ideas
Climate Change: Essay Topics for College Students. Welcome to our resource page designed for college students seeking inspiration for their climate change essays. The choice of topic is a crucial first step in the writing process, reflecting your personal interests and creativity.
317 Climate Change Essay Topics to Write about & Climate Change Topics
The essay argues that modern sources of scientific knowledge about climate change can drastically change people's attitudes to an eco-friendly lifestyle. Climate Change Policies and Regulation The current changes in climate patterns have attracted attention from researchers and institutions as they endeavor to formulate and implement policies.
How a warming Earth is changing our brains, bodies and minds
Ice is melting; seas are steadily rising; storms are - well, you know this story. And yet, most frequently, it is still a story of the world out there: the world outside of us. The narrative of climate change is one of meteorological extremes, economic upheaval and biodiversity losses. But perhaps it is worth taking a maybe-mad Ruskin seriously.
Climate Change Essay: Example and Tips
Body of climate change essay example. If countries do not begin to seriously deal with the problem of environmental protection, by 2100 the temperature on the planet can rise by 3.7-4.8° C. Climatologists warn: irreversible consequences for the ecology will come even with a warming of more than 2° C.
Our Future Is Now
Climate change is defined as "a pattern of change affecting global or regional climate," based on "average temperature and rainfall measurements" as well as the frequency of extreme weather events. 1 These varied temperature and weather events link back to both natural incidents and human activity. 2 Likewise, the term global warming ...
Lessons from The Economist's essay contest on climate change
Climate change is a global problem, so it needs a global solution. It's great to use a local or national solution, but explain how it can be applied more globally. Though America is an important actor, it's not alone. Balance ideas with their expression. An essay can't rely exclusively on good writing or good argumentation; it needs both.
Climate Explained: Introductory Essays About Climate Change Topics
Climate Explained, a part of Yale Climate Connections, is an essay collection that addresses an array of climate change questions and topics, including why it's cold outside if global warming is real, how we know that humans are responsible for global warming, and the relationship between climate change and national security.
337 Climate Change Research Topics & Essay Samples
A climate change essay is familiar to most students who learn biology, ecology, and politics. In order to write a great essay on climate change, you need to explore the topic in great detail and show your understanding of it. We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts.
Climate Change
Climate change is the long-term alteration of temperature and typical weather patterns in a place. Climate change could refer to a particular location or the planet as a whole. Climate change may cause weather patterns to be less predictable. These unexpected weather patterns can make it difficult to maintain and grow crops in regions that rely ...
Causes and Effects of Climate Change Essay
There are two main causes of climate changes - natural causes and human activities. Natural causes have influenced the earth's climates such as volcanic eruptions, ocean current, the earth's orbital changes and solar variations. The eruptions of volcanoes cause a cooling effect on the earth.
1,000 Word Climate Change Essay
1,000 Word Climate Change Essay. Climate change in the world can be caused by various activities. When climate change occurs; temperatures can increase a dramatically. When temperature rises, many different changes can occur on Earth. For example, it can result in more floods, droughts, or intense rain, as well as more frequent and severe heat ...
Creative Writing a Gateway to Creative Climate Solutions
"With climate change, there's a lot of grieving that we need to do as a community," said Bashaw. "I don't think we have even emotionally accepted it's occurring." Bashaw thinks that only when humanity can process the climate crises can the world come together to carry out solutions. To them, art is where processing has a place.
Ecological art can bring us closer to understanding nature. How does
Two exhibitions in Sydney are showcasing interdisciplinary research on climate change communicated in ... Write an article and join a growing community of more than 188,600 academics and ...
When will climate change turn life in the U.S. upside down?
Climate change was a key contributor to these floods; a 2021 study found that about one-third of the cost of major U.S. flood events since 1988, totaling $79 billion, could be attributed to climate change. ... Though this essay has dwelt on some grim realities, I am optimistic that we will prevent climate change from becoming a civilization ...
Food & Food Culture in FWS
Explore important aspects of the Russian culture in broad historical, geopolitical and socioeconomic context through the lens of Russian folklore, poetry, short stories of Gogol, Chekhov, and Bulgakov, works of contemporary Russian-American writers, visual art, and international film, in which, among other things, food and Russian culinary and hospitality tradition figure prominently.
The Climate Change Crisis in Pakistan
The climate change crisis has far-reaching socioeconomic implications. Increased frequency of natural disasters strains the country's economy, leading to higher poverty levels and exacerbating inequalities. Vulnerable communities, particularly in rural areas, are disproportionately affected, with limited resources to recover and adapt. ...
Opinion
This beautiful yet frightening article highlights the urgent need to drastically cut emissions to tackle climate change, an objective that will require sustained social movement participation ...
Climate, peace and security: what we need to know
Climate change affects us all, no matter where we live, but it is particularly devastating for fragile countries and communities facing conflict or humanitarian crises. Today, of the 15 countries ...

Climate Change Essay for Students and Children

When Did it Start?

Reason Of Climate Change

Natural Reasons

Human Reasons

Effects Of Climatic Change

What will be Future?

Customize your course in 30 seconds

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Download the App

Make Your Case: A Guide to Writing an Argumentative Essay on Climate Change

What is an Argumentative Essay about Climate Change?

Argumentative Essay Outline about Climate Change

Argumentative Essay About Climate Change Introduction

Thesis Statement For Climate Change Argumentative Essay

Climate Change Argumentative Essay Conclusion

How To Write An Argumentative Essay On Climate Change

Do Your Research

Pick A Catchy Title

Outline Your Essay

Compose Your Essay

Proofread and Revise

Examples Of Argumentative Essays About Climate Change

Good Argumentative Essay Topics About Climate Change

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a good thesis statement for climate change?

Keep reading

Climate Change Essay

What Causes Climate Change?

Effects of Climate Change

Steps to be Taken to Reduce Climate Change

Frequently Asked Questions on climate change Essay

How can we save this climate change situation?

Are there any natural causes for climate change?

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Register with BYJU'S & Download Free PDFs

Environment

Creating the Perfect Essay on Climate Change or Any Environmental Topic

What is a descriptive essay on Climate Change?

Choose a topic related to climate change or green living

Do statement

Engage your readers’ senses

Write an outline

Create a conclusion

Polish and finish

Writing a Great Essay on Climate Change Doesn’t Have to Be Overwhelming

You may like

Like our Facebook Page

6 Eco-Friendly Improvements for Your Car

Green Businesses Are Turning to Preventive Maintenance Software

Holistic Healing – Green Approach to Catastrophic Injury Recovery

Renewable Energy and EVs: Perfect Partners for a Greener World

3 Ways an Outdoor Kitchen Can Make Your Home Eco-Friendly

Savvy Investors Are Creating Eco-Friendly Portfolios

Potash: A Future Where Profitability Meets Sustainability

What Are the Most Eco-Friendly Flooring Materials?

Key Technologies For Sustainable Battlefield Strategies

10 Tips to Have a Low-Waste, Eco-Friendly Wedding

Steps To Follow While Writing An Essay On Climate Change

Essay on climate changes: how to write?

Topics for essay on global warming and climate change

Mistakes to avoid when writing an essay on climate change

Bottom line

Why Abortion Should Be Legal – Essay Writing Tips & Tricks

How to Begin Writing Essays about Mothers

Compare And Contrast Essay On Taoism And Confucianism

45,000+ students realised their study abroad dream with us. Take the first step today

Essay on Global Warming

Short Essay on Global Warming and Climate Change?

What is Global Warming?

What are the Causes of Global Warming?

Solutions for Global Warming

Effects of Global Warming

Sample Essays on Global Warming

Essay on Global Warming Paragraph in 100 – 150 words

Essay on Global Warming in 250 Words

Essay on Global Warming in 500 Words

Essay on Global Warming UPSC

Climate Change and Global Warming Essay

Tips to Write an Essay