Top Highlights

• How is climate change affecting animals? How is climate change affecting people? How is climate change affecting the ocean? How is climate change affecting farms and our food? Does deforestation contribute to climate change?
• Humanity’s accelerated burning of fossil fuels and deforestation (forests are key parts of the planet’s natural carbon management systems) have led to rapid increases of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and global warming.
• The more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the warmer it gets. Over Earth’s history, carbon dioxide levels fluctuate due to volcanic activity or the carbon cycle (animals and bacteria breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide while plants do the opposite).
• The rate of carbon emissions are the highest they’ve been in 66 million years and the amount of warming in the coming decades is expected to be 250 times greater than the average warming during the past century.
• The main threats of climate change, stemming from the rising temperature of Earth’s atmosphere include rising sea levels, ecosystem collapse and more frequent and severe weather.

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