BaCCC/Module 1/Lesson 1/Part 4

Why should humanity be concerned about climate change?

We have established that the climate is indeed changing (or, more exactly, being changed). The big question now for all humanity is “Should we care that the climate is changing?” To answer this question, let’s play a game as an individual or in a group.

Game instructions:

1 Write the numbers 1 to 30 on small pieces of paper, fold them and place them in a container.

2 Pick ten numbers randomly from the container.

3 Write down all the words that correspond to the numbers that you have picked from the menu.

4 Using words from the menu in the table below, write a paragraph of about 80 words explaining why you or we should care about climate change.

5 Do this as many times as you can fit into the time available (30 minutes works).

6 Your total score will be determined by the number of words you correctly used from the menu and the number of paragraphs you were able to write in 30 minutes.

7 Share and discuss what you wrote with a family member or friend, or submit it to your course facilitator or tutor.

8 You can invite others to play the game with you. Shake up the rules if you want. Pick ten numbers randomly, but work them into a poem, play charades or Pictionary with them or present your “paragraph” out loud instead of writing it.

Game

1. Hunger and starvation	10
2. Water scarcity and reduced water quality	10
3. Floods	10
4. Drought and soil drying	10
5. Soil erosion.	10
6. Sea level rise	10
7. Disappearing glaciers	10
8. Extinction of several animal and plant species	10
9. Severe storms/ cyclones / rainbombs	10
10. Wildfires	10
11. Loss of human life	10
12. Crop losses and food shortages	10
13. Poverty	10
14. Economic downturn or recession	10
15. Poor health	10
16. Disease occurrence and distribution	10
17. Agriculture/ farming	5
18. Social ills and increased crime rate	5
19. Heatwaves / heat stress	5
20. Migration and urbanisation	5
21. Fragile ecosystems	5
22. Air pollution/ quality of air	5
23. Food insecurity	5
24. Poor nutrition	5
25. Reduced work capacity, especially outdoors	5
26. Increased human mortality	5
27. Destruction of infrastructure	5
28. Less power generation	5
29. Swallowing / drowning of entire islands	5

Reading

For feedback following the game, read the article

• Why should we care about climate change?

to learn why climate change is the issue of all issues of all time, and one we need to care about.

Activity

1. The most common misunderstanding about climate change is that the Earth’s climate has changed naturally in the past and, therefore, humans cannot be the cause of global warming and climate change today. From what you now know, is this correct or incorrect? Write your response in your learning journal.

After learning the difference, are you now able to explain it to anybody who holds this misconception?

2. You are given a job in the Climate Change Office at the Department of Environmental Management. Your first assignment is to create and facilitate climate change awareness among members of a specific remote community. This community holds the conception that climate change is a passing natural occurrence. How would you respond to this idea? (You are free to express yourself in your vernacular language or mother tongue.)

Write a short speech (it does not have to be long) and share it with others (classmates, online course forum, family or a friend). It may be useful soon on your climate champion journey.

As you proceed through this course, this question – Why should we care about climate change? – should stick in your head, because it is from your caring attitude that you can act to help safeguard planet Earth, humanity and the rest of nature.

Summary

In this lesson, you learnt the following:

• Weather is the current or short-term condition of the atmosphere, while climate is the average weather conditions over a long period or several decades, for a particular place.
• The climate system is an interactive system that consists of air (atmosphere), water in liquid form (hydrosphere), water in ice or snow form (cryosphere) and life that exists on planet Earth (biosphere), the land surface (lithosphere), and the sun’s energy.
• An Earth systems approach is an effective way to illustrate that there is an interplay among different components of the Earth’s climate and that processes do not occur in isolation.
• Solar radiation is very important for driving the processes or interactions within or between components of the climate system. For example, solar radiation determines the atmospheric composition, contributes to the formation of clouds leading to different forms of precipitation and also has an impact on global wind patterns and ocean surface temperatures.
• Climate patterns such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation can be used to characterise climate variability, whereas climate change refers to long-term phenomena such as global warming.
• We have to care about climate change because its impacts, such as droughts, floods, rising global temperatures and many others, threaten human existence.

From this lesson, you have learnt that the mean annual temperature trend over many years shows an increase; hence the surface of the planet is warming, and this warming leads to climate change. Note that global warming is not the case for just one country or region only, but instead, is a global phenomenon.

Hey, are you gaining confidence as a climate champion?

0 means “Still no confidence at all ” 😒

10 means “Cannot wait to get out there and start giving climate science presentations in my community! 😊 ”

Self-assessment

0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10