The Causes of Environmental Climate Change

Climate change is a problem that affects everyone in the world. While there are many things that contribute to the problem, the biggest cause for this change is greenhouse gasses. There are four greenhouse gasses that greatly affect climate change: carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, nitrous-oxide and aerosols. All of these add to climate change by trapping heat in the atmosphere.

“I do think that it’s pretty obvious that data is there showing that the climate has been changing quite considerably over the last few decades, especially after the Industrial Revolution, which is when we start burning the crap out of fossil fuel,” Joe Brocksmith, a science teacher and sponsor of the Ecology Club at FHN said. “Obviously, the Earth has gone through natural cycles in the past every few million years. But just how much of an impact humans really, truly have is the hard thing to try to figure out.”

One of the greenhouse gasses that influences climate change is carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide gets released into the environment when we burn fossil fuels or when trees are cut down. Trees trap carbon dioxide so when deforestation occurs,  a lot of the carbon dioxide gets released into the environment.

“As researchers have found years ago, climate change is caused by the excessive CO2 that we as humans are emitting,” sophomore and creator of sun club Hailey Zhang said.

While the earth continuously heats up, a greenhouse gas called water vapor causes the earth to heat up. Since water vapor is created from water heating up and evaporating, this gas is only causing the cycle to repeat. 

“We should start thinking about things that we can do, even if it is just small things,” Ana Londono, an associate professor in Earth Sciences said. “We start to create that consciousness that we need to drive change or we will see a lot more natural disasters happening.”

The gas that is so potent it traps heat 25 times more than carbon dioxide, Methane largely contributes to climate change. Methane is usually produced by animals and agricultural activity. It can also get into the air through landfills, wastewater treatment and more. 

“Any moment is a good moment to start,” Londono said. “Change starts with us in our daily activities. It starts with participating in discussions and talking with our politicians and our representatives to push for ideas that will better our climate.”

A huge contributor to climate change is nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas. Nitrous oxide is very potent being 10-15 times more potent than methane and 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Nitrous oxide is produced by the use of nitrogen-based fertilizers, sewage plants and the burning of fossil fuels and wood. Similarly, aerosols are tiny particles in the air and aerosols are a player in climate change as well since they can destroy the ozone layer. Soot is an aerosol which acts like the other greenhouse gasses in trapping in heat. Aerosols are produced by burning fossil fuels like coal petroleum wood and biofuels as well as they can be produced naturally by burning vegetation or trees giving them off.

“The global temperature is on the rise, the climate is rising,” Zhang said. “And that affects a lot of different diseases. That affects the way we live.” (Story by Ray Hathcock and Alex Wheadon)

Causes of Climate Change in Different Continents

Solutions to Climate Change

Climate change is a major world issue when most people think of the effects of climate change they think of the temperature rising. But the issue goes much deeper, it causes ice to melt, ocean temperatures to go up, carbon dioxide levels to rise, and of course the global temperature to rise. With only seven years until we pass the point of no return in terms of the climate temperature rising, finding solutions for this is very important.

“Once I started looking out for the differences in climate it became very obvious how vastly different our climate has become since I was a kid. For example I live in California and have lived there since 1986 our weather over the years has changed, our summers keep moving back into the month starts much earlier. Overall the weather has become more unpredictable, more aggressive, carbon emissions are a large factor into this and need to be stopped while it will make a difference.” Co-Founder of electric driver Sina Ghaboussi said. 

One of the causes of global warming is greenhouse gasses, which is made up of smaller groups. Carbon dioxide emissions, water vapor, methane, and nitrous oxide and aerosols. And although this is a large problem everyone can help by changing a few simple things. On a smaller scale there’s many ways that you can decrease your carbon footprint to lessen the amount of carbon dioxide emissions you contribute to. One of the many ways is making driving more efficient. You can do this by biking, skateboarding, or walking to places more. Also just simply turning off the lights when you’re not using them helps with this. 

“Companies should start designing things in a way where people think about the effect on the environment and not just the money. Theres so many things industries can be doing to help prevent emissions of greenhouse gasses,” Ghaboussi said.

Some other larger solutions to this issue would be to plant more trees and restore areas we have deforested in the past. This helps because as the trees grow they take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen. Another greenhouse gas is water vapor, due to water nearly covering the planet we can’t control it evaporating but by implementing solutions to decrease other greenhouse gasses water vapor emissions will in turn go down.

“I think a lot of people and companies for that matter should just take a step back and look at what they’re actually doing,” Ghaboussi said, “For instance when someone eats throughout the day if you’re not counting your calories you’re not truly aware of how much you are taking in throughout the day. But if you do count your calories it gives you a benchmark and a sense of what you need to do”

Methane emissions are largely caused by landfills, and by adding a few additional steps to your day you can help limit the amount of methane released into the atmosphere. Doing simple things such as reducing your waste that would go to a landfill you can do this by reusing and refurbishing old items. Composting and using less energy also helps reduce methane emissions. Larger scaled solutions to reduce methane emissions include preventing the burning of fields after harvest, and improving the technology used to detect methane leaks at oil and gas factories.

“I think there’s a problem in business, being that their main goal is to maximize profits for shareholders, but in doing this they end up harming the environment,” Ghaboussi said.

Lastly nitrous oxide and aerosols are a factor that go towards greenhouse gasses, but you can help reduce your emissions by having open flues when using a fireplace, and using proper fuel in kerosene space heaters. By far the easiest and most important large solutions to prevent nitrous oxide and aerosol is by using fertilizer more efficiently; this means finding the correct time and amount of fertilizer to use in farms. This also means using more environmentally friendly fertilizer. By implementing one or two of these everyday solutions you can help reduce your greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to the fight against climate change. (Story by Violet Newton)

(Timeline by Chloe Ellison)

Organizations Battling Climate Change

There are many organizations that work to help spread awareness and tackle climate change. While many organizations are mainly international there are plenty located nationwide. The following are US based climate change organizations and the things they do to help the planet.

Mo Environment 

Missouri Coalition for the Environment (MCE) is Missouri’s independent, citizens’ environmental organization for clean water, clean air, clean energy, and a healthy environment.

EarthJustice

EarthJustice is a non-profit organization that uses the power of the law to protect communities’ and the planet’s health. With offices across the U.S., their work has helped to save wildlands, halt destructive logging and mining, and encourage more sustainable farming policies. Their sustainable food and farming program works to improve worker safety, promote climate-friendly farming practices, and reduce pollution by factory farms.

Union of Concerned Scientist

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) is a nonprofit by scientists and students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Their mission being to solve the planet’s problems using science. UCS uses ‘technical analysis’ and ‘effective advocacy’ to create new, practical solutions for a healthy, safe, and sustainable future. The Union of Concerned Scientists also fights disinformation and explains how special interests intentionally spread misleading information on climate change.

Sierra Club

In the beginning Sierra Club was mainly focused on the conservation of California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. Now the organization works to advance climate solutions and make sure everyone lives in a healthy environment with clean air and water. The organization is mainly  a national community of volunteers, advocates, and grassroots activists. 

One Tree Planted

In 2014 One Tree Planted was created by Matt Hill as a non-profit in Shelburne, Vermont. This non-profit’s main goal is to make it easier for businesses and individuals to give back and help restoration efforts. They make this possible by planting a tree for every dollar donated. As of now this organization has planted over 40 million trees in more than 43 countries across the globe since their start in 2014. (Story by Morgan Chairs)

Listen to Sophie Watterson from MCE talk her views on environmental consciousness:

Ameren Set to Open New Solar Facility

There has been a global goal to get involved in the battle against climate change, whether it be through recycling, composting, or switching to electric

 cars. But it’s not only the average person who is trying to make a change, larger companies have started to implement plans to better the environment. 

An energy company located in both Missouri and Illinois known as Ameren has been committed to making a change. They are currently working on a plan in order to switch to using 100% clean energy and have net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. While that seems like quite a long way off, Ameren has already begun to implement their plan. 

“Ameren Missouri is committed to clean energy and we are really working as hard as we can to get there quickly,” Manager of Renewal and Technology Business Development for Ameren, Chad Raley said. “We are doing that while also keeping in mind that a lot of power reliability on the grid and customer rates need to remain affordable.”

To accomplish their hefty goal, Ameren has started with a few smaller projects and goals in order to meet an estimated 5,400 megawatts of renewable energy over the next 20 years. They have already started to build more clean energy plants to work towards the large goal. As well as opening the new plants, Ameren has been looking into using new technology such as the use of hydrogen and energy storage to help improve their portfolio. 

“As we take coal fired generation and we retire those plants, we need to fill that gap,” Raley said. “And so a part of that can come from renewable energy, like wind and solar, and then a part of it can come from other technologies.”

Ameren offers a community solar plan that allows for residential and small business owners to use clean energy in their homes without having to build it themselves. When this plan was first offered to the public, Ameren only had small solar farms and could only allow so many people to use the clean energy power. With the great amount of interest in using clean energy, Ameren created a waitlist for customers while they expanded their solar energy intake. They did this through building a new solar panel farm.  

“Right now, there’s a big waitlist,” Raley said. “So it’s growing, but we’re looking forward to expanding the program to include more customers because we’ve seen a lot of interest in this type of program.”

While it isn’t their first clean energy plant, Ameren is set to have this new energy plant open in Montgomery County in March of 2022. This plant will be the largest one yet with a size of about 30 acres, which contributes about six megawatts.

“We have more than 2,000 customers that have signed up for this site alone,” Raley said. “We actually have a waitlist of more than 700 customers even after that. So, this Montgomery County facility will meet the 2000 customers, and that’ll probably be online by the end of March.”

With relying on clean energy comes many uncertainties, such as the uncontrollable weather. Ameren has taken this into account when planning for the future and hope to ensure their reliability to customers. To do this they plan to keep the current plants open while they build the new clean energy plant. They will keep the carbon-emitting plants until they believe that they are safe to close those plants and transition to the clean energy plants without compromising reliability. 

“With renewable energy, we can’t control the weather,” Raley said. “When the sun doesn’t shine, our solar facilities aren’t generating a lot of energy and for wind resources, wind power plants, we don’t control the wind. So if it’s not blowing or blowing at a time, and we really need it. This can create reliability issues for the grid. But we’re absolutely looking at maintaining that reliability that our customers have really come to expect. When someone flips on the switch to their room, they want to make sure that light comes on.” (Story by Amber Winkler)