The Impacts of Climate Change
Many of us experienced the very real impacts of climate change over the summer of 2018 and this has reiterated how important it is for us to act now before the changes become completely irreversible. The frequency and intensity of flooding events from sea level rise, storm surges and torrential downpours are all increasing due to global warming. Therefore, as well as improving flood resilience, we urgently need to promote alternatives to burning fossil fuels, to address the heart of the problem.
Why are these changes happening?
The burning of fossil fuels has led to an increase in the release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This has resulted in the ‘greenhouse effect’ where more solar energy is becoming trapped in the atmosphere, warming the planet. Over recent years the speed of warming has increased dramatically and now, drastic cuts of greenhouse gas emissions is the only way to stay below an additional warming of 2°C (IPCC, 2018).
Mitigating the Changes
One Home is a not-for-profit social enterprise and is the UK’s only campaign to encourage both climate adaptation and mitigation by providing independent and impartial advice to the public. As part of this, One Home have put together five key actions that the public can take to reduce their carbon footprint and get right to the heart of fixing the world’s biggest problem.
These actions include:
- Improving a properties insulation
- Choosing an all-electric car
- Eating less meat and dairy
- Switching to a green electricity supplier
- No fly holiday ideas
To learn more about how actioning these five recommendations will help cut greenhouse gases, reduce your energy bills and improve your well-being please visit: https://onehome.org.uk/lifestyle/143-five-top-tips-to-combat-climate-change, and help us speed up the transition to a zero-carbon world.
Any questions please contact [email protected] or follow on @ouronehome across social media channels.
References:
Storm Surge, 200 miles away by Scott Pena (CC BY 2.0)
L1001602_v1 by Sigfrid Lundberg (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2018). Global Warming of 1.5 °C – an IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty. [online] Available at: http://ipcc.ch/report/sr15/ [Accessed 11 Oct. 2018].
