Climate Change Education

Introduction
By Emiliana Vargas
Chief, Education Division
Inter-American Development Bank

Something is definitely happening with climate. Floods, droughts,

and excessive heat waves have become common. Each time
extreme natural events occur in different regions around the
world, people become concerned and fearful. It is very probable
that all these extreme events are related to climate change and
forecasts reveal that they will probably become progressively
more intense and frequent.

Scientists from all over the world have discovered undeniable

evidence regarding rapid changes in global temperature and how
temperature increase is directly caused by people. Climate
change and extreme temperatures threaten the environment,
food production and water supply, that is, the things we need to
survive.

We believe that the solution is complex or almost impossible

and sometimes we think that we need the help of a superhero to
save the planet. But we are wrong! Everyone can be a
superhero, even children! Change starts with children.

The IDB invests approximately US$3 billion per year to fund

traditional projects focused on climate change, renewable energy
sources and environmental sustainability and has also decided to
create the initiative “Rise Up”, a course focused on fighting
climate changes and improving the planet’s sustainability. We
believe that encouraging children and young people to use their
own creativity to achieve feasible, sustainable, long-term
solutions to fight climate changes is a win-win situation. Teaching
children to take care of the planet, since their early childhood
years, ensures that future generations will grow up thinking about
how they can protect the planet.

Thank you.

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Module 1: Our climate is changing
By Juan Paredes
Energy Specialist
Inter-American Development Bank

and

Emma Naslund-Hadley
Education Specialist
Inter-American Development Bank

We, humans, are part of an ecosystem that includes the planet

and everything living in it. Believe it or not, many of our daily
actions affect the planet as much as it affects our lives and
health through water and air quality or energy availability in our
homes. Our actions affect our planet not only at a local level, but
also at a global level.
The challenge we face today is finding ways to reduce these
footprints and restore and integrate the spaces where we live in
the natural ecosystems surrounding us. Unfortunately, it took us
long time to realize that taking no action affects us negatively.
Sustainability on our planet is threatened. What can we do?
Schools are the key to initiate change. Schools teach values,
habits and customs that go beyond the school area. At school it
is possible to find out different ways to mitigate climate change,
for example, through renewable energy, building smart buildings,
gardens, lighting systems or water management.
While climate change is our most critical environmental problem,
other seemingly small problems at the community level also
impact negatively on our quality of life. For example, the pollution
of local water resources, the deterioration of air quality due to car
and industrial emissions.
Even though the contributions of a certain area or school may
seem insignificant compared to the global problem, individual
actions are necessary to maintain and improve the life quality of
communities.
Besides being a useful tool for teachers, Rise Up helps parents
who want to raise their children's awareness about climate
change and what we can do to create a more sustainable future.
In this course, though the resources available on the website of
Rise Up, parents, teachers and education policy makers will find
a lot of materials to guide them in this important mission.
Climate change not only poses environmental challenges but
also affects the economic, social and cultural aspects of our
lives, affecting, for example, our landscapes, drinking water and
food supply; therefore, teaching only the science behind climate
change is not enough, we must involve all topics under a
multidisciplinary approach to raise awareness and tackle climate
change.
Let's help your school community to become a committed place
with the environmental wellness.

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The course will help you developing real actions that help
students to reduce their ecological footprint and to show
consideration for themselves and for others. Through small
changes we can determine if our school community is part of the
problem or part of the solution.
Together we can transform our communities into sustainable
places that respect the environment where we and the next
generations can live healthy and happy lives, both today and in
the future.
Rise Up and help us to tackle climate change and spread these
important messages in all corners of Latin America and the
Caribbean.

Introduction
By: Emma Naslund-Hadley
Education Specialist
Inter-American Development Bank

News about climate change are everywhere, but do you know

what does climate change mean? Is our planet getting warm?
Some people say that changes in global temperature relate to
nature cycles. Is that true?
As we already know, this planet is an inter-connected system
that is, a change in water may affect the air, plants, animals, and
of course, we people. And as everything is connected, our
actions also affect the environment. Not only the environment of
our region, but the whole planet.
What is climate change? And what is its main cause? The
greenhouse effect gases.
In order to understand why our actions may have an impact on
the planet as a whole we will study the Earth’s systems with the
atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere and we will see how
are they related. We will also explore the difference between
climate and weather and the effect of climate in the culture of
each region.
Answering to the challenges of climate change is everyone’s
duty. In this module we will address the actions, at individual
level, that contribute to our ecological footprint, as well as the
actions that governments have taken to reduce their emissions of
greenhouse effect gases.
We hope you enjoy the course and see you soon!

What is climate change?

People used to take the weather and climate for granted, but not
anymore! They are both now studied intensively by scientists and
discussed by celebrities and newscasters as they become
increasingly important to our own daily lives.

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Every place on Earth has a climate. A climate includes factors of industrial emissions, the
that remain fairly constant for at least 30 years, such as contamination of the soil
temperature, humidity, the amount of water present in the air, with pesticides, the
and rainfall. degradation and
deforestation of forests and
In order words, climates change gradually over long periods of
time. Most Andean capital cities—including La Paz, Bolivia;
Santiago de Chile, Chile; Quito, Ecuador; and Bogota, Colombia
—were covered with ice until approximately 12,000 years ago.
And many of today’s deserts were once covered by lush forests.
In these cases, transformations were due to natural phenomena.
But today, climate changes aren’t just coming from natural
causes; they are also the result of human activities that produce
large amounts of greenhouse gases (GHG).
In addition, human-made changes are speeding up the natural
changes and increasing their impact. An example of this is
deforestation, which occurs when people cut down trees to clear
the land for other uses.

Climate Change and Global Warming

You may have noticed that we have not used the term global
warming. This is because, although GHGs are increasing the
average temperature of the planet, we know that each region on
Earth is warming at a different pace.
You might hear about some regions in the world experiencing
temperatures above 40° Celsius while at the same time regions
in the opposite hemisphere are enduring temperatures of minus
40° Celsius.
Extreme temperatures and similar changes affect more than just
the climate; they also create and generate dramatic changes in
many processes and human activities. Taken together, the
effects of the adjustments triggered by climate change are known
as global change. The consequences of global change have
been disastrous for human communities that cannot adapt
quickly enough.

Climate change and schools

In schools—as in other spaces of human activity—goods such as
water, energy, and space are needed, in this case to carry out
educational activities. Meeting each one of these needs leaves
an impact on nature that we can and need to reduce in order to
mitigate harmful climate change. Smart use of natural resources
will give us cleaner air and water, and productive land.
If environmentally responsible actions to lower emissions are
learned and practiced at school, students can transmit this
knowledge to their families and to their children in the future, thus
preparing future generations for the challenges of climate
change.
While climate change is our most pressing environmental
problem, all the seemingly small environmental problems arising
at the community level also adversely affect our quality of life
(contamination of local water sources, deterioration of the quality
of air because of the use of motor vehicles and the lack of control

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 school community, his or
her immediate environment,
and his or her global
environment. In the end, the
aim is for all who participate
in these activities to become
people with greater
jungles, and so on). Even though the contributions of a particular resources and capabilities
area or educational center may seem insignificant compared to to meet the challenges
the overall global problem, individual actions are necessary to posed by the world today.
maintain and improve communities’ quality of life.
More schools are incorporating environmental topics into
everyday school life, both in their curriculum and in school
operations. Some take small actions, mainly related to the
handling of waste, while others transform or build their facilities
according to principles of sustainability applied from the outset.
It is interesting to note that these developments have emerged
from very different sources: some from students, others from
teachers, and yet others from school coordinators or
administrators.
Throughout this course, we provide examples of these
experiences. Some are documented online and can be found
using keywords such as green schools, ecological schools, or
sustainable schools. Establish contact with school role models so
they can share their experiences. Improving the environmental
performance of schools requires thinking about at least two
issues:
o Consumption methods and how we manage each of the
goods or services we use

o Technological conditions of school infrastructure that provide

us with energy, water, or green areas, among others

In this course you will find recommendations to optimally

transform your school, from its facilities to its values, habits, and
customs to members’ homes and communities. You will find
ideas that can be easily incorporated into daily activities at a low
cost.
A first step toward transforming your educational space is to
assess how it operates and how the school community perceives
its operation. Under each topic addressed in this course and
through the materials available, you will find tools that can help
you conduct a diagnostic evaluation in a timely manner.
You will find that, for all the options we present, it is most
important to identify and locate bad habits, acknowledge them,
and understand and transform them. You will recognize the value
of research as a daily activity, and the importance of developing
monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities.
You will discover how satisfying and effective collaborative work
is. It is essential for you to stay organized and improve your
means of communication. As you accomplish the goal of
transforming your school into an environmentally friendly space
that abides by the rules of greater energy efficiency and lower
environmental impact, you will also notice that you are preparing
a different type of student, one who is more engaged with the

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 In Latin America, only a few
countries are outside the
Inter-tropical region. In
these countries there are
distinct seasons. In contrast,
those that are in this zone
have a fairly stable climate
all year round and the
changes that occur depend
on the altitude, rainfall,
cloudiness, humidity and air
pressure.
What is the difference between climate and weather? The weather
Climate is very important for all life in our planet. What is weather?
It is different all over the world and it changes according to Weather is a description of
weather variations. The first thing we need to do to avoid the state of the atmosphere
confusions is to define two terms, climate and weather. at a given time. This
description includes a
Climate is measured in long periods of time of at least thirty
number of factors, including
years, while weather changes in short periods of time, even in
temperature, rainfall, clouds,
the same day.
humidity, and air pressure.
Climate is the average weather for long periods of time. That The weather varies
means, climate is the normal weather, the one that has persisted throughout the day due to
over many years and to which we are already used to. winds and storms and it

As you already saw, climate affects how we dress. But not only
that, also the houses we build, the vegetation, the animals, the
food we eat and even our daily activities.
Our exploration of climate takes us to the seasons.
Seasons are produced due to the translation movement of the
planet, that is, the movement of the earth around the sun in an
elliptical orbit, where sometimes earth is closer and sometimes it
is further away from the sun.
But that is not what changes weather and causes seasons.
Actually, seasons are the result of the inclination of the earth’s
rotation angle. Earth’s axis angle is not zero degrees but twenty-
three point forty-five degrees. This degree of inclination makes
the Equator, which is an imaginary line that divides the northern
hemisphere from the southern hemisphere, not directly
underneath the center of sunrays that reach the planet, but
sometimes is above and sometimes is below, and that means,
one hemisphere is always receiving more sunrays than the other.
However, there are parts of the planet that regardless of the time
of year will always receive sun rays directly. This area is
delimited by the Tropic of Cancer in the north and the Tropic of
Capricorn in the south. That is why they are called the Inter-
tropical region, and it is the zone where sunrays reach more
vertically throughout the entire year, that is, just over our heads.
When one hemisphere receives more sunrays, it is in summer,
and of course, when the other hemisphere receives fewer
sunrays it's, therefore, in winter. When the southern hemisphere
is in summer, the northern hemisphere is in winter. When in the
southern hemisphere it is spring time, in the north there is
autumn and so on.

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 Climate is not the same as
weather. Climate is the
average weather in a region
varies throughout the year due to Earth’s movement around the over a long period of time.
sun. We can summarize by saying that weather refers to short-
term conditions in a particular area that can change quickly, Climate is a product of the
sometimes within minutes. interaction of many
variables.
As we’ve seen, climate, however, does not normally change at a
rapid pace. In fact, it can take years, decades, or even longer
before changes in the climate can be felt. We can say that the
climate is the average weather in a region over a long period of
time.
What generates changes in the weather?
The changes occur because the planet Earth is a sphere that
rotates on a tilted axis, causing the sun’s rays to fall in varying
intensities on the planet. The sun’s rays fall directly and
perpendicularly on the equator, making those regions warmer. At
the poles, however, the sun’s rays light Earth at an angle, and
this results in lower temperatures.
These temperature differences create currents. For example,
when the air of a region is warmer than the air that surrounds it, it
becomes less dense and starts to rise, allowing the denser air to
descend and take its place. These air currents are called winds.

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Climate and Our Culture
Climate is one of the factors
that determine the
landscape and our culture. It
influences our clothing, what
we eat, our activities, and
how we build our homes.
People living in cold
climates often wear heavy,
dark clothes while people
who live in hotter regions
tend to wear light clothing.
For example in La Paz,
Bolivia, people who live in
the mountains use ruanas,
bulky woolen ponchos, to
guard against cold
temperatures, while in La
Guajira, Colombia, which is
close to the sea, people use
large cotton blankets as
protection from the heat.
Climate also influences how
we build homes. In the
Chilean desert of San Pedro

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de Atacama, for example, people build homes using adobe—clay
mixed with manure and plant materials—with only a few small
windows in order to protect themselves from high temperatures
and strong winds. In the Amazon jungle, it is common to see
bungalows with palm leaf roofs, which keep them cool.

The seasons and tropical

climate
We know that Earth travels
around the sun on an
elliptical orbit, a trip that
lasts about 365 days, or one
year. Because Earth tilts on
its axis as it travels around
the sun, the sun’s rays
affect the planet differently
over the course of its orbit.
These differences generate
seasonal changes,
explaining why Earth’s
northern and southern
hemispheres have four
major seasons every year.
Summer in the northern
hemisphere and winter in
the southern hemisphere:
This season begins on June
20 or 21, when the sun’s
rays hit Earth at an angle
and pass through the Tropic
of Cancer. The first day of
this season is called the
solstice. In the northern
hemisphere, which tilts
toward the sun during this
season, the days are longer
than the nights, making it
the warmest time of the
year. In the southern
hemisphere, the opposite
occurs: as winter begins,
temperatures drop, and the
sun rises late and sets
early.
Autumn in the northern
hemisphere and spring in
the southern hemisphere:
This season begins on
September 22 or 23, when
the sun’s rays fall vertically
on the equator. The

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beginning of this season is called the equinox because days and
nights are of equal length.
Winter in the northern hemisphere and summer in the southern
hemisphere: This season begins on December 21 or 22, when
the sun’s rays hit Earth at an angle and pass through the Tropic
of Capricorn. The beginning of this season is also a solstice, but
it is the reverse of the one in June. The days are shorter than the
nights in the northern hemisphere, with lower temperatures.
Spring in the northern hemisphere and autumn in the southern
hemisphere: In this season, which begins on March 20 or 21, the
sun’s rays also fall vertically over the equator. The first day of the
season is also an equinox— days and nights are of equal length.
Regions north of the Tropic of Cancer (the boreal regions) and
south of the Tropic of Capricorn have climates that vary by
season. In order to survive, the plants and animals there must
adapt to seasonal climate changes, such as cold, heat, and wind.
In Latin America, all of the countries located below the Tropic of
Capricorn, including Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay,
share the same seasons.

Changes in weather can be

easily perceived and
therefore is a concept easily
understood by students.
Climate, on the other hand,
is harder to notice and
therefore becomes a more
abstract concept and harder
to understand.

What are Earth's systems

and how are they
interrelated?
Our world is composed of
elements that relate to each
other. Each one of these
elements has a very

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important function that helps maintain the balance required for
life to exist. Earth is not an ensemble of separate layers but
rather it's a set of systems that are related and liked to one
another. This means that nothing can function on its own. When
one element is changed, all the rest are altered because they
work as a whole.
The atmosphere is the air, it's made of gases like water vapor,
carbon dioxide, oxygen, methane, ozone and nitrogen oxide.
Hydrosphere is the water, which covers seventy-one per cent of
the earth surface. Water also makes three fourths of the human
body.
The cryosphere is the ice and glaciers on the north and south
poles.
All living creatures, including us, compose the biosphere.
To understand how these systems relate think about your own
body. You have a digestive system that helps you process food,
you have lungs that help you breathe, you also have bones, a
nervous system, eyes, ears and so much more.
All these systems along with your thoughts and feelings make up
a single unit, that’s you. So, whatever affects one system in your
body affects your whole being.
Our planet is the same, what affects one system, affects all the
others.
We humans are part of the biosphere, but our body contains
water, we eat what earth provides us and breathe the air of the
atmosphere. We make part of the earth’s systems but at the
same time we are all the systems together.
The great secret of life is that everyone and everything that
composes it forms a single unit. That is why when we alter any of
the systems, we alter everything.
Our activities have affected each one of these systems through
contamination and climate change.

The atmosphere
We already know that the air layer or atmosphere, the water
layer or hydrosphere, the rock layer or lithosphere, the ice layer
or cryosphere, and the layer of living things, from viruses to
humans—the biosphere are constantly interacting with each
other, which fosters life on the planet. Each of these components
is important. If one of them was absent or if the relationship
between them were altered, there would be global
consequences.

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The atmosphere is the air that surrounds our planet and absorbs
heat from the sun, which warms Earth. The atmosphere consists
of gaseous layers that vary in thickness depending on the
pressure at different heights.

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The atmosphere plays an important role in maintaining life and
regulating the climate. Life on our planet would be impossible
without the atmosphere because it contains two essential gases:
oxygen and carbon dioxide. Animals and humans breathe
oxygen, and green plants need carbon dioxide for
photosynthesis, a process that transforms solar energy into food
and oxygen.
Without greenhouse gases, less of the sun’s heat would remain
around Earth. Instead, it would bounce back into space, and this
would make it impossible for life to exist on Earth.
The gases in the atmosphere regulate Earth’s temperature,
keeping the sun’s rays from directly hitting the surface of Earth
and preventing excessive heat loss at night.
Atmospheric pressure also helps regulate the air near Earth.
Atmospheric pressure is the force from the air’s weight on the
soil and on living things, including humans. It is a factor
preventing the escaping of liquids and gases from our bodies.
The mixture of gases that make up the atmosphere has evolved
over millions of years, and is constantly changing. However, a
combination of factors—fossil fuel use, destruction of forests,
changes in land use, decomposition of waste in dumps and
landfills, among others—have increased the level of greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere. More GHGs make the atmosphere
absorb more heat, which has consequences for the climate and
for living things.

Greenhouse effect
The countries of Latin America and the Caribbean produce
flowers, fruits, and vegetables. Sometimes, farmers grow their
crops in greenhouses—plastic or glass structures that protect
crops from the sun’s rays, frost, and moisture in the air. Both light
and heat can enter, but while light can escape, much of the heat
remains trapped inside. This is why it’s hotter inside a
greenhouse than outside.

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Atmospheric gases, such as water vapor (H2O), carbon dioxide
(CO2), and methane (CH4), contain heat in a similar way. This is
known as the greenhouse effect—it keeps some of the sun’s
heat from escaping into outer space. Instead, that heat gets
trapped in the atmosphere.
The earth’s atmosphere is an air system that surrounds our
planet. Some of the gases it contains include water vapor,
methane, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide and ozone. These
gases trap part of the energy coming from the sun generating
what we know as the greenhouse effect, which basically means
heating up the earth to an ideal temperature for life to exist, in
average fourteen to fifteen degrees centigrade. If it weren’t for
the greenhouse effect gases, the sunrays would bounce and
there would be nothing to trap their heat. The average
temperature on Earth would be of minus nineteen degrees
Celsius and life could have not existed, well, at least not as we
currently know it.
Greenhouse effect gases work as a blanket that gives you the
ideal temperature during a cool night outside. It is thanks to this
incredible effect that life has had an adequate temperature to be
able to evolve on Earth up to the arrival of human beings and
towards our incredible modern development.
But this ideal temperature generated by the greenhouse effect
has begun to change since the industrial revolution almost two
hundred years ago. Human kind began using fossil fuels such as
coal, petroleum or gas in order to produce energy. But by
burning fossil fuels we release into the atmosphere the carbon
dioxide accumulated in fossil fuels for thousands of years. With
the continuous use of these fuels we have increased the amount
of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.
Methane is another gas that we have increased. The digestive
process of cattle and decomposing of garbage produce methane,
and aerosols, sprays, refrigerating gases, chemical fertilizers and
herbicides also release another type of greenhouse effect gases
into the atmosphere.
Because we increased the production of greenhouse gases, the
atmosphere now traps more heat and the planet’s average
temperature has increased as well. This has many
consequences on the climate of the planet and for the lives of all
living creatures. It is as if the blanket that provided you with the
ideal temperature to sleep became three heavy wool blankets,
quickly you would become sick.
Just like your body needs to adjust to these changes, Earth has
begun to make a series of adjustments to adapt to all those
changes that we have generated with our activities and by doing
so many effects are generated onto the climate.
We call these effects climate change.
The causes and effects of climate change affect our lives in
many ways, sometimes they are disastrous and not only
because of the climate, it also affects the water, the soils, our
feeding, our surroundings, the landscape and even the way we
feel.

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 Oh, so that’s the famous
global warming?
No, actually the term global
warming is not always
Fossil fuels accurately because not all
regions in the world are
As we’ve seen under natural conditions, greenhouse gases act warming up. Some are
like a thin bed sheet you might use to cover yourself on a slightly getting colder.
cool evening. The sheet prevents body heat from escaping,
allowing for a comfortable sleeping temperature.
But imagine sleeping under three thick wool blankets on that
same evening. Not only would it probably be too hot to sleep, it
might even make you sick! This is what happened approximately
200 years ago with the invention of the coal-burning steam
engine that spurred the Industrial Revolution.
The Industrial Revolution was spurred by the invention of
machines whose operations depended on the burning of fossil
fuels: first coal, then oil. In hindsight, we see that this was one of
the most important milestones of human history and enabled
extraordinary development. To support the increased production
and transportation made possible by such machines, people also
started extracting huge quantities of natural resources from the
earth.
Just as climate has an influence on us, the actions we do every
day also somehow influence climate, and therefore they affect
the entire natural balance that makes life on earth possible. We
will talk about the elements that make up our planet, what the
atmosphere is, the greenhouse effect and, of course, climate
change.
Everything started nearly 200 years ago with the so-called
industrial revolution. Human kind discovered that by burning coal
and petroleum, energy could be created, so it began to extract
and burn huge amounts of these fossil fuels. At that time it was a
great leap forward.
Fossil fuels? They are called like that because they were formed
from plant and animals that lived on earth millions of years ago.
Fossil fuel energy has allowed technological advance and the
incredible modern development. The problem is that by burning
fossil fuels we release into the atmosphere the carbon dioxide
that has been accumulated and buried in the ground for millions
of years. And carbon dioxide, as we saw, is one of the gases that
contribute the most to the greenhouse effect.
Every day, we require more and more coal and petroleum but at
the same time we cut down more and more jungles and forests
that help trap the carbon. This is how we have reduced earth´s
ability to trap carbon and regulate itself. And carbon dioxide is
not the only greenhouse gas on the rise.
So is methane.
We have more and more cattle livestock and their digestion
generate methane, just like decomposing garbage and of course,
our world is also producing too much garbage. As we have
increased greenhouse gases, the atmosphere traps more heat
and our planet’s average temperature rises. This has
consequences for the earth's climate and for all living beings.

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It´s the average temperature of the earth that is rising. According
to scientists, in the past hundred and thirty years, the earth’s
mean temperature has increased by .85 degrees centigrade. If
emissions are not controlled, by the end of this century the
average temperature may rise almost five degrees.
When a person is attacked by a virus, the body produces fever to
defend itself. Just like that, the earth adjusts to all the changes or
activities that are generated. And this has affected the earth's
climate all along.
We call all those effects Climate Change, and the result often
turns out to be extreme weather. That is why we have more
droughts and harsher winters. The consequences are many and
sometimes disastrous and go much beyond climate, these
drastic changes affect everyone.
In general, all these transformations to humanity are called
global change.
What’s important is to prepare, adapt and comprehend how each
and every one of us contributes to climate change and
understand that together we can face it and reduce its impact.
Just by taking your own cloth bags to the grocery store you can
help the planet by reducing the use of plastic. Plastic bags last
hundreds of years before decomposing and when burned, they
emit greenhouse gases. And this is just one way you can
contribute.

Reading: Fossil fuels and climate change

The carbon cycle involves all living beings (for example, human
and animals emit it when breathing; plants capture it with
photosynthesis; decomposed, it is stored in fossil fuels) and
many geological processes (such as emissions through
volcanoes).

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 been increasing, yielding an
unfortunate result for life on
earth—the planet’s
atmosphere is retaining
more heat.
For a long time, we believed
climatic impacts were
limited to areas of industrial
activity. Today, we know
that the atmosphere
distributes them all over the
planet, causing global
effects. Climate change
occurs in a cumulative
fashion, that is, depending
on the sum of all emissions
of the world, large and
small. All emissions count,
and this is why we urgently
need to take action to
reduce emissions and keep
the rise in the earth’s
temperature to a minimum.
Over the past 200 years, humans have steadily increased their
consumption of oil, coal, and natural gas, releasing large We also need to prepare for
the climatic changes that
amounts of CO2 in the process.
will inevitably occur. Our
cities and towns, our homes
and schools, and our
economic activities are not
necessarily prepared for the
effects—for example, the
intensification of droughts
and heat waves in some
areas, or of rain and floods
in others.
Part of the problem is that
fossil fuels are
nonrenewable energy
sources, meaning there is a
limited amount of them on
the planet, and we use so
much that scientists think
that we may even run out in
the near future! Scientists
also worry about the
greenhouse gases that are
Most of the negative impacts of such extraction were until released into the
recently, localized, including pollution from the burning of coal or atmosphere when fossil
oil, accidental explosions, and oil spills. Such incidents seemed fuels are
small compared to mankind’s giant steps forward: important
technological advances, increased knowledge about space and
the underwater world, and better health outcomes worldwide. It
was a long time before people realized that using fossil fuels was
leaving a serious mark on the atmosphere and the planet’s
ecosystems.
As if that were not enough, the forests and jungles of the planet
have been dwindling at the same speed as CO2 emissions have

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 Why are people so
concerned about rising
temperatures? We have to
go back 18,000 years to
answer this question. Back
when most of Earth was
covered with ice, the
average temperature was
4˚C. Today, it is 14–15˚C —
it took 18,000 years for the
temperature to rise by 10˚C.
We know that with the 40
percent increase in
greenhouse gas production,
the average temperature on
Earth has risen by more
than half a degree Celsius
over the last one hundred
years.
In fact, the greenhouse
effect has sped up the pace
of change to such an extent
that, according to the
Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC),
average temperatures are
estimated to increase by
anywhere from 0.3° and
4.8°C over the next century,
making it much harder for
many organisms and
ecosystems to live.
In the short term, higher
average temperatures affect
global weather patterns. For
example, tropical cyclones
and hurricanes obtain their
energy from masses of hot
water. Scientists predict that
with climate change, the
frequency of stronger
hurricanes will increase.
Likewise, higher
temperatures lead to higher
rates of evaporation, taking
more water from the soil
and causing droughts.
When moisture is released,
rain and snowfall become
more intense.
burned, which releases more carbon dioxide (CO2) into the Concern over the
atmosphere. greenhouse effect has
prompted people to talk
A large amount of methane, another major greenhouse gas, is
about low carbon
produced by cattle farming (cows produce methane gas when
development, which is
they digest food) and decomposing garbage (microbes that
intended to reduce the
break down waste emit methane).
amount of greenhouse

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gases released into the atmosphere by human processes. A
reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is known as mitigation.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, we only generate about 6
percent of all greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere.
But, combined with deforestation, we are still harming the planet
and ourselves.
Although today we are not among the most significant emitters of
greenhouse gases, this could change, which is why we need to
adopt development strategies that lower emission of greenhouse
gases.

The ozone layer

Some people confuse the
phenomenon of climate
change with the hole in the
ozone layer, probably
because both phenomena
occur in the atmosphere
and are caused by gases.
The following table depicts
the differences:

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How do we know the climate is changing
Various institutions worldwide have been systematically
monitoring the earth’s climate for many years. One among them,
the World Meteorological Organization, devised an observation
system 60 years ago that currently consists of over 11,000
terrestrial and 1,300 atmospheric observation stations, 4,000
ships, and 1,200 buoys that record climate-related atmospheric
and oceanic data. Many countries also have meteorological and
hydrological services monitoring the weather.
Research reports using data from these and other sources, now
led chiefly by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC), have confirmed increased CO2 concentrations in the
atmosphere and rising average global temperatures.
In addition to records of changes in temperature and gas
volumes, there are other indicators of change. Many glaciers
have decreased in size and some have even disappeared. There
are changes in the latitudinal distribution of certain species,
which are now found in areas where low temperatures had not
allowed them to reproduce before. Sea levels are rising, due to
both the melting of the polar ice caps and thermal expansion (the
higher the temperature, the more water increases in volume). In
addition, the frequency and intensity of heat waves and fires
caused by droughts is on the rise.

It should be noted that not

all changes are attributable
to global climate change.
Some are expressions of
climate variability and of
areas that have lost their
resilience—that is, the

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ability to withstand the effects of normal changes that take place
in ecosystems.
What is El Niño and La Niña?
Earth is always changing. Geological records show that our
planet has seen many changes in its landscape, climate, and
living systems. The climate is also constantly changing.
Paleoclimatology, the field of science that studies past climates,
reveals that our planet has experienced a wide range of climatic
variability throughout its history.
The phenomenon of the El Niño and the La Niña have existed for
a long time, and many scientists assert that they are a part of
climate variability. However, other scientists claim that climate
change has increased their frequency and their capacity to cause
disasters.
Marine currents are generated mainly by air currents. Trade
Winds blow from East to West, they push the waters from the
South America Pacific towards southern Asia and Australia. In
the atmosphere, wind flows naturally in the opposite direction to
the trade winds, that is, from West to East, so the trade winds
together with the air currents in the atmosphere form a circulating
air cycle.
The Pacific Oceans absorbs a lot of heat from the sun and this
heat increases its surface temperature. Due to the trade winds,
those warmer waters gather along the coasts of Australia and
Southern Asia. The heat makes water evaporate more easily and
this generates more rain. While in Australia and Southern Asia
the climate is warm and rainy, along the coasts of Colombia,
Ecuador and Peru the water remains cold and the climate is dry
and cold.
El Niño alters the climate of the Pacific. It begins with the
decrease in strength of the trade winds. When that happens, the
air circulation from East to West becomes weaker, and the warm
water of the sea no longer travels from East to West, instead it
accumulates on the coast of Latin America. This warmer water
along the coasts of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru generates
warmer weather, strong rains and floods, in Southern Asia and
Australia by contrast, the sea temperature drops and there is a
dry, cold climate, there may even be droughts.
El Niño is cyclical, it occurs every three or five years. It is called
El Niño because it usually occurs in December, the month when
Catholics believe baby Jesus was born.
In addition to El Niño, there is another phenomenon that affects
the climate, La Niña.
La Niña causes trade winds to grow in strength. As a result more
water is shifted from East to West and accumulates in Australia
and Southern Asia. Warm water from the sea evaporates
provoking more rain. Meanwhile, in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru
ocean waters become colder and the climate becomes dryer and
can lead to droughts. It's a time when cold water deep in the
ocean arrives to the coast bringing along a large amount of
nutrients that are good for fish and, of course, fishing.

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We do not know exactly why El Niño and La Niña occur but both
have existed for many years. Some scientists think that these
events reflect normal climate variations but others believe that
they occur due to climate change, which has increased their
frequency.
Even though El Niño and La Niña mainly affect Australia,
Southern Asia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, their
consequences can be seen all across the world.

Ecological footprint and actions at the global level

Deforestation, the fishing crisis, the food crisis, damage to and
depletion of water resources, and pollution are some of the more
serious impacts. Unless we act fast, climate change and its
impacts are expected to worsen over the next 100 years.
We already discussed climate and weather, and how because of
the increase of greenhouse gas emissions we released into the
atmosphere, the Earth is storing more of the sun’s energy than
before, and climate is changing.
So we explained what climate change is and why these famous
climate change it is occurring. And by changing climate, new
dangers start to appear in our lives.
Climate change is something that affects all living things, the
planets balance and our own well-being.
Mitigation and Adaptation.
Mitigation. This means that we really need to be aware of our
responsibility regarding climate change and that we can improve
the situation if we make efforts to diminish our greenhouse effect
gas emissions into the atmosphere. This means we need to
reduce the emission of gases produced when we burn fossils
fuels to generate energy and to reduce the emission of other
greenhouse effect gases emitted by certain types of industries
and products.
We know it’s not an easy task. That is why we need to support
global agreements that imply commitments of nations to reduce
their emissions. The entire world has to commit! To achieve this
goal, change must start with you and with me. The effort of each
one of us counts. You can contribute with mitigation and help out
the planet.
One of the reasons why climate change occurs is that we are
using more of the Earth´s natural resources than what the planet
can renew naturally. But, if we wanted to make life on Earth
sustainable, how many planet earths would we need to support
the lifestyle we currently have?
How to adapt to climate change
Gases that we have emitted into the atmosphere of our planet
will last many years before they disappear; however, the
consequences of climate change are affecting us now, today.
That is why it is very important that we learn to adapt to climate
change and that we are able to take the necessary measures so
that its effects are not as disastrous for us, for our families, for
our friends, and in general for the entire world.

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Adaptation is not a new thing for human beings, in fact, more contaminating
throughout our entire history we have always adapted to the emissions, unfortunately,
place we live in. For example, by wearing clothes to protect decided not to sign the
ourselves from temperature changes or building artificial places agreement.
like our houses to shelter ourselves from rain or sun.
But not all is negative.
Well, now climate change will bring along new challenges and
we shall have to adapt to remain safe and sound. For example,
we already know that the sea level will increase, and houses
near rivers or on the seashore will be in danger of flooding. And
of course, we will need to transform and relocate entire towns
and we cannot do it alone.
That is why we will have to unite and work as a community, help
each other, give us advice and listen to those who are better
informed on how to beware and avoid the risks. You can be an
active part, you can inform your community about the risks and
the best actions to help out your region, and your planet.
For example, you can tell those cutting down trees near rivers to
build their houses that it is dangerous, not only for them but for
the entire community. And that is just one of the things you can
do.
But that is the real problem, people don’t listen, it is too hard.
They may not listen the first time, the second time or even a third
time, but part of our adaptation is to insist. We need to explain
and warn people about the risks as many times as needed, even
to the people in our governments. If we all unite, we can
influence the big decisions and motivate our leaders to make a
real commitment both on adaptation as on mitigation regarding
the emissions of greenhouse gases.
That is why I want to let you know about the agreements on
climate that have already been made in the world with
representatives of all member countries of the United Nations.
Everything started in 1988 when the United Nations created the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This was a big step
forward as it was the first time that climate change was
discussed in a global political meeting, where scientific
information on climate change and all of its consequences for
human kind were analyzed.
Thanks to the panel studies in 1992, during the Earth Summit
that took place in Rio de Janeiro, more than one hundred and
sixty countries signed the Framework Convention on Climate
Change.
In 1997 the Kyoto Protocol was signed, an agreement by which
industrialized countries committed to reduce its carbon dioxide
emissions by five point two per cent from the year two thousand
eight to two thousand twelve.
It was a very positive initiative and perhaps the biggest step
given by human kind to mitigate climate change. But
unfortunately, from 2008 to 2012, greenhouse effect gases not
only did not decrease, they actually increased. The Kyoto
Protocol did not achieve its goal.
In 2011 during the Durban Climate Conference in South Africa
they tried to renew the Kyoto Protocol for another five years. But
some industrialized countries, which are the ones that produce

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The great victory of this conference is that the remaining
participating countries did commit and they now have mandatory
goals to reduce their emissions by the year 2021.
It is very important that each and everyone of us, and our
regions, begin to find ways to mitigate and adapt to climate
change by adopting much friendlier behaviors with the planet.
The first thing is to discover the impacts of your activities on the
planet. This means, what’s your ecological footprint.
Your ecological footprint is the impact generated by any human
activity over the resources and services that are giving to us by
our earth’s ecosystems. In other words, it´s a measurement
created to record the pressure we generate on the planet with
our life style. The ecological footprint measures the amount of
territory needed to produce all what we consume and to process
and degrade all what we dispose. Everything that you use in life,
including your food, your house, even your clothes, your
computer, your canoe or your bicycle have been made with
elements given to us by earth. The ecological footprint allows us
to know if the planet resources that we are using can regenerate
themselves or if, quite the opposite, with our current life style we
are just depleting them.
One planet is no longer enough, today we are using more of the
earth’s resources than what can be renewed. Well, but we are
not doing that bad after all, as we do not need three or five
planets. According to recent estimates, each year we use
resources like we had one and half a planet earth to spare. If we
continue using our resources just like we do today, by the year
2050, we will need two and a half planet earths to support all
human beings.
Your ecological footprint is negative if you require from earth
more than what it can give you and it is positive if you are
contributing to the planet’s health. One way we can help our
planet is by having everyone calculate their ecological footprint
and making it positive.
There are many ways to do it. By reducing the use of paper, you
can help our planet and start leaving a positive ecological
footprint.

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