<aside> 💡 Provides a concise but informative introduction to key components of climate change, setting the stage for deeper understanding and awareness

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🔽 Explore Further | Action Steps

Information about climate change is widely available and ranges from simple to highly technical explanations. For this toolkit, our intention is not to replicate the depth and quality of information that one can research themselves on climate change. Instead we aim to provide a brief primer with key resources to ensure that fundamental concepts are available alongside the more specific guidance related to understanding climate change in your state and how service programs might best respond. This section provides a very high-level overview of climate change mechanics, both globally and how that may translate more locally. Additionally, we identified initial thoughts on action steps and the critical nexus of climate change and equity, both of which are particularly relevant to climate corps design and deployment.

Introduction

Climate change is one of the most pressing challenges we face today. Abundant scientific studies and personal and community experiences document the dramatic impact the changes to Earth’s systems have on how we live, work, and play in our communities. The primary drivers of climate change are human activities, which include emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gasses from fossil fuel combustion, deforestation, and land-use change. As a result of a warming atmosphere, high temperature extremes and heavy precipitation events are increasing in frequency and intensity, glaciers and snow cover are shrinking, and sea ice is retreating. Oceans and lakes are experiencing warming and acidification, while coastal and inland regions experience more frequent flood risks from rising sea and river levels and extreme rain events. Growing seasons are shifting and lengthening, and large wildfires and drought events are occurring more frequently. Many species are migrating to new locations, and changes are occurring in the seasonal timing of important biological events, such as reproduction, in response to a changing climate. Climate change also impacts our health and access to clean air, safe drinking water, and food security. These trends are all consistent with a warming world and are expected to continue.

Climate systems

Climate change is caused by an increase in heat absorbing gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane in our Earth’s atmosphere. Fossil fuel burning (burning oil, natural gas, and coal for energy), deforestation, land-use change, and other practices contribute to higher levels of greenhouse gas emissions. As a result, this creates an insulating layer in the lower atmosphere, leading to warming of the atmosphere — this is known as the greenhouse effect. The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, the largest contributor to human-caused warming, has increased by about 40% since the beginning of the industrial era. This increase has intensified the natural greenhouse effect, leading to a rise in global surface temperatures and other widespread changes in the climate that are unprecedented in the history of modern civilization.

Diagram of Climate Change Sources and Effects Source: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

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Responding to climate change

As climate change impacts are already being felt and expected to intensify in the years to come, it is necessary to adopt multiple strategies for addressing this issue. Firstly, we need to reduce the contributions to climate change, known as mitigation. Mitigation involves efforts to reduce the extent and pace of future climate change impacts by limiting emissions or removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. A form of mitigation is decarbonization which focuses on reducing or eliminating carbon dioxide emissions from various sectors of the economy. Secondly, we need to respond to changes already underway and those we anticipate in the future. Actions to prepare for and adjust to changing climate conditions are known as adaptation. Adaptation efforts reduce negative impacts of climate change or take advantage of new opportunities. For example, coastal communities may build seawalls for rising sea levels, or agricultural communities may take advantage of longer growing seasons. Given where we are today with respect to climate change, mitigation and adaptation are both necessary and should be considered complementary responses. Mitigation efforts can reduce future risks, while adaptation can minimize the consequences of changes that are already happening due to past and present emissions. **By not taking action to both reduce emissions and prepare for climate change impacts, we will continue to see increasingly negative impacts on our health, economy, and biodiversity. Ultimately, this will only increase the impacts, burdens, and costs for future generations. Therefore, ideally a variety of mitigation and adaptation efforts are deployed in parallel.

Illustration of mitigation and adaptation priorities Source: Calgary Climate Change Program

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Climate and equity

Climate change poses a specific concern for the national service community, as it disproportionately impacts historically underserved and disadvantaged communities. Grave injustices of the past, which have been allowed to perpetuate today, have created an unjust and inequitable society. Climate change exacerbates these inequities, as those who are the least responsible for climate change bear the brunt of climate change impacts. The disproportionate impact of climate change can take the form of high energy burden (amount of household income spent on heating/cooling a home), poorer air quality, and increased risk of illness or death due to exposure to dangerous environmental conditions (heat in the summer or traveling through ice storms or severe weather events). When considering how to address climate change across a region, state, or community, it is important to consider how climate change acts as a compounding risk to those experiencing other negative economic and social impacts. With this consideration in mind, climate solutions should not just reduce harm, but ideally should be restorative by delivering equity co-benefits.

See the article “What is happening with state policies or actions?” to learn more about how climate change is impacting your state on a more local scale. Another great resource is the Fourth National Climate Assessment Volume II: Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States, as it describes specific impacts on a regional scale.