Many people do not know what it really amounts to, either due to unreliable sources or deliberate misinformation, which has led to a series of myths about climate change. In these pages, we tackle the subject from an objective, scientific viewpoint, discussing the causes and consequences of climate change and how it should be tackled.

First, we need to clarify two concepts often mistaken for synonyms: climate change and global warming. There is an important difference between them, however, given that it is global warming that causes climate change. As the planet’s temperature rises more than it would naturally, the climate varies.

Although it is certain that Earth has naturally warmed up and got colder during other eras, such cycles have always been much slower, taking millions of years, whereas now, within a period of just 200 years, we are reaching levels that in the past brought about extinctions.

Before going over the causes and effects of climate change, let's explain why you don't care about climate change:

The main cause of climate change is global warming, which has many negative consequences on physical, biological and human systems, as well as other effects.

Experts agree that the Industrial Revolution was the turning point when emissions of greenhouse effect gases entering the atmosphere began to soar. The Industrial Revolution was itself borne out of smaller revolutions: agricultural, technological, demographic, transport, finance… creating a new model of production and consumption.

From then onward, population growth (in 1750, there were fewer than 800 million people on Earth, whereas now we are over 7.5 billion), exploding resource use, increasing energy demand and production, mainly from fossil fuels, all saw the planet enter into what the scientific community have termed the Anthropocene period, a new geological era characterized by human impact on Earth.

The main impact was the increase in the global temperature of the planet, which has risen 1.1°C since this period, although it is estimated that, by the end of the present Century, the thermometer could rise by 2.7 °C even if national commitments to reduce emissions are fulfilled.

The global temperature increase brings disastrous consequences, endangering the survival of the Earth’s flora and fauna, including human beings. The worst climate change impacts include the melting of the ice mass at the poles, which in turn causes rising sea level, producing flooding and threatening coastal environments through which small island states risk disappearing entirely.

Climate change also increases the appearance of more violent weather phenomena, drought, fires, the death of animal and plant species, flooding from rivers and lakes, the creation of climate refugees and destruction of the food chain and economic resources, especially in developing countries.