Climate change is a real thing happening all around us. It refers to long-term weather patterns and shifts in temperatures. Most of the shifts are natural because of the variations in the solar cycle. As people who live on this earth, Utah needs to find a way to help slow it down. But what causes climate change? There are numerous things like methane, increasing livestock, cutting down trees, and especially fossil fuels like coal oil and gas.

Burning fossil fuels generates greenhouse gases emissions like a shield that traps the suns heat and raises the temperature. People may think that Climate change only means warmer temperature, but it’s kind of like the butterfly effect because so many things are connected. It starts with climate change, but it only just gets worse from things like droughts, rising sea levels, declining biodiversity, severe fires and the list just goes on. An article on un.org says, “the Earth is now about 1.1°C warmer than it was in the late 1800s.” This is proving that it’s getting warmer and warmer everyday.

Climate change is happening in many diverse ways like depending on where the person lives like if they were on an island the sea-level is rising. Specifically in Utah, they’re experiencing things like wildfires, pollution, extreme weather, dam failure and drought. Recently from August 6 to August 16, 2021 was Salt Lake City, Utah ranked worst air quality twice within the two weeks due to the wildfires that happened.

Some countries produce more emissions than others but no matter what it comes from all parts of the world. There’s already so many solutions but not many are taking action. Switching energy systems from fossil fuels to renewables like solar will help but there are so many other ways to help out. Utah needs to start acting now before it gets worse and worse. Adapting to climate consequences protects homes, businesses, people, infrastructure and natural ecosystems. Early warning systems for disasters can deliver benefits. Climate actions also need a significant financial investments by governments and businesses. A critical step is for industrialized countries to provide 100 billion dollars a year to developing countries so they can adapt to help our world. There are so many ways Utah can help slow climate change and the smallest effort counts, so let’s make a change.