Natural climate change has occurred since the Earth was formed, and indeed historical studies have shown that the temperature has varied greatly over time naturally as the levels of various gases in the atmosphere and various geological processes have ebbed and flowed over time.
In the modern parlance, climate change refers specifically to the man made influence over the climate - in other words our creation of changes in the climate and environment that would not have occurred in pre-industrialised times.
The cause of this is that we have mastered our environment to the extent that we have led to the release of much larger quantities of many gases and other substances than would have been released in the state of nature. Over the 150 or so years of industrialisation we have churned out huge quantities of chemicals such as carbon dioxide and climate change looks at whether this has impacted the environment. Many scientists are convinced that we have influenced the climate and have led to the warming of the planet. So the question now becomes what to do about it and how to mitigate the effects before we warm the planet to a detrimental level.
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The effects of climate change
The environment, animals and biodiversity
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