BackUnderstanding why we take action
"The earth has a fever. And the fever is rising. The experts
have told us it is not a passing affliction that will
heal by itself."
Al Gore, on the occasion of the
Nobel Prize Award Ceremony on December 12, 2007
During the early history of our earth there were a multitude of different climate phases. Every child knows the ice ages. In principle climate changes are nothing extraordinary. But what is alarmingly new is the speed of the change. Within only a few years the average temperature has been rising like it would have otherwise done only within a considerably longer time. Almost all scientists agree that this change is not natural, but caused by humans.
The increase in the greenhouse effect caused by humans contributes to the above-average warming of the Earth. The climate-relevant gas CO2, which results from the burning of fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal) and from the deforestation of the forests so important for CO2 resorption, leads to the retention of heat radiation reflected by the Earth. Melting ice caps at the poles or in Greenland, swaths of land drying out and more and more extreme weather phenomena are the result.
