Attempting to comprehend the climate catastrophe can be overwhelming at first. If you don’t follow every advancement every day, it can feel like there’s a lot to learn and understand. The good news is that it all boils down to one simple fact: huge amount of burning of fossil fuels causes global temperatures to rise, throwing our climate out of balance and unleashing a slew of disastrous consequences. Of course, there’s more to it than that. So we’ve put together a quick glossary of crucial terminology to help you understand what’s going on with our planet – and what you can do to help.
Get these terms down and you’ll see the big picture of how we got here and how we’re going to fix the situation 👇🏾
| Term/Phrase | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Acid rain | rain containing hazardous compounds (when fossil fuels are burned) that collects in the atmosphere |
| Adaptation | action that aids in coping with the effects of climate change, such as the installation of barriers to defend against increasing sea levels or the conversion to drought-resistant crops. |
| Atmosphere | a layer of air surrounding the earth that protects us from the sun’s harmful rays |
| Biofuel | a fuel derived from renewable biological sources, such as maize and sugar cane crops, as well as some types of garbage |
| Carbon dioxide (CO2) | a gas that is released when carbon is burned (for example, coal or oil), or when people or animals exhale |
| Conservation | the conservation and protection of natural resources and habitats |
| Deforestation | the removal of a forest (or a stand of trees) from land for non-forest use, such as farming, ranches, or urban development |
| Fossil fuels | natural resources, such as coal, oil and natural gas, that produce carbon dioxide on burning |
| Global warming | higher air and sea temperatures partly caused by man-made increases in greenhouse-gas levels |
| Greenhouse gases | gases that trap heat and warm the surface – natural (carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane) and industrial (perfluorocarbons, hydrofluorocarbons, and sulphur hexafluoride) |
| Habitat | the place in which a species normally lives |
| Hazardous waste | dangerous substances that need careful disposal (eg. toxic or nuclear waste) |
| Methane (CH4) | the second most important man-made greenhouse gas |
| Pesticide | a chemical that’s sprayed on crops to stop insects from destroying them |
| Pollution | contamination of the environment, particularly due to industrial waste products and chemicals such as insecticides and pesticides |
| Renewable energy | energy created from sources that can be replenished in a short period of time. The five renewable sources used most often are: biomass (such as wood and biogas), the movement of water, geothermal (heat from within the earth), wind, and solar. |
| Solar radiation | energy generated by the Sun and mostly filtered through the earth’s atmosphere |
| Smog | a thick dirty cloud at ground level caused by pollutants reacting to sunlight |
| Toxin/toxic | a poisonous substance that damages health or the environment |
| UNFCCC | The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – an international environmental treaty to combat “dangerous human interference with the climate system”, in part by balancing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere |
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