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What is climate change? A really simple guide

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Climate change is defined as a change in the Earth’s average temperature and weather over a long period of time. Climate change has been drastically increasing in the past centuries and humans have been the major catalyst for it. Climate change is an extremely negative thing for our planet, as it has been causing an increase in extreme weather frequency, floods, and melting glaciers and Arctic sea-ice.

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What is climate change? A really simple guide

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Human activities are causing world temperatures to rise, posing serious threats to people and nature.

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Panel explores climate change impact on obtaining homeowners insurance

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Climate change has been causing increasingly more natural disasters, causing a lot of architecture such as houses to get damaged. Because of this, homeowners insurance providers are either rising their rates or simply not providing homeowners insurance in certain regions at all. This has made it much more difficult for homeowners to get homeowners insurance.

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/ CBS/Bay City News Service

Obtaining homeowners insurance used to be relatively easy, but as climate risk increases with more severe weather disasters, insurance providers are raising their premium rates or withdrawing from climate-vulnerable regions entirely.

On Friday, Ethnic Media Services -- a nonprofit that works to enhance the capacity of diverse news outlets -- hosted a virtual national briefing discussing the homeowner affordability crisis in climate change-vulnerable areas. Discussions were driven by a panel consisting of professionals working in the insurance industry. Ricardo Lara, California's insurance commissioner, was among the panelists.

According to a research study conducted by the Insurance Research Council, a nonprofit group focused on public policy issues in property-casualty insurance, weather and natural hazards were the top reasons for the increase in insurance rates.

Carolyn Kousky, a panelist from the Environmental Defense Fund, an environmental nonprofit working toward climate change solutions, talked about how individuals with insurance who faced climate disasters were more likely to have a better financial recovery from the disaster when compared to those who were uninsured.

Kousky emphasized the importance of risk reduction to curb the effects of the crisis. She encouraged homeowners to make sure their homes were built to fight climate risk.

"We know how to build homes that can withstand a lot," she said.

Lara, the insurance commissioner, seconded Kousky's remarks and stressed the urgent need for insurance reform.

"California has an insurance crisis like nothing we've seen before and we need serious reforms," Lara said.

He talked about how low-income individuals were the most affected by this by usually living in areas with the most climate risk.

Lara said he aims to fix these insurance problems by strengthening the insurance commissioner's authority to protect consumers, holding insurance companies accountable, improving the California FAIR plan -- a last resort insurance program for homeowners in high climate risk areas that are unable to secure private insurance -- so that it has the coverage options people need, and having conversations with the industry.

First published on June 12, 2024 / 7:11 AM PDT

© 2024 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. Bay City News Service contributed to this report.

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Panel explores climate change impact on obtaining homeowners insurance

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Obtaining homeowners insurance used to be relatively easy, but as climate risk increases with more severe weather disasters, insurance providers are raising their premium rates or withdrawing from climate-vulnerable regions entirely.

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Trimming food waste can help curb climate change

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Food waste has been discovered to play an important role in increasing climate change. According to statistics, Americans throw out and waste more than 1/3 of available food, and this food goes to a landfill where they produce tons of methane as they decompose. Methane is a greenhouse gas that warms up the planet.

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Americans waste more than one third of available food. And that out-of-date salad or mushy banana tossed in the garbage contributes to increased emissions of methane, one of the most potent climate warming gases.

Local governments across Minnesota are mandated by law to increase recycling of organic waste and they are expanding composting programs to keep food out of landfills.

Controlled composting of the material reduces emissions of greenhouse gases that occur when organic material rapidly decays in a landfill.

At the Pope-Douglas organics recycling facility about a half hour west of Alexandria, food waste from five counties is turned into compost.

Environmental Programs Manager Nathan Reinbold stands inside a large hoop style building open on both ends. He explains the computer controlled compost site "is pretty much state of the art as far as composting goes in Minnesota currently."

A garbage truck loaded with organic waste from Morris, 25 miles away, dumps bags of compostable paper products and food next to a pile of rotting meat and vegetables, used paper towels and a few grease-stained pizza boxes.

The food waste is mixed with wood chips, grass clippings and leaves in concrete bins. A computer monitors air flow through the pile to speed the process and raise temperatures high enough to kill any pathogens.

The controlled decay also limits the odor from rotting food.

"It's kind of sweet, it almost smells like a pipe tobacco or something," said Reinbold.

Food waste makes up about 20 percent of garbage headed to landfills in Minnesota, and as much as half of municipal garbage is compostable. Burying that waste in a landfill is problematic.

"The number one reason is methane generation," said Reinbold. "It's not good to landfill food waste organics, it's one of the largest contributors to methane."

The Environmental Protection Agency says municipal solid waste landfills are the third-largest source of methane emissions from human activities in the country.

Composting is one solution.

In densely populated metro areas, curbside food waste recycling is feasible. That's not the case in rural areas.

Counties collect food waste from bins at large sites such as schools, hospitals or restaurants.

Separating food waste into recycling bins is "not a heavy lift" said Jen Pastian, executive chef at Pike and Pint Grill in Alexandria. The restaurant has food waste bins where dirty dishes are cleaned and next to the area where food is prepared each day.

Pastian sees no downside to recycling the food other than perhaps the bins behind the restaurant get "a little smelly" in the summer.

At the Fabled Farmer restaurant in Fergus Falls, owner Rebecca Lacheur has always tried to recycle food waste, but found it a challenge until Otter Tail County recently started an organics recycling program.

"We have two garbage cans that they supplied us with that are specifically for the compost and they come and pick that up once a week," she said. "So it's really convenient."

For now, there's no charge for the program, so the only cost is the compostable bags she uses, and a small amount of time spent training staff on what to put in the compost bin.

The waste collected in Otter Tail County is hauled to the Pope-Douglas compost site.

But Otter Tail County is also encouraging back yard composting rather than picking up residential food waste.

"It's actually not cost effective or really environmentally correct to have a big truck driving around the county picking up the stuff," said Solid Waste Director Chris McConn.

So the county provides residents with a back yard compost bin and a stainless steel bucket to collect food waste in the kitchen.

"A big part of our program is the county doing nothing other than supporting citizens with good education and some supplies," said McConn who added it can be a challenge to convince people with busy lives to take the extra time keep food out of the trash.

Fergus Falls resident Zach Stach is sold on composting the food scraps in his household of eight people.

"On the counter we keep what my kids call a yuck bucket. That's where we put all the organic food scraps," he explained. "If you let it sit too long, it does kind of start to stink a little bit."

So they typically dump the bucket in the back yard composter twice a week, said Stach. He uses the finished compost in his vegetable garden.

There are different rules for back yard food composting because temperatures don't get as high as in a controlled commercial compost site. Stach avoids putting meat scraps and dairy products in the bin.

While food waste composting is an important tool in reducing landfill methane emissions, state officials say it's not the best solution.

"Could that food waste have been prevented just by changing policies, changing management, how food is prepared, how it's transported?" said MPCA Sustainable Materials Management Unit Supervisor Mark Rust.

"If you prevent food waste, the greenhouse gas and energy impacts are so much greater than even if you rescue it, compost it or do other things with it," said Rust.

Food rescue takes excess food out of the waste stream and finds a new use for it through food shelves or other distribution systems.

A Northfield non-profit is developing one of the first carbon credit programs for rescued food to help fund those efforts. The Community Action Center collects and distributes 250,000 to 350,000 pounds of food each year.

"I think easily it could become a consistent $25,000 to $45,000 revenue stream for our food shelves alone," said Executive Director Scott Wopata, who expects the carbon credit for rescued food to be finalized later this year.

"I think the real excitement grows when you start thinking about how many food shelves are across the state of Minnesota," said Wopata. "How can we bind them all together? And what does that type of revenue stream look like when we bring all of our aggregate data together, and potentially collectively bargain on a bigger scale?"

Most rescued food is from grocery stores or large institutions. But about half of all food waste comes out of residential kitchens.

"Households have a huge opportunity to participate in climate change mitigation efforts," said MPCA Sustainable Materials Management Specialist Tabitha Birdwell.

While reducing carbon dioxide emissions will have a long term effect on reducing climate change, scientists say reducing methane emissions will more quickly slow climate warming.

"So in the short term, if we can do measures that would significantly reduce how much methane we're emitting through the food waste process, we can significantly impact how much climate change we have," said Birdwell.

The MPCA wants to cut food waste in half by 2030. Counties have mandated goals to increase recycling of organic material.

Rust wants individual consumers to understand they can contribute to to cutting food waste.

"Take a look at what you're buying, take a look at what you're throwing out. Are you finding that maybe because you're so busy, your purchasing habits aren't lining up with your consumption habits?" he said. "There may be simple things that you can do that can have a cumulative impact, especially if a lot of people are starting to think about that."

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Trimming food waste can help curb climate change

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Americans waste about a third of all available food. Tossed in the trash, unused food creates the potent greenhouse gas methane as it decays in landfills.

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Gene editing may help rice better withstand climate change

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Scientists have discovered that genetically modifying the genes of rice can help them survive the ever increasing climate change and global warming. Rice is an extremely crucial food around the globe, with nearly half the world eating it regularly. Rice has a certain gene that triggers a stress response that prevents it from growing when climate conditions are bad— this is the gene that would be genetically modified and cut off.

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activate: (in biology) To turn on, as with a gene or chemical reaction.

annual: Adjective for something that happens every year. (in botany) A plant that lives only one year, so it usually has a showy flower and produces many seeds.

cell: (in biology) The smallest structural and functional unit of an organism. Typically too small to see with the unaided eye, it consists of a watery fluid surrounded by a membrane or wall.

chemical: A substance formed from two or more atoms that unite (bond) in a fixed proportion and structure. For example, water is a chemical made when two hydrogen atoms bond to one oxygen atom. Its chemical formula is H ₂ O. Chemical also can be an adjective to describe properties of materials that are the result of various reactions between different compounds.

chloroplast: A tiny structure in the cells of green algae and green plants that contain chlorophyll and creates glucose through photosynthesis.

climate: The weather conditions that typically exist in one area, in general, or over a long period.

climate change: Long-term, significant change in the climate of Earth. It can happen naturally or in response to human activities, including the burning of fossil fuels and clearing of forests.

component: Something that is part of something else (such as pieces that go on an electronic circuit board or ingredients that go into a cookie recipe).

CRISPR: An abbreviation - pronounced crisper - for the term "clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats." These are pieces of RNA, an information-carrying molecule. They can guide an enzyme, called Cas9, to cut through genetic material like a scissors. In this way, they can edit - or alter - specific genes so that they can then study how those genes works, repair damage to broken genes, insert new genes or disable harmful ones.

crop: (in agriculture) A type of plant grown intentionally grown and nurtured by farmers, such as corn, coffee or tomatoes. Or the term could apply to the part of the plant harvested and sold by farmers.

dehydrate: To lose a large amount of water.

DNA: (short for deoxyribonucleic acid) A long, double-stranded and spiral-shaped molecule inside most living cells that carries genetic instructions. It is built on a backbone of phosphorus, oxygen, and carbon atoms. In all living things, from plants and animals to microbes, these instructions tell cells which molecules to make.

downstream: Further on in the direction in which a stream is flowing or the path at which stream water will flow in its trek to towards the oceans.

drought: An extended period of abnormally low rainfall; a shortage of water resulting from this.

engineering: The field of research that uses math and science to solve practical problems. Someone who works in this field is known as an engineer.

factor: Something that plays a role in a particular condition or event; a contributor.

fertilizer: Nitrogen, phosphorus and other plant nutrients added to soil, water or foliage to boost crop growth or to replenish nutrients that were lost earlier as they were used by plant roots or leaves.

gene: (adj. genetic) A segment of DNA that codes, or holds instructions, for a cell's production of a protein. Offspring inherit genes from their parents. Genes influence how an organism looks and behaves.

high school: A designation for grades nine through 12 in the U.S. system of compulsory public education. High-school graduates may apply to colleges for further, advanced education.

microscope: An instrument used to view objects, like bacteria, or the single cells of plants or animals, that are too small to be visible to the unaided eye.

physical: (adj.) A term for things that exist in the real world, as opposed to in memories or the imagination. It can also refer to properties of materials that are due to their size and non-chemical interactions (such as when one block slams with force into another). (in biology and medicine) The term can refer to the body, as in a physical exam or physical activity.

polyethylene: A plastic made from chemicals that have been refined (produced from) crude oil and/or natural gas. The most common plastic in the world, it is flexible and tough. It also can resist radiation.

protein: A compound made from one or more long chains of amino acids. Proteins are an essential part of all living organisms. They form the basis of living cells, muscle and tissues; they also do the work inside of cells. Antibodies, hemoglobin and enzymes are all examples of proteins. Medicines frequently work by latching onto proteins.

Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair: (Regeneron ISEF) Initially launched in 1950, this competition is one of three created (and still run) by the Society for Science. Each year now, approximately 2,000 high school students from up to 70 countries, regions, and territories are awarded the opportunity to showcase their independent research at Regeneron ISEF and to compete for an average some $9 million in prizes.

regulate: (n. regulation) To control with actions. Governments write rules and regulations - laws - that are enforced by police and the courts.

resilient: (n. resilience) To be able to recover fairly quickly from obstacles or difficult conditions. (in materials) The ability of something to spring back or recover to its original shape after bending or otherwise contorting the material.

seedling: The initial plant that sprouts leaves and roots after emerging from a seed.

Society for Science: A nonprofit organization created in 1921 and based in Washington, D.C. Since its founding, the Society has been promoting not only public engagement in scientific research but also the public understanding of science. It created and continues to run three renowned science competitions: the Regeneron Science Talent Search (begun in 1942), the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (initially launched in 1950) and the middle-school MASTERS competition (from 2010 to 2022) that morphed into the Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge (and launched in 2023). The Society also publishes award-winning journalism: in Science News (launched in 1922) and Science News Explores (created in 2003).

staple: (in nutrition) A food that serves as a dominant source of calories for a community or species. In people, for instance, just three plants - rice, corn (maize) and wheat - account for roughly 60 percent of calories eaten (according to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization). That makes these staples. But the amounts can vary by community.

stress: (in biology) A factor - such as unusual temperatures, movements, moisture or pollution - that affects the health of a species or ecosystem.

stressor: Something that induces stress in an individual or system.

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Gene editing may help rice better withstand climate change

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Three genes may limit the ability of rice to handle dry or salty conditions. A Regeneron ISEF finalist shows that CRISPR could target and change them.

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Nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas the warms up the earth and accelerates climate change, had its emissions increase 40% from 1980 to 2020. Nitrous oxide is a gas that is produced when nitrogen fertilizers and animal waste is used on plant farms.

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Nitrous oxide emissions grew 40 percent from 1980 to 2020, accelerating climate change - NOAA Research

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Concentrations of N2O, a potent greenhouse gas, are higher than all major model projections

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Climate change has caused plant seeds that are mass-produced and bred to grow in only one specific environment have become susceptible to the increasing temperature and varying weather. The solution to this problem is for farmers all across the globe to pitch in and share their seeds that are adapted to their specific environment with people in different environments.

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Modern Seeds Aren't Ready For Climate Change

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Humans have radically altered the evolution of agricultural plants since World War Two, remaking our seed system with industrial agricultural practices to feed a growing population. Yet in the changing climate of decades to come, UVM researchers say, the seeds that will feed the world are in the...

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Temperature change over the past 50 years

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Temperature change over the past 50 years

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This graph shows that the global temperature in all parts of the earth with land (and most with water) have increased by at least 1 degree Celsius from 1973 to 2023. An increase of global temperature causes global warming, which in turn causes climate change due to it affecting weather patterns.

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This infographic shows the terrible disasters that a change of only 0.5 degrees Celsius can cause. Flooding would increase, species of insects would die, water would be less available, people would be exposed to record-breaking heat, and economic growth would be slowed.

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This visual shows a scientific visual of climate change with what causes emissions/greenhouse gases (volcanoes and human activities) and the water cycle. The volcano and human visual shows the gravity of greenhouse gases.

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This infographic combines statistics with visual effects of climate change and how greenhouse gases work. There are multiple circles around the earth in the infographic with statistics/info/effects. In the center of the infographic, the earth's atmosphere can be seen trapping heat from the sun due to pollution.

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This infographic shows 6 things that an individual can do in order to slow climate change. These include being mindful of waste, using renewable energy, spreading the word, using sustainable transportation, going vegan, and composting food scraps.

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What do you think climate change means for the NP community?

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What do you think climate change means for the NP community?

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I think climate change will impact the NP community by bringing more severe weather and heat. New Providence has usually been really lucky with strong storms passing right by us, however climate change has been proven to increase the possibilities of severe weather.

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Was there anything strange about the topic to you?

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Was there anything strange about the topic to you?

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It is strange how some people simply do not believe in climate change and believe that it is a lie created by the government. Scientists all over the world have proven time and time again that greenhouse gases causes the earth to warm up and that humans are the main cause of it, yet they do not listen to these scientists.

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I hope that people around the world gain more awareness about climate change and how serious of a crisis it is. From this, I also hope that they will change at least a few minor things in their everyday lives to slow down climate change.

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Why is climate change even important or significant?

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Why is climate change even important or significant?

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Climate change is an extremely important thing because it has the potential to destroy environments, cause deaths, and worsen the economy. People's health would also decline due to the increase in heat, decrease in food, and varying weather.