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Climate change is affecting everyone everywhere. Extreme weather events are more frequent and intense, sea levels are rising and many species are being driven to extinction. The good news is, you are not alone! People, communities, cities, businesses, schools, faith groups and organizations are taking action to help fight climate change. What changes will you make? Here are the top 10 things you can do about climate change. Choose just one to start.

2. Use energy wisely - and save money

Canada is the top per-capita energy consumer in the world! By becoming more energy-efficient, you pollute less and save money.

Consider making some or all of these small changes. Together, they really add up.

A house with a furnace is like a car that idles all day. Reduce or eliminate fossil fuels from your home by swapping your furnace for a heat pump.

Replace your gas water heater with a heat pump water heater.

Install a programmable or smart thermostat.

Swap your gas stove for an induction stove, which will also lower indoor air pollution.

Replace your gas fireplace with an electric one.

Unplug computers, TVs and other electronics when you're not using them.

Wash clothes in cold water. Hang your clothes to dry when you can and use  wool dryer balls to shrink drying time when you can't

Look for the ENERGY STAR label when buying new appliances.

Repair improperly sealed doors and windows and upgrade your insulation. Winterize your home  to prevent heat from escaping. Try to keep it cool in the summer  without an air conditioner.

Change to ENERGY STAR-certified LED light bulbs.

Get a home or workplace energy audit to identify where you can save the most.

Get tips and resources to live sustainably

6. Invest in renewables and divest from fossil fuels

Even if you can't install solar panels or a wind turbine, you can still be a part of the clean-energy economy. Search online for local renewable energy co-ops to join. As a member, you'll own part of the co-op's renewable energy projects and receive a return on your investment. You can also speak to your financial adviser about clean energy and/or technology investments.

Let industry know you care about climate change by meeting with your bank or investment adviser to make sure your investments do not include fossil fuels. And make sure your workplace, pension fund, university or bank doesn't invest in fossil fuels. If they do, join or start a divestment campaign.

Learn more about why it's important to divest from damage and invest in a healthier future.

9. Mobilize for local climate action

"What our cities do individually and in unison to address climate change can set the agenda for communities and governments everywhere." C40 Cities

In Canada, municipalities have influence over about 50 per cent of our emissions. And with about 80 per cent of people living in Canada living in cities, it's important - even crucial - that we focus on their potential to help stop climate change.

Citizens like you, willing to work with progressive local government leaders, stand to make a huge difference. Your role as a citizen with your local government is powerful.

We have created a comprehensive online resource to help you work with your local government on climate action.
Explore the guide

10. Get politically active and vote

It's important to take action to reduce individual carbon footprints, but changing the larger system is the greatest opportunity to reduce emissions.

Vote for leaders at all levels of government who take climate change seriously. They should commit to set science-based targets to reduce harmful carbon emissions, implement clear plans to reach those targets, adapt to climate change and shift to a clean-energy economy.

Your vote matters. Make sure you are registered to vote and then get informed for all elections - not just the ones that get the most media attention. Candidates' positions on climate change vary widely, so research the parties, ask questions about climate change at town halls or debates and let all candidates know you are voting for the climate.

If you're too young to vote, encourage your class or school to join a Student Vote program, which provides opportunities to experience participation in the election process. Talk to people in your life who are eligible to vote about the importance of voting for climate action.

The first step is registering to vote.

Join us on social!

Learn more about climate change and discover ways to take action

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Top 10 things you can do about climate change

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People, communities, cities, businesses, schools and other organizations are taking action to help fight climate change.

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Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

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Our Trajectory

Earth Will Continue to Warm and the Effects Will Be Profound

The potential future effects of global climate change include more frequent wildfires, longer periods of drought in some regions, and an increase in the wind intensity and rainfall from tropical cyclones. Credit: left - Mike McMillan/USFS, center - Tomas Castelazo / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0, right - NASA.

Global climate change is not a future problem. Changes to Earth's climate driven by increased human emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases are already having widespread effects on the environment: glaciers and ice sheets are shrinking, river and lake ice is breaking up earlier, plant and animal geographic ranges are shifting, and plants and trees are blooming sooner.

Effects that scientists had long predicted would result from global climate change are now occurring, such as sea ice loss, accelerated sea level rise, and longer, more intense heat waves.

" The magnitude and rate of climate change and associated risks depend strongly on near-term mitigation and adaptation actions, and projected adverse impacts and related losses and damages escalate with every increment of global warming."

- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Some changes (such as droughts, wildfires, and extreme rainfall) are happening faster than scientists previously assessed. In fact, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - the United Nations body established to assess the science related to climate change - modern humans have never before seen the observed changes in our global climate, and some of these changes are irreversible over the next hundreds to thousands of years.

Scientists have high confidence that global temperatures will continue to rise for many decades, mainly due to greenhouse gases produced by human activities.

A Degree of Difference

So, the Earth's average temperature has increased about 2 degrees Fahrenheit during the 20th century. What's the big deal?

Read more

The IPCC's Sixth Assessment report, published in 2021, found that human emissions of heat-trapping gases have already warmed the climate by nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 degrees Celsius) since 1850-1900. The global average temperature is expected to reach or exceed 1.5 degrees C (about 3 degrees F) within the next few decades. These changes will affect all regions of Earth.

What's the difference between climate change and global warming?

"Global warming" refers to the long-term warming of the planet. "Climate change" encompasses global warming, but refers to the broader range of changes that are happening to our planet, including rising sea levels; shrinking mountain glaciers; accelerating ice melt in Greenland, Antarctica and the Arctic; and shifts in flower/plant blooming times.

detailed answer

The severity of effects caused by climate change will depend on the path of future human activities. More greenhouse gas emissions will lead to more climate extremes and widespread damaging effects across our planet. However, those future effects depend on the total amount of carbon dioxide we emit. So, if we can reduce emissions, we may avoid some of the worst effects.

" The scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human wellbeing and the health of the planet. Any further delay in concerted global action will miss the brief, rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future." ²

- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Future Effects in the U.S.

U.S. Regional Effects

U.S. Regional Effects

Climate change is bringing different types of challenges to each region of the country. Some of the current and future impacts are summarized below. These findings are from the Third and Fourth National Climate Assessment Reports, released by the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

Is it too late to prevent climate change?

Humans have caused major climate changes to happen already, and we have set in motion more changes still. However, if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, the rise in global temperatures would begin to flatten within a few years. Temperatures would then plateau but remain well-elevated for many, many centuries.

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Northeast. Heat waves, heavy downpours, and sea level rise pose increasing challenges to many aspects of life in the Northeast. Infrastructure, agriculture, fisheries, and ecosystems will be increasingly compromised. Farmers can explore new crop options, but these adaptations are not cost- or risk-free. Moreover, adaptive capacity, which varies throughout the region, could be overwhelmed by a changing climate. Many states and cities are beginning to incorporate climate change into their planning.

Northwest. Changes in the timing of peak flows in rivers and streams are reducing water supplies and worsening competing demands for water. Sea level rise, erosion, flooding, risks to infrastructure, and increasing ocean acidity pose major threats. Increasing wildfire incidence and severity, heat waves, insect outbreaks, and tree diseases are causing widespread forest die-off.

Southeast. Sea level rise poses widespread and continuing threats to the region's economy and environment. Extreme heat will affect health, energy, agriculture, and more. Decreased water availability will have economic and environmental impacts.

Midwest. Extreme heat, heavy downpours, and flooding will affect infrastructure, health, agriculture, forestry, transportation, air and water quality, and more. Climate change will also worsen a range of risks to the Great Lakes.

Southwest. Climate change has caused increased heat, drought, and insect outbreaks. In turn, these changes have made wildfires more numerous and severe. The warming climate has also caused a decline in water supplies, reduced agricultural yields, and triggered heat-related health impacts in cities. In coastal areas, flooding and erosion are additional concerns.

References
References
Header image shows cracked mud stretches across sections of the Panamint Valley. Credit: NPS/Kurt Moses; A degree of concern thermometer image credit: Pixabay/geralt

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intergovernmental panel on climate change

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Vital Signs of the Planet: Global Climate Change and Global Warming. Long-term effects of global climate change in the United States.

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video

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Kim Knowlton, senior scientist and deputy director of NRDC's Science Center:
People probably know that scientists have been studying climate change for years and looking at how a changing climate affects global temperatures and sea-level rise, and that's important, but I think that most people don't know that there's hundreds of studies now connecting the dots between climate change and human health, and that's a big concern.

Climate change is fueling more frequent-and more intense-and longer‑lasting heat waves, and that heat is not just an inconvenience to people. It kills people.

Some of the people who are most vulnerable to that extreme heat include children and older adults and households that are economically disadvantaged, and that's not just a few people. That amounts to many millions of people in the U.S.

Another concern is air pollution. The warmer temperatures are, the higher the concentration of some really important air pollutants.

Breathing ground-level ozone smog can irritate your eyes and your throat, and really damage your lungs and airways

There are other kinds of air pollutants that are also affected by climate change. Take the kind of pollens that can make allergy symptoms much, much worse, or even trigger an asthma attack. The longer our warm weather seasons, the more pollen is produced in the air. So it's like a double whammy for health: ozone smog and pollen.

There's another way, a third way, that climate change is affecting people's health, and that's insects and the illnesses that they can carry, like dengue fever, like West Nile virus, like Zika virus, that are carried by mosquitoes, and Lyme disease that's carried by certain kinds of ticks.

The thing is, people don't think often about how much those illnesses by climate change cost, and not just in human suffering and pain and illness, but in dollars and cents. It's big dollars.

NRDC looked at just six of those kind of events that have occurred very recently-a wildfire episode, a hurricane season, a flooding episode, a West Nile Virus outbreak, an air pollution episode, a heat wave-and found that it cost over $14 billion just to people's health.

Those are costs that we don't think about, and we need to.

I guess my hope as a scientist who studies climate change and health is not that people will get super bummed out listening to all of these effects, but that they'll be energized and demand preparedness and demand cleaner energy and demand building healthier and more secure communities for their children's future.

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Kim Knowlton , senior scientist and deputy director of NRDC's Science Center: People probably know that scientists have been studying climate change for years and looking at how a changing climate affects global temperatures and sea-level rise, and that's important, but I think that most people don't know that there's hundreds of studies now connecting the dots between climate change and human health, and that's a big concern.

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Burning fossil fuels, cutting down forests and farming livestock are increasingly influencing the climate and the earth's temperature.

This adds enormous amounts of greenhouse gases to those naturally occurring in the atmosphere, increasing the greenhouse effect and global warming.

Global warming

2011-2020 was the warmest decade recorded, with global average temperature reaching 1.1°C above pre-industrial levels in 2019. Human-induced global warming is presently increasing at a rate of 0.2°C per decade.

An increase of 2°C compared to the temperature in pre-industrial times is associated with serious negative impacts on to the natural environment and human health and wellbeing, including a much higher risk that dangerous and possibly catastrophic changes in the global environment will occur.

For this reason, the international community has recognised the need to keep warming well below 2°C and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C.

Greenhouse gases

The main driver of climate change is the greenhouse effect. Some gases in the Earth's atmosphere act a bit like the glass in a greenhouse, trapping the sun's heat and stopping it from leaking back into space and causing global warming.

Many of these greenhouse gases occur naturally, but human activities are increasing the concentrations of some of them in the atmosphere, in particular:

carbon dioxide (CO₂)

methane

nitrous oxide

fluorinated gases

CO ₂ produced by human activities is the largest contributor to global warming. By 2020, its concentration in the atmosphere had risen to 48% above its pre-industrial level (before 1750).

Other greenhouse gases are emitted by human activities in smaller quantities. Methane is a more powerful greenhouse gas than CO ₂, but has a shorter atmospheric lifetime. Nitrous oxide, like CO ₂, is a long-lived greenhouse gas that accumulates in the atmosphere over decades to centuries. Non-greenhouse gas pollutants, including aerosols like soot, have different warming and cooling effects and are also associated with other issues such as poor air quality.

Natural causes, such as changes in solar radiation or volcanic activity are estimated to have contributed less than plus or minus 0.1°C to total warming between 1890 and 2010.

Causes for rising emissions

Burning coal, oil and gas produces carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide.

Cutting down forests (deforestation). Trees help to regulate the climate by absorbing CO₂ from the atmosphere. When they are cut down, that beneficial effect is lost and the carbon stored in the trees is released into the atmosphere, adding to the greenhouse effect.

Increasing livestock farming. Cows and sheep produce large amounts of methane when they digest their food.

Fertilisers containing nitrogen produce nitrous oxide emissions.

Fluorinated gases are emitted from equipment and products that use these gases. Such emissions have a very strong warming effect, up to 23 000 times greater than CO₂.

Countering climate change

Asevery tonne of CO ₂ emitted contributes to global warming, all emissions reductions contribute to slowing it down. In order to stop global warming completely, CO ₂ emissions have to reach net zero worldwide. In addition, reducing emissions of other greenhouse gases, such as methane, can also have a powerful effect on slowing global warming - especially in the short term.

The consequences of climate change are extremely serious, and affect many aspects of our lives. Both countering climate change and adapting to a warming world are top priorities for the EU.We need climate action now. Find out about what the EU is doing to fight the climate crisis.

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Burning fossil fuels, cutting down forests and farming livestock are increasingly influencing the climate and the earth's temperature.

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Most Americans recognize climate change, but some are still unsure about its causes.

Tens of thousands of scientists in more than a hundred nations have amassed an overwhelming amount of evidence pointing to a clear conclusion: Humans are the main cause of climate change.

We're the ones who burn fossil fuels, produce livestock and clear trees, increasing the amount of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere.

It's like the smoking-cancer link

No one questions the link between smoking and cancer, because the science was settled in the 1960s after more than 50 years of research.

We can think of the state of human activities and climate change as no different than smoking and cancer.

In fact, we are as confident that humans cause climate change as we are that smoking causes cancer.

Scientists have no doubt that humans are causing global warming.

So what's the evidence?

The research falls into nine independently studied, but physically related, lines of evidence:

1. Simple chemistry - When we burn carbon-based materials, carbon dioxide (CO2) is emitted (research beginning in the 1900s).

2. Basic accounting of what we burn, and therefore how much CO2 we emit (data collection beginning in the 1970s).

3. Measuring CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and trapped in ice to find they are increasing, with levels higher than anything we've seen in nearly a million years (measurements beginning in the 1950s).

4. Chemical analysis of the atmospheric CO2 that reveals the increase is coming from burning fossil fuels (research beginning in the 1950s).

5. Basic physics that shows us that CO2 absorbs heat (research beginning in the 1820s).

6. Monitoring climate conditions to find that the air, sea and land is warming, as we would expect with rising greenhouse gas emissions; as a response, ice is melting and sea level is rising (research beginning in the 1930s).

7. Ruling out natural factors that can influence climate like the sun and ocean cycles (research beginning in the 1830s).

8. Employing computer models to run experiments of natural versus human-influenced simulations of Earth (research beginning in the 1960s).

9. Consensus among scientists who consider all previous lines of evidence and make their own conclusions (polling beginning in the 1990s).

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9 ways we know humans caused climate change

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Scientists have amassed an overwhelming amount of evidence that humans are the main cause of climate change. Here are 9 ways the evidence stacks up.

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Can I help nature to help us?

Yes! We can all take notice of our environment. We can learn how our planet works. We can learn how to live on it without making a mess of it. We can help to keep it magnificent for ourselves, our children and grandchildren, and other living things besides us.

Some of the ways you can help may have to wait until you are a little older-like choosing an energy-efficient car, installing solar panels on the roof of your house, or choosing a "green career."

But there are many important ways you can help right now.

You can help by growing your own vegetables and fruits. You can help by planting a tree. Your new plants and trees will help to remove the greenhouse gas CO ₂ from the air. If you grow some of your own food, you will also help to prevent more CO ₂ from entering the air from the fossil-fuel-burning trucks, planes, and ships that transport your food to you from far away.

How can I reduce my "carbon footprint"?

Your carbon footprint is the amount of carbon dioxide released into the air because of your own energy needs. You need transportation, electricity, food, clothing, and other goods. Your choices can make a difference.

Swap old incandescent light bulbs for the new compact fluorescent lights (CFLs). They use only 25% as much electricity to give the same light. They last ten times longer.

Turn off lights, TVs, computers, when you do not need them.

Unplug! Any electronic gadget you can turn on with a remote (TV, DVD player, Nintendo, Xbox) uses power even when it is "off." Appliances with a digital clock (like a coffee maker) or a power adapter (like a laptop computer) also suck power like a sneaky vampire. Plug these kinds of things into a surge protector or power strip that has an on/off switch. Then you can shut off all the power without unplugging each gadget.

There are even power strips that glow to show you how much power is going through them, and power strips you can control from your computer or iPhone.

Turn up the thermostat on the air conditioning when it's hot. Use fans if you're still hot. They use much less power.

Turn down the thermostat on the heating when it's cold. Sweaters, blankets, and socks are good for you and better for the planet.

Walk or ride your bike instead of taking a car everywhere. Even a 2-mile car trip puts 2 pounds of CO ₂ into the atmosphere!

If you must ride, carpool.

Stay out of the drive thru! When you go to a fast-food place, ask your driver to park the car and let you walk inside, rather than sitting in a line of cars with the engine running and polluting.

How can I reduce my trash pile?

Ask your parents to buy reusable grocery bags. Help them to remember to get them out of the car and take them into the store.

Recycle everything you can. If your city does not pick up recycled materials, find out who you can talk to about starting this service. You should be recycling paper, aluminum cans, cardboard, food cans, plastic, glass, newspapers, magazines, junk mail, phone books, and anything else made of paper.

Shop thrift stores. "BYOM." Bring your own mug. That's what you can tell your parents when they stop to buy their morning coffee. Use less paper whenever possible. Save the trees.

Drink tap water-filtered, if you like-instead of bottled water. Carry your drinking water in a reusable bottle. Plastic water bottles are an environmental disaster!

Use fewer containers. Buy the product that uses less packaging material. Even if you recycle packaging materials, it takes energy to create them in the first place and energy to remake them into something else.

Practice by playing "Recycle This!."

Do I need to save water too?

People and animals in many parts of the world do not have clean, safe water to drink. As many more regions are hit by drought, this problem will become even more serious. The sooner we start conserving water, the better off we all will be. Be aware of how much water you use.

Imagine you live in a recreational vehicle (RV), and your water tank holds only 50 gallons. Every time you turn on the water, the noisy electric water pump has to turn on too, sucking up your RV's battery power. Would you keep the water running while you brush your teeth? Would you spend 15 minutes in the shower using up all the water in the tank and depleting the battery? Would you plant a thirsty lawn in front of your RV if you were parked in the desert? Of course not!

How can I make a real difference?

You can choose a "green career." You can help to solve climate change problems and challenges. These are the exciting careers of the future. They range from designing satellites for NASA to fixing wind-energy generators to planning drought-tolerant landscapes for homes and parks. Many of the possible careers haven't even been thought of yet. You could invent your own career! Check out some Green Careers.

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We can do a lot, including planning for a green career.