According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, the term climate change refers to “significant and long-lasting change in the earth's climate and weather patterns.” However, most of the time, when we talk about climate change, we mean global warming, more specifically the recent warming that has occurred due to human activity. Also, because of how quickly this warming is taking place, and how devastating its results will be if drastic action isn’t taken very soon, the term climate change is more and more replaced by the term “the climate crisis,” and (more rarely), the phrase global warming is replaced by global heating.

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In recent years, many scientists all across the globe have observed that the world is heating up due to human activity, specifically our collective habit of emitting carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This has been happening since countries in the Global North began to industrialize (around 1750), but since we only started reliably keeping track of temperatures around 1850, our most conclusive proof dates from then. Since then, the global average temperature has risen 1.4 degrees Celsius. This is because of the heat-trapping properties of carbon dioxide, methane, and other gases that are released by various processes, most notably through burning coal, oil, natural gas, and other products for transportation or electricity generation.

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However, this heating does not affect everyone equally. It’s important to note that the figures in degrees Celsius that come up a lot when reading about the climate crisis are averages, which means that the average temperature in some places could have risen more than what’s on the page. In addition, not everyone’s emissions are the same—not at all. The richest 1% of the world’s population (households earning over 1 million US dollars per year) emit as much carbon as the poorest 50% (households earning less than 2,920 US dollars per year). The effects of climate change are already being seen everywhere, but they are worst in the countries referred to as the “Global South”, which have a relatively low level of economic and industrial development. The Global South also tends to be more vulnerable to climate change, firstly because those countries are already warmer— if the average temperature in Norway increases by 2 degrees Celsius, the effects will actually be less harmful to humans, whereas if the average temperature in India increases by the same amount, the region will become less habitable. In addition, people in the Global South usually have fewer resources to cope with the effects of the climate crisis.

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There is still hope if we act right now; however, time is running out. The scientific community agrees that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels on average will prevent the worst effects of the climate crisis. However, within four years (as of 2025), there is a 50% chance that we will reach this threshold, with projections based on our current emission levels. In addition, the year 2024 actually exceeded 1.5 degrees of warming, marking the first of the “overshot years”—the years over 1.5 degrees before temperatures hopefully stabilize.

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One thing that we should be very thankful for is that we have largely moved on from debating whether or not climate change is happening. Only 35% of US adults believe that changes in the climate in the past century are not due to human activity. However, people tend to underestimate how many others believe in the climate crisis—studies have shown that all over the world, there is a huge perception gap between the number of people who actually “believe” in the climate crisis and the number that people give when asked to guess how many people “believe.”

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Unfortunately, there is a huge debate over what exactly should be done to help solve this problem. Not everyone takes kindly to governments restricting their freedoms for the best of reasons, as we all saw during the COVID pandemic; similarly, many people in the Global North do not like the idea of paying reparations to countries in the Global South for the inequities of the climate crisis, and some think that transitioning to clean energy at the pace we need should be avoided, since it will damage the fossil fuel industry.

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When we think about doing things to help save the Earth, we usually think about little things like changing out energy-inefficient light bulbs and carrying reusable bags. While these things do help, one of the worst truths about climate change is that, even if you turn off every single unused light bulb and abstain from using an electric heater, it will make very little difference in the broad scheme of things. Also, no matter how hard you may work to be eco-friendly, it’s impossible to live sustainably inside the unsustainable system that is the modern world. The system of modern capitalism, which values infinite economic growth above all else, is completely incompatible with our finite planet. At first this sounds hopeless, but really it isn’t—all we have to do is change the system. By imploring world leaders to implement sweeping changes across their countries and the world, we might be able to put our Earth on a better path. Packages of such sweeping changes go by various names; in the United States, one such package is referred to as the Green New Deal.

 

If you’ve looked at Greenguide’s content, you may now be wondering why we publish lots of lists of relatively small, achievable eco-tips. After all, did I not just say that these tiny actions make very little difference? This is true, but the reason why we publish them is in order to help people, including you, do everything they can to fight climate change, and to help them see that they can start wherever they are, right now.