Project ClimateLearn Blog

By SinmilOluwa Okunade   “What’s the use of a fine house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?” —Henry David Thoreau The year is 2021, you have just come out of hiding and now have access to the internet. Amongst the many things the netizens are raving about, climate change seems to be a regular. You see ads mention eco-friendly , and save the planet campaigns are a thing. The colour green is being used to describe gases and energy, things that did not have colours before you went into hiding. Well, Welcome back! Let us start with the international headliner: Climate Change . This phenomenon that nearly everyone seems to be (rightly) agitating about is a long-term change in the average weather patterns that have come to define the Earth's local, regional, and global climates. Simply put, it is a change in the normal weather patterns of a place over a long period. Let’s say your hometown is Wasinmi, in Ogun State Nigeria, and the harmattan season usually starts...

1. Ov er the last 50 years, human activities – particularly the burning of fossil fuels – have released sufficient quantities of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to affect the global climate. The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased by more than 30% since pre-industrial times, trapping more heat in the lower atmosphere. The resulting changes in the global climate bring a range of risks to health, from deaths in extreme high temperatures to changing patterns of infectious diseases. 2. From the tropics to the arctic, climate and weather have powerful direct and indirect impacts on human life. Weather extremes – such as heavy rains, floods, and disasters endanger health as well as destroy property and livelihoods. Approximately 600 000 deaths occurred worldwide as a result of weather-related natural disasters in the 1990s, some 95% of which took place in developing countries.   3. Intense short-term fluctuations in temperature can also seriously affect h...