Climate Change
What is climate change?
Climate change is defined as the long term change in the Earth's temperatures and weather conditions. The world has been warming up at an increased rate over the past 100 years causing changes to our weather.
What are the causes of climate change?
Rising levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (such as methane) in the atmosphere enhance the ‘greenhouse effect’. More of the Sun’s energy is trapped, causing the Earth to warm. Heating of the ocean accounts for over 90% of the trapped energy. Scientists have known about the greenhouse effect since the 19th Century.
The more greenhouse gases there are in the atmosphere, the warmer the Earth becomes. While the plants and the oceans absorb about half of the carbon dioxide from human activities, the rest goes into the atmosphere. Recent warming is being driven by:
- burning fossil fuels for energy
- changes in land use and deforestation which reduces the numbers of trees available to absorb carbon dioxide
- agricultural production which releases greenhouse gasses from energy use, from the number of livestock and the amount of fertiliser applied to land
- manufacture of cement, chemicals and metals, which releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere
Natural influences on the climate, such as changes in the strength of the sun, or volcanic eruptions, can affect global temperature. But they have not contributed significantly to recent warming.
What is the impact of climate change?
The impact of climate change includes:
- warming ocean temperatures
- melting polar ice and glaciers
- rising sea levels
- more extreme weather events
How does this effect us?
Our climate system is finely balanced, and small changes can have significant consequences.
Some of the impacts from these changes to our climate system include:
- Risk to water supplies
- Conflict and climate migrants
- Localised flooding
- Flooding of coastal regions
- Damage to marine ecosystems
- Fisheries failing
- Loss of biodiversity
- Change in seasonality
- Heat stress
- Habitable region of pests expands
- Forest mortality and increased risk of fires
- Damage to infrastructure
- Food insecurity
What can we as a school do?
The Department of Education requires all schools to have a sustainability lead and to create a climate change and sustainability action plan to show how we can reduce the impact we are having on the climate and how we can educate our pupils so that they can reduce their impact on the climate. They have asked schools to focus on four key areas:
- Decarbonisation - how we can reduce the school's carbon emission - eg, turning off lights when not being used
- Adaptation and resilience - taking action to reduce the risk of flooding or overheating - eg, increasing natural drainage around the school or creating natural shaded areas for pupils to be out of the sun
- The Environment & Biodiversity - eg, creating wildlife areas around the school
- Climate Education & Green careers - ensuring that our curriculum provides pupils with knowledge of climate change - eg, geography lessons including knowledge on how we can reduce our carbon footprint by buying local foods rather than importing food that has to travel thousands of miles
Sustainability & Climate Change Action Plan
You can click on the document below to view Linden Primary School's Sustainability & Climate Change Action Plan. The action plan includes actions that the school already does and has committed to continuing to do to help reduce the impact of climate change and actions that the school will be implementing over the next three years.
Sustainability & Climate Change Action Plan