What is Climate Change?

Summary

In the first video of the series, Aclymate CEO, Mike Smith, explains what climate change is and what is causing it.

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Transcript

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a friend of mine at the Missouri Green

0:01

Bank asked if I could explain some of

0:03

the basics of climate change and I

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actually got to thinking about it and

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thought it was a good idea not everyone

0:07

learns about this stuff in schools

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sometimes the people that teach it

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aren't as familiar with the subject as

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they should be and frankly uh we all

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have a a history of forgetting things

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our memories get Dusty so I thought why

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not so let's begin at the beginning what

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is climate change and what causes it uh

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climate change is sometimes known as

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global warming and that's because on

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average since the beginning of the

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Industrial Revolution uh the Earth has

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warmed about 1.1 degrees C about 2

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degrees fhe that may not really sound

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like a whole lot but it's actually the

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most our planet has warmed uh since the

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started human civilization 12,000 years

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ago and it's more importantly it's the

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fastest rate of change ever experienced

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by humans like going to the dawn of

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humanity before the ice ages hanging out

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in Africa and it's projected to get a

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lot lot warmer uh we're on track if

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nothing really changes to see about

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three and a half degrees Celsius or

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about 6 degrees fhe about three times as

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bad as it already

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is at the heart of it is something known

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as a carbon cycle you probably learned

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about this in school um and the carbon

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cycle is an ongoing trade between the

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atmosphere and land and the oceans of

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something known as carbon dioxide or CO2

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uh plants grow by absorbing carbon

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dioxide from the atmosphere um and then

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when they're consumed by animals like us

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uh we breath the CO2 back out um that

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ongoing trade causes the concentration

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of CO2 in the atmosphere to change

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throughout the year but in large part

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for all of human history it's been

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pretty

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stable but uh there's a big change

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humans figured out that if they found

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some of these buried plants that had

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died millions of years ago and burned

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them they could produce a lot of energy

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energy that we could put to useful uh

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purposes these buried plants have a

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different name that you may known by

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which is fossil fuels fuels like coal

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that we use to produce electricity or

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gasoline that helps us to get around the

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Earth in Planes Trains and

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Automobiles at the same time we've

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started burning all this stuff we've

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also been cutting down forests and

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plowing Fields um and so as a result

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we've reduced the ability uh of natural

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systems to absorb carbon dioxide the

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other side of the carbon cycle equation

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this has made the carbon cycle get way

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out of balance um and we are

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accumulating CO2 in the atmosphere at an

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unprecedented rate in my lifetime alone

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and I'm a little over 40 it's grown by

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more than

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23% this is a big problem it's like

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really big low-key like the biggest

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problem in all of human history uh

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because this additional CO2 is causing

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our planet to warm um the mechanism of

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it really wellknown uh essentially

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infrared light from the sun passes

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through our atmosphere and uh where

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there's more CO2 it gets absorbed this

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is known as the Greenhouse Effect and

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we've known about it since uh at least

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1896 when a Nobel prize winning

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scientist published a paper about it uh

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moreover it's an experiment you can

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duplicate at home this is not radical

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science it's very very well established

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13 years

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old so uh that greenhouse effect has

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other gases that are causing it not just

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CO2 um and collectively they're known as

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greenhouse gases which I'll talk about

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another time but the primary problem of

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our warming climate is essentially

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around carbon dioxide it's around the

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imbalance in the in the carbon cycle

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it's about the fact that we're burning

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too many fossil fuels and we are

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hampering the ability of nature to

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absorb carbon dioxide we're going to

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have to find new less polluting sources

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of energy and use them and we're going

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to have to preserve and restore the

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ability of nature to absorb carbon

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dioxide that can be kind of a dark

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climate future but the thing that's

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exciting to me is that while our climate

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uh may be changing for the worse right

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now there are many underlying stories

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around technology

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and energy that are changing for the

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better and we all have a part to play

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from the largest company down to the

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individual so if you're interested in

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being part of this I'd encourage you to

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like share or follow this video uh and

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help us get the message out thanks

English (auto-generated)

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