Climate Change Essay for Kids From Classes 3 to 6
This essay is for children from classes three to six on climate change and how to prevent it.
Climate change essay for kids will give you an idea of writing an essay on the topic “Climate Change.” It has been written as per the student’s understanding level from age groups 6 to 14 from classes 3 to 6.
This topic will help children to understand the gist of climate change. The students who are looking for a quality essay to write on climate change should read the full article.
We have covered all the critical points on climate change like causes, effects, and preventive measures. You all can take help from this article to improve your essay writing skills to score well in the examinations.
Table of Contents
Introduction to Climate Change Essay for kids
Climate change means significant and long-term changes in the climate of the Earth. The global climate is a system that is connected to different factors like the Sun, Earth, Oceans, winds, rains, snow, forests, deserts, living and non-living things, etc.
Any kind of change affects the overall climate system. Excessive emissions, burning of fossil fuels, greenhouse effects, deforestation, etc., have affected and are still affecting the environment badly.
As a result, the global climate is getting affected, which leads to rising global temperature, extreme weather events, a rise in sea level, and many other harmful effects.
What is Climate Change?
In general terms, a change in the average conditions such as temperature and precipitation in a particular region over a long period of time is termed as climate change. For example– almost 20,000 years before, most parts of the United States were covered in glaciers. Whereas, at present, the United States has a warmer climate and very few glaciers.
What Causes Climate Change?
Climate change is a big threat to the planet, especially in the long-term. Various causes trigger climate change. Some of these causes are natural, but the major portion of climate change is causing due to human activities.
School kids can write it in their essay and focus on the major reasons behind climate change that are as follows-
Emission of greenhouse gases
Greenhouse gases majorly include carbon dioxide. Methane and water vapor are also greenhouse gases. These gases stay in the atmosphere for a different period of time, ranging from a few days to many years.
Carbon dioxide stays for long in the atmosphere, from years to centuries, and contributes majorly to changing the planet’s climate. In comparison, methane stays in the atmosphere almost for nine years until it oxidizes to form CO2 and water to vanish from the atmosphere.
Water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas present in the atmosphere. It stays in the atmosphere for a shorter period of time, i.e., for a few days. These gases trap solar radiation in the atmosphere resulting in a warmer climate.
Changes in ocean currents
Ocean currents play an essential role in carrying heat around the globe. When the oceans absorb more heat from the atmosphere, the temperature of the sea surface also increases. As a result, the ocean circulation pattern that carries warm and cold water around the Earth gets affected.
As oceans store a large amount of heat, even small changes in ocean currents can have big changes in Earth’s climate.
In short, we can say that increase in the sea surface temperature can increase the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere over the oceans. It increases the greenhouse effect causing global climate change.
Causes for Increasing Emissions
Excessive use of fossil fuels
Fossil fuels are majorly responsible for causing climate change around the globe. Burning fossil fuels like coal, oil, gas, etc., produces carbon dioxide, which is the most important and harmful greenhouse gas.
The emission of CO2 in the atmosphere increases the greenhouse effect affecting the overall climate of the planet.
Deforestation
Deforestation plays a major role in climate change. Trees help to regulate the global climate by absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere.
Cutting down trees causes the release of carbon stored in the trees. As a result, the amount of carbon dioxide increases in the atmosphere affecting climate change.
Livestock farming
Increasing livestock farming also contributes to emissions. Cattle like cows and sheep etc., produce a huge amount of methane during their digestion process.
Methane is again a greenhouse gas that eventually becomes a reason for climate change.
Waste management
Waste management techniques such as landfills and incineration emit harmful gases in the atmosphere, including greenhouse gases like methane.
When these gases are released into the atmosphere causes climate change in the Earth’s atmosphere.
Volcanic eruptions
Volcanoes also influence Earth’s climate to change through the eruption of gases and particles in the atmosphere.
The emission of volcanic gases and particles may warm or cool the Earth’s climate that depends on the interaction of sunlight with the volcanic material.
Global warming
Global warming is one of the big reasons for global climate change. The leading climate change scientists in the world think that human activities are mainly responsible for global warming.
It has been observed that the past three decades are warmer than preceding decades since the records had been started in 1850.
Harmful Effects of Climate Change
Taken as a whole, “the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that “the span of published evidence indicates that the net damage costs of climate change are likely to be significant and to increase over a period of time”.
Kids can write these points in their essay to gain more marks in the exams. Some of the major long-term effects of climate change include:
Global temperature will keep on rising.
An increase in global temperature caused by human-induced activities is superimposed on the naturally varying climate across the world. Hence, it is quite tough to get uniformity in the global temperature rise across the globe.
Sea level will rise
The global sea levels are projected to rise to 1-8 feet by 2100. This will result in the melting of ice and increasing sea level.
Even after 2100, the sea level will keep on rising because the oceans take a very long time to respond to warmer conditions of Earth’s surface. Therefore, ocean waters will continue to warm, and sea levels willcontinue to rise for many centuries (maybe at higher rates or equal to the current century).
Hurricanes will become stronger
An increase in global temperature is directly related to climate change. As the climate continues to warm, the hurricane-associated storm will become more intense.
It is expected that hurricanes could become up to 11% more intense and 20% wetter by 2100. The strong intensity of hurricanes may become a big threat to humanity and the planet as well.
Frost-free and growing seasons will lengthen
The length of the frost-free and growing seasons has been affected by climate change since the last century (ending). As the ecosystems are getting affected due to climate change and eventually the agricultural activities are getting hampered.
Change in the patterns of precipitation
When talking about climate, how can we forget about precipitation? Climate change has also disturbed the precipitation patterns across the globe. Some areas experience greater precipitation as compared to the average amounts, whereas some other places experience lesser precipitation.
Increased droughts and heatwaves
The summer temperatures are projected to keep on rising every year. As a result, the soil loses its moisture continuously, which exacerbates heat waves; This is why many areas are experiencing drought-like conditions due to the reduction of soil moisture and invite heat waves to occur.
Wildfires could burn as much land by 2100
According to a report by the National Academy of Sciences, for each one degree Celsius of global warming, the area burned by western wildfires will increase by a factor of two to four.
Preventive Measures for Climate Change
Environment protection is our responsibility to preserve the mother Earth from terrible climatic changes for future generations. Some of the preventive measures that children can write in the essay and it can also be implemented to act against climate change:
- Make your commute green by utilizing eco-friendly options. For example– take public transport, ride your bike instead of a car, carpooling, etc., are great alternatives to cut out emissions.
- Become more energy-efficient to protect the world from greenhouse effects. For example– turn off electric devices when not in use, switch to LED bulbs, etc.
- “Recycling” is an eco-friendly and cost-effective approach to manage waste. In the recycling process, the waste items are processed in recycling centers to remake a recyclable material once again.
- Plastic is one of the big “curse” to our planet as it is harmful to biodiversity. “Say NO to Plastic” and protect life.
- “Stop deforestation” to prevent climate change—plant as many trees as you can to maintain proper balance in the atmosphere.
- Educate yourself and others about the cause, effects, and preventive measures of climate change. You can use any platform at your convenience, like social media, and share your knowledge with others about climate change.
- Encourage people about the use of renewable energies. Renewable energy is better than fossil fuels to protect our planet from the harmful effects of climate change.
- You can also join or support a youth-led movement to prevent the world from climate change.
- Consume less, generate less waste, and enjoy every step of your life with joy.
Conclusion of the Essay
Today, humans are facing the problem of climate change. Unfortunately, the ones who are causing these issues are humans only. Human-induced activities are majorly destroying the global climate affecting the biodiversity of the Earth.
However, it is very tough to stop climate change entirely. However, we can still minimize this problem by implementing preventive measures to protect the world.
We hope after writing this climate change essay, kids will get good knowledge and marks in the exam.