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Text III

Causes and Effects of Climate Change

Glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising, cloud forests are dying, and wildlife is scrambling to keep pace. lt has become clear that humans have caused most of the past century's warming by releasing heat-trapping gases as we power our modem tives. Called greenhouse gases, their leveis are higher now than at any time in the last 800,000 years. 

We often call the result global warming, but it is causing a set of changes to the Earth's climate, or long-term weather patterns, that varies from place to place. While many people think of global warming and climate change as synonyms, scientists use "climate change" when describing the complex shífts now affecting our planet's weather and climate systems - in part because some areas actually get cooler in the short term.

Climate change encampasses not only rising average temperatures but also extreme weather events, shifting wildlife populations and habitats, rising seas, and a range of other impacts. Ali of those changes are emerging as humans continue to add heat-trapping greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, changing the rhythms of climate that ali living things have come to rely on. 

What will we do - what can we do - to slow this humancaused warming? How will we cape with the changes we ___ into motion? While we struggle to figure it ali out, the fate of the Earth as we know it - coasts, forests, farms, and snow-capped mountains - hangs in the balance.

By Christina Nunez Adapted from

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/global-warming-overview